Subject: Re: Future subjunctive

From: [email-masked] (Carlton Winbery)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:30:51 +0400

Maurice Robinson wrote;
>The continued use and perpetuation of the Byzantine text remained centered
>in Greece and Asia Minor throughout the entire period of Greek MS
>transmission.  Those favoring a Byzantine-priority hypothesis (which is
>not precisely the same as a majority text position) clearly would
>recognize the precise facts of history along with their impact, exactly as
>they occurred.

But this was a standardized regulated text and not a free flowing text
where later scribes were free to correct and edit according to known mss
but followed an ecclesiastical text.  In the later part of the period it
was virtually limited to the old Kingdom of Nicaea in a very limited area.

>Byzantine Greek MSS were brought into the West after the sack of
>Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.  However, the Western Churches
>and monastaries had little use for the MSS written in a Greek they could
>not read.  That the Textus Receptus happened to be created initially by
>Erasmus from the (primarily) Byzantine MSS he was able to obtain in
>Western monasteries in and around Basel does not imply that the Byzantine
>Textform in any way ever influenced the Latin Church tradition in Western
>Europe.  Even the Complutensian Polyglot continually had to place &&&&&&
>in its Latin text where the basically Byzantine Greek text of that edition
>had a longer reading.  But there was no cross-influence from the Byzantine
>Textform which affected Western Europe until long AFTER the Reformation
>took hold.

The editions of Erasmus plus those of Beza and Stephanus did bring the
Greek closer to the Vulgate, note the Comma Iohannum.  MacGregor and
Bratton have also talked of influences earlier than that.  In the period
right before the reformation, there is some evidence that the Latin
affected some Byzantine mss, eg. the 12th century mss where I John 5:7-8 is
translated out of Latin into the margin in Greek with no articles.  There
is strong evidence of influence from Latin to Greek if not from Greek to
Latin.

Carlton L. Winbery
Prof. Religion
LA College, Pineville, La
[email-masked]

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 23:32:28 -0500 (EST)

> >transmission.  

> but followed an ecclesiastical text.  

The problem in such a supposition (basically Aland's "Byzantine Imperial 
Text" or Westcott-Hort's "Syrian Recension" hypothesis) is that there is 
absolutely NO record of any enforced or voluntary effort to "standardize" 
the Byzantine Textform; and indeed, the multifarious variations and 
sub-groups within the K-text (e.g. K1, Kr, Kc,b Ka Kpi, etc.) point in a 
direction favoring little or no control or standardization.  Basically, 
the Byzantine Text merely "continued" in the various lines of 
transmission through which it was perpetuated, with no serious effort 
toward standardization.

The Byzantine-era scribes certainly were more precise in their copying 
than had been the more primitive scribes and monks during the period of 
the "uncontrolled popular text" in the era before AD 200 and even before 
the legitimization of Christianity under Constantine.  The one benefit 
the Empire provided after Constantine was an unhurried freedom to simply 
perpetuate and multiply the manuscript copies.

> In the later part of the period it

In the later part of which period?  The 12th-15th centuries, or something 
earlier.  Basically, so long as Greek was spoken and understood as a 
liturgical language within Greek monasteries (whether in Italy, Greece, 
Asia Minor, or Palestine), the basic Byzantine Textform would continue to 
be perpetuated by the scribes in a manner which remained fairly 
even-handed for over a thousand years.

> Greek closer to the Vulgate, note the Comma Iohannum.  

Oh, absolutely.  Erasmus especially added in a number of readings which 
lacked Greek MS support from the Vulgate.  But this has no bearing on 
your initial claim, which was arguing that the influence of the Byzantine 
text went the other direction, and affected Western Biblical 
Christianity.  But, as you note, on the contrary, it was Latin Biblical 
Christianity which affected (corrupted) the Byzantine Greek itself in the 
TR editions.

> MacGregor and

Again, exactly to my point on this matter.  Evidence that the Greek MSS 
or text affected Latin MSS in the West after the emergence of the printed 
Greek text so far as I know is utterly lacking.  The most evidence I 
think can be alleged is some cross-pollination among bilingual 
Greco-Latin codices, such as Bezae.