From majordom Fri Jan 5 00:24:39 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23501; Fri, 5 Jan 1996 00:24:39 +0500 Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 00:24:31 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: TC List Subject: TC home page Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 535 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk If you haven't looked lately, I wanted to remind you to visit the TC home page, where TC articles will appear, and where much more information about TC already exists. In particular, I would appreciate comments on the instructions for contributors, the transliteration schemes, the abbreviations, and the author copyright statement. The URL for the TC home page is given below. Thank you. Jimmy Adair General Editor of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism ------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/TC.html <----- From majordom Fri Jan 12 02:12:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA14880; Fri, 12 Jan 1996 02:12:11 +0500 Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 02:12:05 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: TC List Subject: TC Bibliography Project Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1088 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk I would like to invite all interested subscribers to the list to participate in the TC Bibliography Project. The goal of the project is simple: to create a comprehensive, annotated bibliography of biblical textual criticism. This bibliography will be accessible on the Web from the TC home page (see below for URL). The URL of the bibliography page is http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/TC-biblio.html. The first stage of the project is the creation of a suitable outline in which to put the bibliographical data. I have put a preliminary outline on the TC bibliography page mentioned above, and I would appreciate comments on the highest order categories (those that are numbered on the page). We will address subcategories later. Insertion of the actual data, including annotations for at least some of the entries, will be the last step (although some movement of subcategories and addition of new subcategories is probable, too). Jimmy Adair General Editor of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism ------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/TC.html <----- From majordom Mon Jan 29 11:13:50 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17021; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:13:50 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:13:40 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: TC List Subject: no messages from tc-list? Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 663 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu I have gotten several messages over the past few days from people wondering why they are not receiving any messages from the tc-list. The answer is simple: no one has been contributing to the list! As of this morning we have 166 subscribers to the list. Surely someone has one or more topics he or she would like to discuss on the subject of textual criticism. Let me encourage anyone who is interested to start a thread of discussion, or two! Jimmy Adair Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press and Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site ---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <----------------- From majordom Mon Jan 29 12:51:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17409; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:51:48 +0500 Message-Id: <9601291749.AA29704@osf1.gmu.edu> Subject: Synoptic Harmonization To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:49:07 -0500 (EST) From: "Stephen C Carlson" In-Reply-To: from "James R. Adair" at Jan 29, 96 11:13:40 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1486 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu James R. Adair wrote: > Let me encourage anyone who is interested to start a thread >of discussion, or two! OK, here are some questions that have been bothering me for quite a while. I'll ask a general and a specific question. To what extent does the textual critic take into account the possibility that the reading in one of the synoptic gospels may have been harmonized to another? Which of the synoptics is more prone to harmonization than the others? Specifically, I have a question about Mt19:20 -- EFULACA {A} 01* B L Theta f1 579 900 it.aur,ff1,g1,l vg Jermoe etc. EFULACA EK NEOTHTOS (see Lk18:21) (01.d NEOTHTOS MOU) D it.d EFULACAMHN EK NEOTHTOS MOU (see Mk10:20) C W Delta f13 28 33 etc. Byz Although the EFULACAMHN ... reading is attributed to harmonization to Mark in my UBS4 apparatus and is not found in the best manuscripts, what about the fact the middle voice presents a more difficult reading (it seems to be a Semiticism/LXXism; good literary Greek calls for the active voice)? Finally, vv16, 17, 20 in many MSS (esp. Byzantines) show a harmonization to Mark (and Luke). Is this typical? I would thing that, given the importance of Matthew, that the harmonization would go the other direction. Stephen Carlson -- Stephen C. Carlson, George Mason University School of Law, Patent Track, 4LE scarlso1@osf1.gmu.edu : Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs http://osf1.gmu.edu/~scarlso1/ : chant the words. -- Shujing 2.35 From majordom Mon Jan 29 12:57:57 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17445; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:57:57 +0500 From: "MR. DAVE FOUTS" Organization: Bryan College Dayton, TN 37321 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:38:39 EST Subject: Isaiah 7:11 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <2AFBFC15F2@bryannet.bryan.edu> X-Maildaemon: Content-Length: 600 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Dear Colleagues, I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament. Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18431; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 17:23:57 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 17:21:21 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Synoptic Harmonization In-Reply-To: <9601291749.AA29704@osf1.gmu.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 3068 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Stephen C Carlson wrote: > Which of the synoptics is more prone to harmonization than > the others? There is no question that Matthew, being the most popular gospel in teh early church, was the target for harmonization. However, the matter of harmonization is somewhat overblown, since a study of individual MSS' copying habits (using singular readings as a guide) will evidence that harmonization did not occur on a scale as wide as usually argued by eclectic critics. Neither is harmonization specifically a characteristic of the MSS comprising the Byzantine Textform more than the MSS of other texttypes. Wisselink's book on "Assimilation" makes some very good points in this regard. > Specifically, I have a question about Mt19:20 -- > > EFULACA > {A} 01* B L Theta f1 579 900 it.aur,ff1,g1,l vg Jermoe etc. > EFULACA EK NEOTHTOS (see Lk18:21) > (01.d NEOTHTOS MOU) D it.d > EFULACAMHN EK NEOTHTOS MOU (see Mk10:20) > C W Delta f13 28 33 etc. Byz > > Although the EFULACAMHN ... reading is attributed to harmonization to > Mark in my UBS4 apparatus and is not found in the best manuscripts, Both of those claims are subjective judgments. I would question both of them from my own text-critical perspective. > what about the fact the middle voice presents a more difficult reading > (it seems to be a Semiticism/LXXism; good literary Greek calls for the > active voice)? The middle voice is "more difficult" more because it differs from the other readings. Since Mark does have the middle voice without significant variation, I would not make a specific judgement on it being more difficult in context, even in Matthew. I would suggest that the reading of Aleph B L Theta etc. is more likely to reflect an accidental line omission of 16 letter (following the Byzantine Text) than to have been the original reading, specifically due to the extremely limited and not even texttype-specific support that reading possesses. The reading of D, being basically unique to itself, is not unusal in this case, being a typical sloppy omission of various characters from the Byzantine reading. > Finally, vv16, 17, 20 in many MSS (esp. Byzantines) > show a harmonization to Mark (and Luke). Is this typical? I would > thing that, given the importance of Matthew, that the harmonization > would go the other direction. The question is primarily whether those other MSS which harmonize are in a significant numerical quantity, or whether they are merely isolated cases which happen to go that direction. In almost all cases, harmonization among individual MSS is observed to head for Matthew. ========================================================================= Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ========================================================================= From majordom Mon Jan 29 18:19:51 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18561; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 18:19:51 +0500 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Mark O'Brien From: winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net (Carlton Winbery) Subject: Re: Future subjunctive Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu, tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 18:17:48 -0600 Content-Length: 1201 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Mark O'Brien wrote; >I was recently reading some comments regarding the existence of the future >subjunctive in one of the readings for 1Co 13:12, and I was thinking of doing a >little digging in this area. Can anybody supply me some brief background info >on the history of the future subjunctive in Greek? Thanks for your input. (I >apologize if this has been dealt with in previous discussion.) > Mark later corrected the reference to I Cor. 13:3. Carl Conrad and Ed Hobbs have both given good correctives to the idea of the existence of a future subjunctive. I would like to comment on the textual problem at I Cor 12:3. I am persuaded that the original is KAUXHSWMAI supported by P46, aleph, A B and others. Some scribe (perhaps in a scriptorum) heard that word and wrote KAUQHSWMAI (Psi, and a many others). Another scribe saw that reading and changed it to KAUQHSOMAI (C D F G L the whole latin tradition and some others). The aorist deponent subjunctive with hINA makes good sense here, "in order that I might boast." Carlton Winbery Chair Religion/Philosophy LA College, Pineville,La winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net winbery@andria.lacollege.edu fax (318) 442-4996 or (318) 487-7425 From majordom Mon Jan 29 19:58:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18717; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 19:58:42 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 16:56:02 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Deardorff To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 In-Reply-To: <2AFBFC15F2@bryannet.bryan.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1270 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, MR. DAVE FOUTS wrote: > I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament. > Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another > individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great > Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m I know of no other manuscript with this reading, and think that > though the Isaiah scroll's reading of from the mother of or from the > father of (YHWH) is far more difficult, the context nowhere in the > passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH. > Any input? Were you referring to Is 7:14 here, Dave, rather than 7:11? (Since I don't read Hebrew I need to ask, also since my RSV Bible gives no hint that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.) But perhaps you or another on the list can fill in some background for me on the entire passage. Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on? The RSV English makes it seem as if it is Ahaz still speaking at this point, because 7:13 starts out "And he said," and if it had been Isaiah himself speaking, it should have read, "And I said..." Yet I feel it must have been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there! Jim Deardorff Oregon State University From majordom Mon Jan 29 20:39:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18830; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 20:39:15 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 17:36:36 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Deardorff To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: A Marcan editing formula? In-Reply-To: <9601291749.AA29704@osf1.gmu.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 4156 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Also in response to James Adair's request, here's a topic initiated by a scholar of the 1920s, H. G. Jameson, who's argument pointing out an apparent Marcan editing formula has not been refuted or even discussed since in the literature, as far as I know. This is in his book, "The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels" (1922). Upon allowing that the writer of Mark could have copied from Matthew, while having various reasons for abbreviating Matthew and making minor alterations, Jameson found the following "editing formula." One finds some 9 spots in Mark where its writer, without any apparent cause, breaks in upon the speech he found in Matthew and inserted the clause, "And he said to them." The writer of Mark did this in the inserted verse of Mk 2:27 while he had apparently been following along Mt 12:1-5 but then omitted Mt 12:6-7. There was no need for his text to have been written with this interruption, which is unlike the same clause just preceding in Mk 2:25 where the text changes from one speaker (Pharisees) to another (Jesus) and the clause could be appropriate. He did it again in the inserted verses of Mk 4:13-14 when he had been following along Mt 13:1-13 (the inserted Markan verses imply that the Jewish disciples were extra uncomprehending). (Note: external evidence suggests that the writer of Mark was in Rome, and hence writing his gospel for gentiles.) Again there was no need for a continuing speech of Jesus (Mt 13:11-23) to be interrupted by the narrator saying "And he said to them." He did it again in Mk 4:21 where its parallel verse, Mt 5:15, was borrowed and placed in the wrong order. And again in Mk 4:24, which borrows Mt 7:2 and places it out of order. And he did it again in Mk 7:9 just after he had inserted verse Mk 7:8. And again in Mk 7:20 just after where he had inserted the (parenthetical) explanation of Mk 7:19b, not in Matthew. Again Mk 6:10 has the clause just following where Mt 10:10 was edited into the Markan version of the Mission instructions. (Here the editing left behind the inane instruction of "stay there until you leave...") Again there was no need to say concerning Jesus: "And he said to them," since he had already been talking to them and continues to talk to them. Again Mk 9:1 has the clause just following Mk 8:38, which is an edited or distant parallel to Mt 16:27b. Again Mk 4:9 has a needless: "And he said" just after the verse where Matthew's order of 100-60-30 is reversed. (Notice that Mark's order seems to make the most sense -- an improvement.) So it seemed evident to Jamson that this clause is an "editing formula" used by the writer of Mark to try to hide any discontinuity of thought caused by his editing. The writer of Mark then appears to have been not particularly skillful or comfortable with editing of this nature. This doesn't seem to be an easily reversible argument. For if the writer of Matthew had been copying from Mark and eliminating these superfluous clauses: "And he said to them," while adding much else, he would not seem to have had reasonable motivation to have chosen those very spots to also make alterations in Mark's text. I'm most interested, of course, in comments on this from others who may see much merit in the older position of Matthean priority over Mark, and who recognize the argumentation in support of Mark-Q priority to be the more easily reversible. My own research indicates that the switch-over from Matthean to Markan priority developed in the 19th century due to mounting pressures to avoid the embarrassing implications of the writer of Mark having omitted so much of value from Matthew, plus several other embarrassing considerations. Although Jameson himself appears to have been theologically committed to the extent of assuming that the Gospel writers were the same as the men whose names are attached to the Gospels, and perhaps also towards preserving the traditional order of Gospels stemming from Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, these did not explicitly enter into his argumentation for the preceding Marcan editing formula. Jim Deardorff Oregon State University From majordom Mon Jan 29 21:47:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18944; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:47:11 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:44:35 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 5572 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Carlton Winbery wrote: > I would like to comment on the textual problem at I > Cor 12:3. I am persuaded that the original is KAUXHSWMAI supported by P46, > aleph, A B and others. Some scribe (perhaps in a scriptorum) heard that > word and wrote KAUQHSWMAI (Psi, and a many others). Another scribe saw > that reading and changed it to KAUQHSOMAI (C D F G L the whole latin > tradition and some others). The aorist deponent subjunctive with hINA > makes good sense here, "in order that I might boast." (Let me insert a small but significant addendum to the data above: the reading KAUQHSWMAI of Psi "and many others" actually encompasses the entire Byzantine/Majority tradition, and this fact should not be minimized in the discussion which follows). The problem I see with the above approach is that KAUQHSOMAI/KAUQHSWMAI is clearly the "more difficult" reading. Paul uses the concept of "boasting" almost to excess, particularly in the Corinthian correspondence. Nowhere else does he speak of giving one's body to be burnt, and even the particular locus of that reference in the immediate context is problematic. By applying the principle of favoring the reading most likely to give rise to the other(s), as well as acknowledging the reading which was most difficult (to the scribe), either KAUQHSWMAI or KAUQHSOMAI would be favored over the "easier" and "more familiar" Pauline verb KAUXHSWMAI. Even were dictation utilized in a scriptorium (which from my own examination of variants and their causes I consider to be the extremely rare case when speaking of NT Greek MSS), an error of hearing between the phonemes Chi and Theta would not be all that likely, since one is a gutteral and the other a labial. Yet even if phonetic confusion occurred, the tendency of a scribe then would be to favor what he in his own mind and hearing THOUGHT was a more common reading over one which would be less common, and especially a concept of giving one's body "to be burned," which would be unique to Paul. More problematic than either of these matters is the supposition that a single scribe creating a more difficult reading by an error or hearing would somehow produce a MS copy which then would become the mother of virtually all subsequent MSS. This hypothesis assumes that no contemporary or later scribe would ever notice the difference, let alone simply correct such an error by cross-comparison with another pre-existing exemplar. A major problem with modern eclecticism (whether reasoned or rigorous) is its failure to ignore the problems of the historical transmission of the text throughout history; this is one such case where attention to the historical possibilities of manuscript transmission weighs heavily in determining a conclusion. That an error producing a "more difficult" reading could so easily corrupt the mass of the MS tradition bodes ill for the certain recovery of the original text by any currently-recognized and responsible principles of NT textual criticism. It is also significant that the Western tradition (D F G, as well as the Old Latin, known to be 2nd century in origin) would have virtually unanimously accepted such an "difficult" erroneous reading and perpetuated it (though changing the apparent subjunctive to an indicative -- another case of moving toward an "easier" reading, but this time grammatically). Yet under such a hypothesis, there still remained MSS of that era (P46) and even two or more centuries later (Aleph A B) which still maintained the supposed "original" reading whereby the "difficult reading" error could easily have been corrected. Allowing the Byzantine "more difficult" reading of KAUQHSWMAI to be original on the other hand, everything explains itself well. The tendency of some scribes to gravitate to a more usual Pauline expression or "boasting" may have played some part, but also the grammatical issue of the peculiar subjunctive (?) form might on the one hand cause some scribes to alter -SWMAI to -SOMAI, leaving the -Q- intact and other scribes to seize the opportunity of presuming an error in their exemplar, and to correct the text from a -Q- to a -X-, with a grammatically "normal" KAUXHSWMAI (Middle Deponent Subjunctive) in its place -- again a temptation to move to the "easier" reading, both in content and in grammar. From this standpoint, it then is no surprise to find a SMALL minority of scribes reading either KAUXHSWMAI or KAUQHSOMAI as opposed to the 98%+ Byzantine reading of KAUQHSWMAI, which is grammatically and contextually "more difficult", and thus more liable to give rise to the remaining readings. The problem comes down to this: WHY -- on what reasonable grounds -- should the vast majority of all MSS ever have perpetuated a reading which they knew was grammatically questionable and contextually problematic, assuming that a perfectly good alternative existed in variant readings known and perpetuated in either the Latin or Alexandrian traditions. It hardly seems likely that any alteration to the text of a MS which would produce a grammatically questionable and "more difficult" reading would ever be perpetuated in the vast majority of MSS. If this indeed be the case, the reading in question seems far more likely to be a reflection of the autograph text than any alteration to such. As an aside, I find it highly amusing that in the cross references to the Nestle 27 text at 1Cor.13:3, they note Daniel 3:19ff, which does NOT reflect their chosen text at all, but the majority KAUQHSWMAI reading *:-) From majordom Mon Jan 29 21:53:43 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18976; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:53:43 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:51:08 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: A Marcan editing formula? In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 876 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Jim Deardorff wrote: > Also in response to James Adair's request, here's a topic initiated by a > scholar of the 1920s, H. G. Jameson, who's argument pointing out an > apparent Marcan editing formula has not been refuted or even discussed > since in the literature, as far as I know. This is in his book, "The > Origin of the Synoptic Gospels" (1922). Assuming Matthean priority, and literary dependency, Jameson's case appears to be very strong. I suspect it has been ignored (much as Baird's "Audience Criticism and the Historical Jesus") merely because it would reverse the direction of NT studies away from Markan priority, the Two-Source Hypothesis, and the then-ongoing Quest of the Historical Jesus. Of course, current traditions need continually to be challenged and reexamined, and Jameson gives one direction for valuable pursuit. From majordom Tue Jan 30 00:42:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA19464; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 00:42:06 +0500 Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 00:39:29 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Gross To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2343 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Jim Deardorff wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, MR. DAVE FOUTS wrote: > > > I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament. I hope OT textual critcism is not off-limits here? ;) > > Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another > > individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great > > Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m > I know of no other manuscript with this reading, and think that > > though the Isaiah scroll's reading of from the mother of or from the > > father of (YHWH) is far more difficult, the context nowhere in the > > passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH. > > Any input? > > Were you referring to Is 7:14 here, Dave, rather than 7:11? (Since I > don't read Hebrew I need to ask, also since my RSV Bible gives no hint > that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.) The reading "mother of" is the variant in the Qumran scroll, and that is why you don't see it in the RSV. As for the original question, perhaps the laryngeals had weakened so much at this stage of Hebrew that the scribe sometimes substituted alef for ayin. Because the Qumran reading is so difficult and unattested elsewhere, it could easily just be dismissed. My suggestion -- and I know he'll have something to say about the weaening of laryngeals -- is to check out E. Y. Kutscher's massive monograph on the Isaiah Scroll and see what he has to say about this variant. I believe it is called _The Language of the Isaiah Scroll_ and was published by Brill. > But perhaps you or another on the list can fill in some background for me > on the entire passage. Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on? The > RSV English makes it seem as if it is Ahaz still speaking at this point, > because 7:13 starts out "And he said," and if it had been Isaiah himself > speaking, it should have read, "And I said..." Yet I feel it must have > been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there! D. Winton Thomas actually suggested the emendation to "And I said...". The NJPS translation keeps the 3rd person singular subject -- with Isaiah as the speaker -- and assumes that Isaiah's name was simply elided. I think this is a reasonable way to understand this passage. andrew gross From majordom Tue Jan 30 01:28:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA19592; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 01:28:03 +0500 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:25:27 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Deardorff To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1036 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Andrew Gross wrote: > ..... (I wrote:) > > Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on? The > > RSV English makes it seem as if it is Ahaz still speaking at this point, > > because 7:13 starts out "And he said," and if it had been Isaiah himself > > speaking, it should have read, "And I said..." Yet I feel it must have > > been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there! > D. Winton Thomas actually suggested the emendation to "And I said...". > The NJPS translation keeps the 3rd person singular subject -- with Isaiah > as the speaker -- and assumes that Isaiah's name was simply elided. I > think this is a reasonable way to understand this passage. To me this sort of editorial confusion suggests a substantial amount of editorial work went on here before this area of Isaiah got patched together. Thus I'm not at all sure the Immanuel prophecy even belonged originally in with the Ahaz story. Thanks for the recommendation on the Kutscher monograph. Jim Deardorff Oregon State University From majordom Tue Jan 30 09:19:29 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA20268; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:19:29 +0500 From: "MR. DAVE FOUTS" Organization: Bryan College Dayton, TN 37321 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:09:59 EST Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <3F830B29BC@bryannet.bryan.edu> X-Maildaemon: Content-Length: 2018 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Date sent: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 16:56:02 -0800 (PST) > From: Jim Deardorff > To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Copies to: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 > Send reply to: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, MR. DAVE FOUTS wrote: > > > I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament. > > Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another > > individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great > > Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m > I know of no other manuscript with this reading, and think that > > though the Isaiah scroll's reading of from the mother of or from the > > father of (YHWH) is far more difficult, the context nowhere in the > > passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH. > > Any input? > > Were you referring to Is 7:14 here, Dave, rather than 7:11? (Since I > don't read Hebrew I need to ask, also since my RSV Bible gives no hint > that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.) No, Isaiah 7:11 (MT) reads sh'al lka 'ot m > But perhaps you or another on the list can fill in some background for me > on the entire passage. Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on? The > RSV English makes it seem as if it is Ahaz still speaking at this point, > because 7:13 starts out "And he said," and if it had been Isaiah himself > speaking, it should have read, "And I said..." Yet I feel it must have > been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there! 7:13 seems to indicate a change of speaker from 7:12 with its introductory wayyo'mer addressed to the house of David (i.e. Ahaz). > > Jim Deardorff > Oregon State University > > Dr. Dave Fouts Bryan College From majordom Tue Jan 30 10:58:23 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA20738; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 10:58:23 +0500 Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 10:58:12 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: TC List Subject: tc-list: OT AND NT Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 559 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu In reply to Andrew Gross, the tc-list is intended for the discussion of _biblical_ textual criticism "broadly construed." This includes both HB/OT and NT, as well as t-c discussions that cross the canonical boundaries, deal with general issues of methodology, or look at apocryphal/deuterocanonical passages, to name only a few possible topics. Jimmy Adair Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press and Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site ---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <----------------- From majordom Tue Jan 30 13:28:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA21548; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 13:28:14 +0500 Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 11:49:03 -0500 (EST) From: David Moore Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1496 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Andrew Gross wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Jim Deardorff wrote: > > > On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, MR. DAVE FOUTS wrote: > > > > > I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament. > > I hope OT textual critcism is not off-limits here? ;) > > > > > Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another > > > individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great > > > Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m > > I know of no other manuscript with this reading, and think that > > > though the Isaiah scroll's reading of from the mother of or from the > > > father of (YHWH) is far more difficult, the context nowhere in the > > > passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH. > > > Any input? > > > > Were you referring to Is 7:14 here, Dave, rather than 7:11? (Since I > > don't read Hebrew I need to ask, also since my RSV Bible gives no hint > > that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.) > > The reading "mother of" is the variant in the Qumran scroll, and that is > why you don't see it in the RSV. Oddly, BHS, which often cites Qumran documents in its apparatus, includes no mention of this variant. David L. Moore Southeastern Spanish District Miami, Florida of the Assemblies of God dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Department of Education http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore From majordom Tue Jan 30 22:45:55 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23278; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 22:45:55 +0500 X-Sender: winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 21:46:56 +0400 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net (Carlton Winbery) Subject: Re: Future subjunctive Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu Content-Length: 8114 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Maurice Robinson wrote; >On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Carlton Winbery wrote: > >> I would like to comment on the textual problem at I >> Cor 12:3. I am persuaded that the original is KAUXHSWMAI supported by P46, >> aleph, A B and others. Some scribe (perhaps in a scriptorum) heard that >> word and wrote KAUQHSWMAI (Psi, and a many others). Another scribe saw >> that reading and changed it to KAUQHSOMAI (C D F G L the whole latin >> tradition and some others). The aorist deponent subjunctive with hINA >> makes good sense here, "in order that I might boast." > >(Let me insert a small but significant addendum to the data above: the >reading KAUQHSWMAI of Psi "and many others" actually encompasses the >entire Byzantine/Majority tradition, and this fact should not be minimized >in the discussion which follows). In addition to a number of Fathers beginning with Tertullian, but I do not think that counting mss is the name of the game. >The problem I see with the above approach is that KAUQHSOMAI/KAUQHSWMAI is >clearly the "more difficult" reading. Paul uses the concept of "boasting" >almost to excess, particularly in the Corinthian correspondence. Nowhere >else does he speak of giving one's body to be burnt, and even the >particular locus of that reference in the immediate context is problematic. > >By applying the principle of favoring the reading most likely to give rise >to the other(s), as well as acknowledging the reading which was most >difficult (to the scribe), either KAUQHSWMAI or KAUQHSOMAI would be >favored over the "easier" and "more familiar" Pauline verb KAUXHSWMAI. There must be a distinction between "more difficult" and absurd. The origin of KAUQHSOMAI is difficult to account for unless a scribe made the mistake that introduced the bogus form KAUQHSWMAI. The latter is clearly the middle of this equation. >Even were dictation utilized in a scriptorium (which from my own >examination of variants and their causes I consider to be the extremely >rare case when speaking of NT Greek MSS), an error of hearing between the >phonemes Chi and Theta would not be all that likely, since one is a >gutteral and the other a labial. Yet even if phonetic confusion occurred, >the tendency of a scribe then would be to favor what he in his own mind >and hearing THOUGHT was a more common reading over one which would be less >common, and especially a concept of giving one's body "to be burned," which >would be unique to Paul. We have ample examples of confusion of sounds more desparate than this. However, the suggestion of an error of hearing was only a suggestion. Others have suggested that a scribe would have changed KAUXHSWMAI to KAUQHSWMAI because of other difficulties (Metzger, p. 564). >More problematic than either of these matters is the supposition that a >single scribe creating a more difficult reading by an error or hearing >would somehow produce a MS copy which then would become the mother of >virtually all subsequent MSS. This hypothesis assumes that no >contemporary or later scribe would ever notice the difference, let alone >simply correct such an error by cross-comparison with another pre-existing >exemplar. You speak as though every scribe or even most scribes knew many other mss. Such was not the case. The Alexandrian tradition was hidden from most of the scribes for a very long time. >A major problem with modern eclecticism (whether reasoned or rigorous) is >its failure to ignore the problems of the historical transmission of the >text throughout history; this is one such case where attention to the >historical possibilities of manuscript transmission weighs heavily in >determining a conclusion. > >That an error producing a "more difficult" reading could so easily corrupt >the mass of the MS tradition bodes ill for the certain recovery of the >original text by any currently-recognized and responsible principles of NT >textual criticism. I don't quite understand this assertion. You seem to be saying that the flow of mss traditions was an unbroken stream. Such was not the case. There were major interruptions in the transmission of the text of the NT, the fact that Latin eclipsed much of the tradition in the west, the north African and middle Eastern traditions went underground because of the Muslim takeover there, the Byzantine traditions eventually flooded into Europe in the Crusades and with the fall of Constantinople. Majority text people speak as though none of these happened. >It is also significant that the Western tradition (D F G, as well as the >Old Latin, known to be 2nd century in origin) would have virtually >unanimously accepted such an "difficult" erroneous reading and perpetuated >it (though changing the apparent subjunctive to an indicative -- another >case of moving toward an "easier" reading, but this time grammatically). >Yet under such a hypothesis, there still remained MSS of that era (P46) >and even two or more centuries later (Aleph A B) which still maintained >the supposed "original" reading whereby the "difficult reading" error >could easily have been corrected. Apparently they did and for an even longer period if the bonehead reading were original. >Allowing the Byzantine "more difficult" reading of KAUQHSWMAI to be >original on the other hand, everything explains itself well. The tendency >of some scribes to gravitate to a more usual Pauline expression or >"boasting" may have played some part, but also the grammatical issue of >the peculiar subjunctive (?) form might on the one hand cause some scribes >to alter -SWMAI to -SOMAI, leaving the -Q- intact and other scribes to >seize the opportunity of presuming an error in their exemplar, and to >correct the text from a -Q- to a -X-, with a grammatically "normal" >KAUXHSWMAI (Middle Deponent Subjunctive) in its place -- again a >temptation to move to the "easier" reading, both in content and in >grammar. From this standpoint, it then is no surprise to find a SMALL >minority of scribes reading either KAUXHSWMAI or KAUQHSOMAI as opposed to >the 98%+ Byzantine reading of KAUQHSWMAI, which is grammatically and >contextually "more difficult", and thus more liable to give rise to the >remaining readings. I find it very difficult to think that scribes would have corrected KAUQHSWMAI to KAUXHSWMAI instead of KAUQHSOMAI. > >The problem comes down to this: WHY -- on what reasonable grounds -- >should the vast majority of all MSS ever have perpetuated a reading which >they knew was grammatically questionable and contextually problematic, >assuming that a perfectly good alternative existed in variant readings >known and perpetuated in either the Latin or Alexandrian traditions. This assumes that the Byzantine scribes knew those mss, which simply was not the case. Tischendorf found aleph in 1854. Vaticanus was descovered in the Vatican in the 17th century. P46 was discovered in this century. Its easy to imagine different scenarios, but the reality is that a reading in the vast majority of the ms tradition can be wrong. >It hardly seems likely that any alteration to the text of a MS which would >produce a grammatically questionable and "more difficult" reading would >ever be perpetuated in the vast majority of MSS. If this indeed be the >case, the reading in question seems far more likely to be a reflection >of the autograph text than any alteration to such. For the Byzantine scribes who preferred KAUQHSOMAI, KAUXHSWMAI would have been a more "difficult" alternative. If a person gave up one's body, how could they "glory" in it. The reading KAUQHSWMAI/KAUQHSOMAI would have been very unlikely in the time of Paul. (Daniel is most likely not the catelist here.) After Nero used Christians to light his games and martyrdom came to be practiced, the alteration of the text to include burning is much more likely. It is very difficult to reject the reading of P46, aleph, A, B, the "queen" of the cursives, the Coptic tradition, Clement Origen and Jerome on such shaky ground as you present. Carlton L. Winbery Prof. Religion LA College, Pineville, La winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net From majordom Tue Jan 30 23:44:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23388; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:44:11 +0500 Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:41:27 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Gross To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Isaiah 7:11 In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 735 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, David Moore wrote: > On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Andrew Gross wrote: > > > The reading "mother of" is the variant in the Qumran scroll, and that is > > why you don't see it in the RSV. > > Oddly, BHS, which often cites Qumran documents in its apparatus, > includes no mention of this variant. This is not so surprising. The editors of BHS did not mechanically cite every single variant that exists. They culled through all of them and simply noted those which they thought would be of some interest. Those which they deemed to be complete abberations, they simply left out. D. Winston Thomas, who edited Isaiah for BHS, must have decided that this variant was not worth noting. cheers, andrew gross From majordom Wed Jan 31 01:39:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23727; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:39:14 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:39:06 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Synoptic Harmonization In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 3332 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote: > > On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Stephen C Carlson wrote: > > > Specifically, I have a question about Mt19:20 -- > > > > EFULACA > > {A} 01* B L Theta f1 579 900 it.aur,ff1,g1,l vg Jermoe etc. > > EFULACA EK NEOTHTOS (see Lk18:21) > > (01.d NEOTHTOS MOU) D it.d > > EFULACAMHN EK NEOTHTOS MOU (see Mk10:20) > > C W Delta f13 28 33 etc. Byz > > > > Although the EFULACAMHN ... reading is attributed to harmonization to > > Mark in my UBS4 apparatus and is not found in the best manuscripts, > > Both of those claims are subjective judgments. I would question both of > them from my own text-critical perspective. > > > what about the fact the middle voice presents a more difficult reading > > (it seems to be a Semiticism/LXXism; good literary Greek calls for the > > active voice)? > > The middle voice is "more difficult" more because it differs from the other > readings. Since Mark does have the middle voice without significant > variation, I would not make a specific judgement on it being more > difficult in context, even in Matthew. > > I would suggest that the reading of Aleph B L Theta etc. is more likely to > reflect an accidental line omission of 16 letter (following the Byzantine > Text) than to have been the original reading, specifically due to the > extremely limited and not even texttype-specific support that reading > possesses. The reading of D, being basically unique to itself, is not > unusal in this case, being a typical sloppy omission of various > characters from the Byzantine reading. > > > Finally, vv16, 17, 20 in many MSS (esp. Byzantines) > > show a harmonization to Mark (and Luke). Is this typical? I would > > thing that, given the importance of Matthew, that the harmonization > > would go the other direction. > > The question is primarily whether those other MSS which harmonize are in > a significant numerical quantity, or whether they are merely isolated > cases which happen to go that direction. In almost all cases, > harmonization among individual MSS is observed to head for Matthew. A study of the Synoptic parallels of this pericope in Aland's _Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum_ shows that the Byzantine text tends to add material in all the gospels to make them conform _somewhat_ to the others. There is no conscious effort to harmonize; rather, it seems that isolated words (AGAQH in Mt 19:16, SOU in Lk 18:20, MOU in Lk 18:21) are supplied from one or another gospel (cf. also the addition of ARAS TON STAURON from another context in Mk 10:21 Byz; also TI ME LEGEIS AGAQON; OUDEIS AGAQOS EI MH O QEOS from Mk and Lk in Mt 19:17 Byz). What appears to have happened is that various scribes over time, as they copied their mss, occasionally changed them somewhat in the direction of another, usually fuller, version. Without any indicator of parablepsis, accidental omission of 16 letters seems unlikely. The argument about a "significant numerical quantity" carries no weight when the history of the development of the text of the NT over 1500 years or so is taken into account. Jimmy Adair Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press and Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site ---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <----------------- From majordom Wed Jan 31 01:54:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23769; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:54:05 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:51:29 -0500 (EST) From: LECHEM777@delphi.com Subject: tc-list: OT AND NT To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Message-Id: <01I0N5QYWEHQ9EE9HH@delphi.com> X-Vms-To: IN%"tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 414 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu To what extent has the Merkavah mystical tradion has ifluenced the NT. What was the first century Christian heavenly cosmology. Was Christ God? Or was he the Mediator, a metatron. Was He the Torah incarnate an object of the Merkavah mystical tradition. As this tradition was discovered within early rabbinic texts and Qumran as well as many non-cannonical texts. Bradley Harrison Phila. PA MA JS Gratz College From majordom Wed Jan 31 02:15:44 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23820; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 02:15:44 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 02:15:36 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 4512 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote: > The problem I see with the above approach is that KAUQHSOMAI/KAUQHSWMAI is > clearly the "more difficult" reading. Paul uses the concept of "boasting" > almost to excess, particularly in the Corinthian correspondence. Nowhere > else does he speak of giving one's body to be burnt, and even the > particular locus of that reference in the immediate context is problematic. > > By applying the principle of favoring the reading most likely to give rise > to the other(s), as well as acknowledging the reading which was most > difficult (to the scribe), either KAUQHSWMAI or KAUQHSOMAI would be > favored over the "easier" and "more familiar" Pauline verb KAUXHSWMAI. > KAUXHSWMAI may have been the more difficult reading when Paul wrote, but with the frenzy toward martyrdom that swept over the church from the late (?) second through the early fourth centuries, KAUQHSOMAI would not have been considered difficult at all to copyists--it might even have been favored on theological grounds. As for the reading KAUQHSWMAI, I have my doubts that many scribes found it all that difficult. True, it's not "good" Greek, but so many mss, particularly later ones, exhibit similar shifts in spelling, that the fact that it appears in the majority of mss does not seem very remarkable. > > More problematic than either of these matters is the supposition that a > single scribe creating a more difficult reading by an error or hearing > would somehow produce a MS copy which then would become the mother of > virtually all subsequent MSS. This hypothesis assumes that no > contemporary or later scribe would ever notice the difference, let alone > simply correct such an error by cross-comparison with another pre-existing > exemplar. But in fact, this is exactly what happens in numerous instances in the ms tradition: a change in one ms, which happens to be one that is copied frequently, is perpetuated throughout the tradition, while the original reading in other, less copied, mss is reduced to a minority. Ms traditions subjected to frequent copying leave themselves open to more scribal changes, intentional or unintentional, than less frequently copied traditions. > A major problem with modern eclecticism (whether reasoned or rigorous) is > its failure to ignore the problems of the historical transmission of the > text throughout history; this is one such case where attention to the > historical possibilities of manuscript transmission weighs heavily in > determining a conclusion. I assume Maurice means that eclectics fail to "take into account" the problems of the history of the text :-). I agree, this is a serious problem, and one that must be addressed if better critical editions are to be created. > That an error producing a "more difficult" reading could so easily corrupt > the mass of the MS tradition bodes ill for the certain recovery of the > original text by any currently-recognized and responsible principles of NT > textual criticism. Perhaps so, but it seems nevertheless to be the case, both here and in numerous other instances. Westcott and Hort identified more than 70 passages in which they believed "primitive corruption" occurred and obliterated the original reading from the ms tradition. What NT text critics should learn from this situation is that they are not nearly as close to the "original text" as some would claim. > The problem comes down to this: WHY -- on what reasonable grounds -- > should the vast majority of all MSS ever have perpetuated a reading which > they knew was grammatically questionable and contextually problematic, > assuming that a perfectly good alternative existed in variant readings > known and perpetuated in either the Latin or Alexandrian traditions. In light of the previous discussion, I would answer as follows. (1) The scribes in the Byzantine tradition (for the most part) probably did _not_ know that the reading KAUQHSWMAI was grammatically questionable; (2) the glorification of martyrdom belies the claim that the majority reading was contextually problematic; (3) the scribes did not know that alternate readings existed, and if they had know, they would have naturally assumed that their own tradition was correct. Jimmy Adair Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press and Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site ---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <----------------- From majordom Wed Jan 31 09:19:58 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA24478; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 09:19:58 +0500 From: John Wevers Message-Id: <199601311417.JAA21423@epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: Future subjunctive To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 09:17:17 -0500 (EST) Cc: jwevers@epas.utoronto.ca (John Wevers) In-Reply-To: from "James R. Adair" at Jan 31, 96 02:15:36 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 777 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Possibly a Septuagint scholar might join the discussion. The last thirty years of my scholarly career has been devoted largely to dealing with mss readings. Copyists simply did not distinguish between the homonymic -omai and wmai. In other words aorist subjunctives could be spelled with -o- or with -w- almost indiscriminately. I would strongly suggest that one abandon the notion of a future subjunctive. Grammatically that makes no sense, and the reading that has been identified as a future subjunctive is nothing of the kind, but is simply a misspelled indicative. As far as I know future subjunctives are not attested as anything but the result of homonymic spelling. JWW -- John Wevers Near Eastern Studies University of Toronto INTERNET: jwevers@epas.utoronto.ca From majordom Wed Jan 31 11:03:53 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA24955; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:03:53 +0500 Message-Id: <199601311601.LAA35498@r02n05.cac.psu.edu> X-Sender: wlp1@email.psu.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:01:12 -0500 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: wlp1@psu.edu (William L. Petersen) Subject: Synoptic Harmonization Content-Length: 4699 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu A few comments on synoptic harmonization: 1) There are many, independent reasons for cross-synoptic harmonizations, and they most certainly are of interest to textual critics. Many classic studies have been done on the topic, esp. in the 19th cent., by German scholars. 2) One source of these harmonizations is, of course, early gospel harmonies: Justin's apparent harmony of the synoptics; Tatian's Diatessaron; the harmony (perhaps similar/identical with Justin's?) which is preserved in the Judiac-Christian gospel fragments, and labeled by Vielhauer/Strecker as coming from the "Gospel according to the Ebionites"; the now-lost harmony reportedly composed by Ammonius of Alexandria; the now-lost harmony reportedly composed by Theophilus of Antioch; etc., etc. Most of these are second century works. 3) There has always been a tendency of scribes to harmonize subconsciously: the memory slips, or the "better known" version of a phrase guides the pen. In earlier periods (or in certain circles) there may have been a suspicion on the part of copyists that a word, phrase, or verse might have been omitted by some earlier "corrupter" (see the references in Justin, Tertullian, and Jerome, for example, which clearly inidcate that "tampering" with Christian texts was taken for granted in the early period: Marcion is a double example, charging that "Jewish" elements had been introduced into Luke; he then proceeded to remove them...). With this in mind, one understands how an early scribe might presume that a reading "must" have been there originally, since it was in the parallel in another gospel; such a scribe would have no qualms in "restoring" it. 4) The motives for harmonizations are complex: see my *Tatian's Diatessaron,* pp. 72-76, or Tj. Baarda's article in the edited volume *Gospel Traditions in the Second Century,* pp. 133-154. 5) The suggestions I have seen posted--and, indeed, most synoptic theories--presuppose that "A" used "B" or "B" used "A". Who is borrowing from whom is decided on this basis. I would argue that such a solution is a bit simplistic, for the gospels did not spring "full grown" (Athena-like) from their authors' pens (for textual evidence, see my chapter "What Text Can NT Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?" in B. Aland and J. Delobel, *NT Textual Criticism, Exegesis and Church History,* pp. 136-152). Rather--as the various endings of Mark and the existence of, apparently, a "Secret Mark" make clear--they evolved bit-by-bit. Therefore, the process of harmonization was not a "one way," "one time" event (e.g., Mark influenced Matthew, OR Matthew influenced Mark...); rather, the process was on-going, repetitive, and "recursive": at one point in the evolution of the tradition, Mark may have been influential in shaping Matthew's text, but then at a later date, Matthew may have influenced Mark's text. The process is dynamic, continuous (in the early centuries), and defies simple analysis. One should probably speak only of influences *on a pericope* (e.g., "At Matt xx.xx, Mark seems to have influenced Matthew's text, but at Mark xx.xx, Matthean influence seems apparent"); generalizations about a whole gospel should be avoided. Baarda once remarked to me that "Mark is the oldest of the gospels--as well as the youngest." What he meant was that while in many cases the traditional "Four Source" theory holds up (giving Mark priority), there are also cases where Mark seems to have been redacted (presumably, at a later date) with an eye on Matthew and Luke. 6) The consideration and careful study of Patristic and versional evidence is *absolutely essential* if one wishes to address the problems of cross-gospel harmonization, for their evidence can often antedate ANY of the Greek gospel MS evidence. One ignores Justin, the Vetus Latina, the Vetus Syra, the early apocrypha, etc., at one's peril. Simply referencing the apparatus in N-A or UBS is not going to give one the full picture. Take a look at von Soden, the IGNTP, and the volumes of the *Biblia Patristica* to flesh out the evidence--and, sometimes, to correct the evidence in the pocket editions. 7) For later Greek gospel MSS (say, X-XIV cents.), one must also reckon with the "renaissance" of harmonization which took place during that period, and which is textually documented in the many vernacular gospel harmonies in esp. Western Europe, but also in the East (Arabic, Persian, etc.). The process of harmonization did not "end" at a given date, but continues even to today, in translations: compare the RSV with the NRSV at Matt. 27.54 with Mark 15.39; now compare the Greek. --Petersen, Religious Studies, Penn State Univ. From majordom Wed Jan 31 14:25:54 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA26012; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:25:54 +0500 Message-Id: <199601311923.OAA38894@r02n06.cac.psu.edu> X-Sender: wlp1@email.psu.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:23:11 -0500 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: wlp1@psu.edu (William L. Petersen) Subject: OT AND NT (Merkavah mysticism) Content-Length: 1044 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Jan. 31, Bradley Harrison wrote: >To what extent has the Merkavah mystical tradion has ifluenced the NT. What >was the first century Christian heavenly cosmology. Was Christ God? Or was >he the Mediator, a metatron. Was He the Torah incarnate an object of the >Merkavah mystical tradition. As this tradition was discovered within early >rabbinic texts and Qumran as well as many non-cannonical texts. > >Bradley Harrison >Phila. PA >MA JS Gratz College > > There are a number of sources which discuss the (possible) connections: see, for example, Alan Segal's recent book *Paul the Convert*, in the index, under "Merkabah"--there are a number of references. See also in the index of Jarl Fossum, *The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord*. The topic also crops up *passim* in *Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. 50 Years After*, a volume edited by P. Schaefer and J. Dan (Tuebingen: JCB Mohr, 1993). See also G. Quispel's various essays, collected as *Gnostic Studies* (2 vols.). --Petersen, Penn State University From majordom Wed Jan 31 18:36:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA26857; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:36:13 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:33:34 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 14435 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Carlton Winbery wrote: > >reading KAUQHSWMAI of Psi "and many others" actually encompasses the > >entire Byzantine/Majority tradition, and this fact should not be minimized > >in the discussion which follows). > > In addition to a number of Fathers beginning with Tertullian, but I do not > think that counting mss is the name of the game. Nor do I per se; however, when speaking of scribal proclivities and tendencies, the question of whether an error will become so widespread as to encompass virtually the entire manuscript tradition must be taken seriously. > There must be a distinction between "more difficult" and absurd. The > origin of KAUQHSOMAI is difficult to account for unless a scribe made the > mistake that introduced the bogus form KAUQHSWMAI. The latter is clearly > the middle of this equation. But is "to be burnt" absurd? Even the 1881 Revised Version and the 1901 American Standard Version continued to read with the Byzantine text, and this reading is still followed by the RSV and the NIV, among many other translations -- and it certainly cannot be argued that any of these translations felt compelled to preserve the KJV/TR reading. Obviously modern translators have text-critical opinions which differ radically from the modern eclectic school as regards their view as to what might be absurd *:-). Actually, the meaning of "give my body that I might boast" is also a crux interpretum which is not readily resolved either. But even allowing that a scribe might accidentally create a term which would be either "difficult" or "absurd" -- why then would few (if any) subsequent scribes ever attempt to correct such a reading? Of course, if the reading were actually that of the autograph, scribes would tend to preserve it regardless of perceived absurdity or error (e.g. "Jeremiah" in Mt.27:9). > >rare case when speaking of NT Greek MSS), an error of hearing between the > >phonemes Chi and Theta would not be all that likely, since one is a > >gutteral and the other a labial. Yet even if phonetic confusion occurred, I need to correct myself here -- Chi is a gutteral, but Theta is a dental. Slip of the mind while the fingers typed away. > We have ample examples of confusion of sounds more desparate than this. Agreed. However, there are astoundingly few cases which can be alleged where such confusion (producing an "absurdity") would be perpetuated in more than a dozen or so MSS -- not the bulk of the entire MS tradition. This is why O'Callaghan's claims on the 7Q4 papyrus being Markan can be dismissed -- he not only has to posit an error of omission but also a change from a delta to a theta producing a nonsense spelling, neither of which has any other textual support. > However, the suggestion of an error of hearing was only a suggestion. > Others have suggested that a scribe would have changed KAUXHSWMAI to > KAUQHSWMAI because of other difficulties (Metzger, p. 564). The error of hearing could occur even in manual copying, since scribes would read aloud as they copied, and confusion could occur at any one of four steps in a manual copying process (Metzger, Text of the NT). The Metzger Textual Commentary is of course trying to defend the reading the editors favored, but I still think they are clutching at some very thin straws on this one. > >virtually all subsequent MSS. This hypothesis assumes that no > >contemporary or later scribe would ever notice the difference, let alone > >simply correct such an error by cross-comparison with another pre-existing > >exemplar. > > You speak as though every scribe or even most scribes knew many other mss. > Such was not the case. The Alexandrian tradition was hidden from most of > the scribes for a very long time. I certainly would agree on that latter point, since I would consider the entire Alexandrian tradition primarily to reflect a "local text" of Egypt which did not have significant impact in the primary Greek-speaking portion of the Empire, from Southern Italy through Northern Palestine. But monasteries and scriptoriums did exist scattered in all these regions, and scribes did have access to more MS copies than the one exemplar they were working with, as evidenced frequently by contemporary corrections from MSS of differing families and texttypes which appear in our present copies. I would not suggest that scribes would have much knowledge of MS traditions beyond their own local area or even their own monastery or church situation, but I would maintain that additional copies for comparison and cross-correction were generally available, even if not in quantity. > I don't quite understand this assertion. You seem to be saying that the > flow of mss traditions was an unbroken stream. Such was not the case. > There were major interruptions in the transmission of the text of the NT, > the fact that Latin eclipsed much of the tradition in the west, the north Since the Greek tradition appears never to have entered the West, I would not suggest any "eclipse"; rather I would suggest as most handbooks that the Latin had its origins in a European and African form, which derived most probably from central Italy and Rome on the one hand and Carthage on the other hand. The origin of the Latin tradition would have been Greek MSS, but of a limited variety reflecting the "popular" Western variety of text during the early "uncontrolled popular text" period before AD 200. The stream of transmission certainly has its byways and rivulets, but basically there remains a constant flow, and it would exist in the primary Greek-speaking portion of the Empire more than in the fringe areas where local texts would abound. > African and middle Eastern traditions went underground because of the > Muslim takeover there Although the Muslim conquest did occur, there is little evidence that the stream of transmission was in any serious way affected. The Coptic church and its MSS (Alexandrian text) have continued in an unbroken chain to the present day, even under the harshest Islamic restrictions. The Coptic church did not have to go "underground" -- it is true that non-Muslims were penalized with heavier taxes to force conversion, but those who held out were permitted freedom of worship in Egypt during the centuries in question. > the Byzantine traditions eventually flooded into > Europe in the Crusades and with the fall of Constantinople. Majority text > people speak as though none of these happened. 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 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. > >It is also significant that the Western tradition (D F G, as well as the > >Old Latin, known to be 2nd century in origin) would have virtually > >unanimously accepted such an "difficult" erroneous reading and perpetuated > >it (though changing the apparent subjunctive to an indicative -- another > >case of moving toward an "easier" reading, but this time grammatically). > >Yet under such a hypothesis, there still remained MSS of that era (P46) > >and even two or more centuries later (Aleph A B) which still maintained > >the supposed "original" reading whereby the "difficult reading" error > >could easily have been corrected. > > Apparently they did and for an even longer period if the bonehead reading > were original. Let me once more suggest that the term "absurd" or even "bonehead" is really unfair to the translators of the ERV/ASV/RSV/NIV etc., as well as being clearly prejudicial. An assessment such as "more difficult" definitely would be preferable. *:-) The question remains, however, in light of my above paragraph, that if the difficult reading were in fact so problematic, why is it that so few scribes after the 4th century ever attempted to correct it, when such correction of difficult readings is presumed to be a genuine scribal characteristic -- especially of Byzantine-era scribes? > I find it very difficult to think that scribes would have corrected > KAUQHSWMAI to KAUXHSWMAI instead of KAUQHSOMAI. I personally would agree. And in fact (assuming KAUQHSWMAI to be original) more scribes DID make the alteration from the apparent problematic future (?) subjunctive into KAQHSOMAI than made the correction to the "easier" reading of KAUXHSWMAI. I suspect the handful of witnesses that went for the -X- in place of the -Q- did so quite deliberately and in order to smooth a perceived difficulty by choosing a more "Pauline" word rather than perpetuate a reading which would still remain difficult of interpretation, even were the -W- altered to -O-. > >The problem comes down to this: WHY -- on what reasonable grounds -- > >should the vast majority of all MSS ever have perpetuated a reading which > >they knew was grammatically questionable and contextually problematic, > >assuming that a perfectly good alternative existed in variant readings > >known and perpetuated in either the Latin or Alexandrian traditions. > > This assumes that the Byzantine scribes knew those mss, which simply was > not the case. Tischendorf found aleph in 1854. Vaticanus was descovered > in the Vatican in the 17th century. P46 was discovered in this century. > Its easy to imagine different scenarios, but the reality is that a reading > in the vast majority of the ms tradition can be wrong. I certainly would not suggest that any Byzantine scribe knew the readings of the Alexandrian MSS. Some may have, on a small scale, but most were familiar with and content to deal with the text which had continually been preserved in their locality -- a text which, even though with small differences in subgroupings, nevertheless remained basically constant during the entire period of MS transmission from the 4th century through the 16th. The problem reverts back to transmissional history, and, in regard to the present reading, exactly HOW a "more difficult" reading, supposedly created in error by a single scribe (maybe even by a small number of scribes on different occasions) could not only remain uncorrected by subsequent scribes, but also grow and multiply to overwhelm the entire MS tradition, when a far easier and apparently more "logical" Pauline term was theoretically the autograph. I simply fail to see the logic in such a scenario. > For the Byzantine scribes who preferred KAUQHSOMAI, KAUXHSWMAI would have > been a more "difficult" alternative. If a person gave up one's body, how > could they "glory" in it. And equally, if it had been "given up", how could it be burnt? I fail to see any logical connection here, nor do I see in PARADW TO SWMA MOU a clear meaning to the scribe viewing it from either reading. > The reading KAUQHSWMAI/KAUQHSOMAI would have been very unlikely in the time > of Paul. And of course, since it would be a hapax usage of the verb in this context within Paul. But likewise, KAUXHSWMAI in conjunction with PARADW and SWMA also would be a hapax usage in Paul, so this approach seems to me to lead nowhere. > (Daniel is most likely not the catelist here.) Agreed -- I only pointed out the incongruity of the N27 edition putting the cross-reference to Daniel in their margin, when that cross-reference could only point to the Byzantine reading and not the Alexandrian. > After Nero used > Christians to light his games and martyrdom came to be practiced, the > alteration of the text to include burning is much more likely. But this would take us right back to the first century and even the time of Paul (depending on a second Roman imprisonment and its chronology), so the point of the Byzantine reading may have a definite reference (but I would not argue it or press it). > It is very > difficult to reject the reading of P46, aleph, A, B, the "queen" of the > cursives, the Coptic tradition, Clement Origen and Jerome on such shaky > ground as you present. Since I would not consider my line of argument to be "shaky" in this regard, I do not think there is as much serious weakness with the Byzantine reading in this instance as there is with the Alexandrian. As for the testimony cited, I am not surprised that MSS with a likely Egyptian connection (P46 Aleph, A, B) would tend to agree with the Egyptian version (Coptic) which shares the Alexandrian (local) texttype. MS 33 -- whatever its origin -- maintains those connections, probably through its uncial exemplar. Clement of Alexandria and Origen who spent time in Egypt also do not move this reading beyond a limited local text status. Jerome's influence is through scholarly MSS provided him in Palestine, either by way of Eusebius, coming from Origen or directly from the scholars in Alexandria. So basically I still see the Alexandrian reading as maintaining the localized Egyptian connection, and thus far easier to dismiss than the circumstance of the remainder of the MS tradition. ========================================================================= Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ========================================================================= From majordom Wed Jan 31 19:54:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27048; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 19:54:38 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 19:52:00 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Synoptic Harmonization In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 6408 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, James R. Adair wrote: > A study of the Synoptic parallels of this pericope in Aland's _Synopsis > Quattuor Evangeliorum_ shows that the Byzantine text tends to add > material in all the gospels to make them conform _somewhat_ to the > others. I would note that for this statement to hold, an _a priori_ assessment of the Byzantine Textform as both "late" and "secondary" must exist. From a Byzantine-priority standpoint, one merely finds parallel agreements from which MSS of other textual traditions happen to vary (as they do frequently). The only sure guide to determining how prone any given MS, version or Father might be toward assimilation/harmonization is from an analysis of that witness' singular readings (of which Aland's Synopsis provides a good number of examples, though by no means exhaustive). Readings held in common by witnesses of a given textual tradition are not automatically "harmonizing" or "disharmonizing" unless and until a deeper analysis of the witnesses comprising such a tradition has been made and a determination as to whether such a tendency was sufficiently great to affect the tradition as a whole. From various tests made upon MSS of the Byzantine tradition (cf. Wisselink), the tendency appears to be minimal. > There is no conscious effort to harmonize; rather, it seems that > isolated words (AGAQH in Mt 19:16, SOU in Lk 18:20, MOU in Lk 18:21) are > supplied from one or another gospel (cf. also the addition of ARAS TON > STAURON from another context in Mk 10:21 Byz; also TI ME LEGEIS AGAQON; > OUDEIS AGAQOS EI MH O QEOS from Mk and Lk in Mt 19:17 Byz). I would agree with the primary claim that there is no conscious effort to harmonize, either among the Byzantine MSS or the Alexandrian MSS as a whole. I would not accept the texttype-specific examples given above, however, since I also fully agree that it is only "isolated words" which tend to become harmonized, and that basically occurring in "isolated MSS" and not texttypes as a whole. I see a key methodological error (which began with Westcott and Hort) in attributing to entire texttypes elements which properly concern only individual elements of that texttype, and then only in "isolated case" examples. > What appears > to have happened is that various scribes over time, as they copied their > mss, occasionally changed them somewhat in the direction of another, > usually fuller, version. Agreed. I would not minimize accidental or deliberate omission for whatever various reasons, however (which omission may also "harmonize" one gospel to another). But addition or substitution would remain the primary harmonizing tools. > Without any indicator of parablepsis, > accidental omission of 16 letters seems unlikely. But which MSS are we talking about? Not a large number, but also not all genetically (texttype) connected; this is of some significance. Aleph*, however, is corrected by a near-contemporary scribe in this place, which could maximize the possibility of accidental line-omission in the case of that MS (line-omission is known frequently to occur in Aleph). Nevertheless, the fact that strong Alexandrian MSS such as B and L agree on this reading clearly indicates that it goes back to a texttype-specific reading in a nonextant exemplar. Similarly with the strong Caesarean witnesses Theta f1 579 and 700*. Cyprian and part of the Latin tradition may also reflect a common origin which links into a primitive archetype which underlies both the Alexandrian and Caesarean texttypes. If so, then I would consider the shorter text here either as coming from a primitive line omission which occurred in a MS that served as a source for both the Alexandrian and Caesarean texttypes, or -- and possibly more appealing -- that the shorter text was a result of a deliberate editorial decision on the part of the scribe or scribes of that archetypal MS. However, from my own studies of Alexandrian variants, my suspicion would remain with accidental error in an archetype MS, which error resulted in a "sensible" reading, and thus became perpetuated within the various localized texts which in their own ways stemmed from that archetype (I also would see some sort of loose genealogical connection between the Alexandrian and Caesarean texttypes). > The argument about a > "significant numerical quantity" carries no weight when the history of > the development of the text of the NT over 1500 years or so is taken into > account. As Scrivener pointed out over a century ago, the mere multiplication of witnesses does nothing to bolster authority beyond a certain point. For Scrivener, that point (for some very good reasons) happened to be the 10th century. Basically Scrivener dismissed the vast mass of later MSS from the 11th-16th centuries on what appear to be reasonable grounds. I would be perfectly willing to adopt the same cutoff point as Scrivener for similar reasons. Such a cutoff limit does not, however, eliminate the basic issue of either the Byzantine Textform or the question of a "significant numerical quantity" as an issue. While number does not and cannot decide anything in textual criticism (taken as an isolated criterion), the matter of providing a satisfactory history of transmission which fully takes into account the numerical amount of attestation for the various readings being evaluated MUST remain a factor. It has been all too easy for textual critics since Westcott and Hort to both minimize and deprecate "number" as some sort of automatic evil, even though number in itself comprises a definite element and component part of transmissional history. It should not be forgotten that Burgon himself urged SEVEN quite responsible "notes of truth" in his methodology, and a careful and honest examiner will never say (as did Fee) that those seven criteria are merely seven different ways of claiming that number rules everythin and thus Byzantine-priority advocates are merely engaging semantics over a "nose-counting" exercise. I would urge the interested reader to obtain a copy of my ETS paper delivered at Chicago 1994 which responded directly to Fee's "two test passages" in Mark in order to see how a Byzantine-priority defense of such passages proceeds, almost without mention of number except when attempting to determine transmissional history. From majordom Wed Jan 31 20:39:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27159; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:39:48 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:37:10 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 10255 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, James R. Adair wrote: (Well -- you wanted to spark some discussion in the TC listserver....) *:-) > KAUXHSWMAI may have been the more difficult reading when Paul wrote, but I would not think a more "normal" Pauline word would have been "more difficult" in Paul's own day. > with the frenzy toward martyrdom that swept over the church from the late > (?) second through the early fourth centuries, KAUQHSOMAI would not have > been considered difficult at all to copyists--it might even have been > favored on theological grounds. Knowing the great tendency to revere martyrs in the early centuries, there is a point here. But I would see this a a clear reason to continue to preserve among the majority of witnesses the "more difficult" Pauline reading of KAUQHSWMAI. If there were tendency toward a wholesale alteration from "boasting" to "burning", I would suspect certain Fathers would have railed against deliberate alteration of the text merely to support martyrdom by fire. Which raises the more interesting question, since more saints appear to have been crucified, shot through with arrows, flayed alive, and beheaded than burnt, would not the tendency be more for the martyrially-inclined to favor a more "universal" reading of "give my body that I may boast"? > As for the reading KAUQHSWMAI, I have my > doubts that many scribes found it all that difficult. The majority certainly did not. But the (relatively easy to explain) minority who did choose to alter it obviously found it "difficult". It would be much harder to explain why a perfectly acceptable original reading of "boast" would be altered by nearly all scribes due to a perceived glorification of martyrdom. > True, it's not > "good" Greek, but so many mss, particularly later ones, exhibit similar > shifts in spelling, that the fact that it appears in the majority of mss > does not seem very remarkable. The bigger problem is that it not only is "not good Greek" but it blatantly appears erroneous by suggesting a non-existent future subjunctive! I fail to see how scribes in the main would simply allow such an anomalous reading to stand, and why the vast majority -- even if they did create the reading "burnt" -- would not have at least followed suit with C D F G L et al. and at least read something which was eminently grammatical. This is a far greater matter than the mere issue of martyrdom. > > More problematic than either of these matters is the supposition that a > > single scribe creating a more difficult reading by an error or hearing > > would somehow produce a MS copy which then would become the mother of > > virtually all subsequent MSS. This hypothesis assumes that no > > contemporary or later scribe would ever notice the difference, let alone > > simply correct such an error by cross-comparison with another pre-existing > > exemplar. > > But in fact, this is exactly what happens in numerous instances in the ms > tradition: a change in one ms, which happens to be one that is copied > frequently, is perpetuated throughout the tradition, while the original > reading in other, less copied, mss is reduced to a minority. Only from the eclectic perspective *:-) *:-) The Byzantine-priority view would maintain that a reading which became altered would, in the normal course of events be corrected within one or two copying generations, and only in the case of "local text" traditions would such readings be perpetuated over several centuries -- and even then never gaining the ascendancy. The question of the frequency of copying MSS is moot. Some MSS might never be copied, others extremely frequently. In the absence of proof regarding which MSS were or were not copied at frequent rates, statistically the evidence points to the fact that the Byzantine MSS and they alone were those most frequently copied outside of local text situations. WHY they were frequently copied is another matter altogether, but I would venture that they were most frequently copied because they reflected the text in general (not localized) use. > Ms traditions > subjected to frequent copying leave themselves open to more scribal > changes, intentional or unintentional, than less frequently copied > traditions. Certainly. By number there are probably 10 times more variant readings in the aggregate among the numerous Byzantine MSS than among the Alexandrian, Caesarean or Western MSS. But this is only to be expected, since the Byzantine MSS outnumber the others by 100:1 or greater. However, proportionally -- on a per-MS basis -- the Byzantine MSS are FAR less liable to variation than those of the minority texttypes (this was a primary conclusion of my dissertation on "Scribal Habits among MSS of the Apocalypse", Southwestern Seminary, Ft.Worth, 1982). > > A major problem with modern eclecticism (whether reasoned or rigorous) is > > its failure to ignore the problems of the historical transmission of the > > text throughout history; this is one such case where attention to the > > historical possibilities of manuscript transmission weighs heavily in > > determining a conclusion. > > I assume Maurice means that eclectics fail to "take into account" the > problems of the history of the text :-). I agree, this is a serious > problem, and one that must be addressed if better critical editions are > to be created. This has been a recurring lament of H.H.Oliver and Kenneth W. Clark as well as Eldon J. Epp. Clark basically suggested that all the efforts of eclectic methodology -- based as they are without a history of textual transmission -- are doomed to failure, and that some new approach and new angle must be essayed if any "progress" is to be made in the quest of the original text. As one who learned his textual criticism first under Clark, I must say that I appreciated his openness and encouragement to proceed in the direction I have taken. > > That an error producing a "more difficult" reading could so easily corrupt > > the mass of the MS tradition bodes ill for the certain recovery of the > > original text by any currently-recognized and responsible principles of NT > > textual criticism. > > Perhaps so, but it seems nevertheless to be the case, both here and in > numerous other instances. Westcott and Hort identified more than 70 > passages in which they believed "primitive corruption" occurred and > obliterated the original reading from the ms tradition. Unfortunately, what W-H advocated in such situations was basically conjectural emendation, which their own principles would not permit. Modern eclecticism, whether reasoned or rigorous, similarly eschews conjecture (save for Aland's notorious Acts 16:12 case in the GNT3, now -- at long last! -- finally "proven" by a few unnamed mss of the Vulgate). Appeal to "primitive error" -- so far as I know -- has not been in vogue since W-H; and such appeal establishes nothing in regard to the present case. I would be desirous in learning of the "numerous other instances" in which a patently "more difficult" reading which is NOT considered to be the original autograph text has been perpetuated in the mass of the MS and versional traditions. The examples should be instructive. > What NT text > critics should learn from this situation is that they are not nearly as > close to the "original text" as some would claim. As regards modern eclecticism, I would heartily agree *:-) This also is Eldon J. Epp's position, as is well known: "We know too much to believe the old; we do not know enough to create the new." The Byzantine-priority advocates are not suffering under the same stigma, however. > In light of the previous discussion, I would answer as follows. (1) The > scribes in the Byzantine tradition (for the most part) probably did _not_ > know that the reading KAUQHSWMAI was grammatically questionable; ? - I am nonplussed. A future subjunctive, where no case of such appears to exist elsewhere? And this among Greek-speaking scribes for the most part? I am willing to excuse those primarily Latin-speaking scribes who knew not what they did, whether preparing bilingual MSS or even Greek MSS. But in those cases, the Greek suffers far worse grammatical damage by the pen than is found in the typical Byzantine MS. The fact that some scribes definitely altered the problematic reading into the more appropriate -SOMAI gives indication that the grammatical problem surrounding this reading must have been noted (unless one would argue that the -W-/-O- interchange is purely phonetic, which I doubt in the present case). As Cassiodorus might have said, "our scribes may be ignorant, but grammatically they ain't dumb." *:-) >2) the > glorification of martyrdom belies the claim that the majority reading was > contextually problematic; And I differ as explained in detail above..... > (3) the scribes did not know that alternate > readings existed, and if they had know, they would have naturally assumed > that their own tradition was correct. But cross-corrections in MSS shows clearly that scribes DID know alternate readings existed. They DID have other exemplars with which to compare, and if this reading in fact stemmed from an out-and-out error, why would it not have been swiftly corrected within a copying generation or two and basically withdrawn from circulation? Certainly scribes would assume that their own tradition was correct -- but their "tradition" stemmed from the MSS they were copying and the liturgical use of those texts in the church. And these all conspired to maintain only the text which was "traditional" for the Byzantine transmission-history. Had an original "boasting" variant been part of the normal liturgy, there would be no question which direction the majority of MSS would have been likely to take. Had the various exemplars at hand at any stage of transmission been numerically in favor of "boast", there is little likelihood that a "later" upstart reading which was not only "more difficult" but also "grammatically untenable" would ever have gained the ascendancy. So, to me the issue remains fairly simple, but not simplistic..... From majordom Wed Jan 31 21:05:45 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27210; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:05:45 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:03:08 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu, John Wevers Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: <199601311417.JAA21423@epas.utoronto.ca> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1827 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, John Wevers wrote: > Possibly a Septuagint scholar might join the discussion. > The last thirty years of my scholarly career has been devoted > largely to dealing with mss readings. Copyists simply did not > distinguish between the homonymic -omai and wmai. In other > words aorist subjunctives could be spelled with -o- or with -w- > almost indiscriminately. I would strongly suggest that one > abandon the notion of a future subjunctive. Grammatically > that makes no sense, and the reading that has been > identified as a future subjunctive is nothing of the kind, > but is simply a misspelled indicative. As far as I know future > subjunctives are not attested as anything but the result of > homonymic spelling. JWW While agreeing that the identification of the -SWMAI form should not be taken as a unique (and unprecedented) future subjunctive, and also that there was often among MSS a homonymic interchange between W and O, on text-critical grounds I would still maintain that a grammatically problematic or "erroneous" reading would not be long perpetuated in any given texttype tradition were it not stemming from the autograph. On the -W- or -O- matter, we have a similar texttype-specific variant at Rom.5:1 (ECWMEN/ECOMEN), but the delineation lines occur primarily due to texttype, and not merely due to homonymic confusion. I would suggest that in any case, the scribes for the most part knew full well what they were doing in allowing the -SWMAI to remain in the text, even if they could not all comprehend it grammatically. The real issue on 1Cor13:3, however, is not the -SWMAI/-SOMAI interchange (where no one seems to be claiming the "more correct" -SOMAI is to be considered original), but with the greater issue of "burning" vs. "boasting" (the -Q- vs the -X-). From majordom Wed Jan 31 21:29:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27319; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:29:40 +0500 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:30:51 +0400 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net (Carlton Winbery) Subject: Re: Future subjunctive Content-Length: 2115 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu 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 winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net From majordom Wed Jan 31 21:35:46 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27341; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:35:46 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:33:11 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Synoptic Harmonization In-Reply-To: <199601311601.LAA35498@r02n05.cac.psu.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 4521 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, William L. Petersen wrote: > A few comments on synoptic harmonization: [snip] > 2) One source of these harmonizations is, of course, early gospel harmonies: And the influence of these definitely should not be overlooked by NT textual critics. Whereas Von Soden overemphasized the influence of Tatian, modern scholars tend to minimize such when they really should not. > 3) There has always been a tendency of scribes to harmonize subconsciously: > the memory slips, or the "better known" version of a phrase guides the pen. > In earlier periods (or in certain circles) there may have been a suspicion > on the part of copyists that a word, phrase, or verse might have been > omitted by some earlier "corrupter" Also quite correct. > With this in mind, one > understands how an early scribe might presume that a reading "must" have > been there originally, since it was in the parallel in another gospel; such > a scribe would have no qualms in "restoring" it. The problem here is that the majority of scribes rarely harmonized on any regular or consistent basis. Proven harmonizations (evidenced by studying singular readings of a MS) in most MSS are quite the rarity, and the reasons for such when they do occur are likely familiarity with a certain parallel passage which occurs to the mind (and hand) when copying. > 4) The motives for harmonizations are complex: And probably undiscernable in most cases. > see my chapter "What Text > Can NT Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?" in B. Aland and J. Delobel, *NT > Textual Criticism, Exegesis and Church History,* pp. 136-152). The answer in any case will likely be the text determined by our presuppositions. *:-) > harmonization was not a "one way," "one time" event (e.g., Mark influenced > Matthew, OR Matthew influenced Mark...); rather, the process was on-going, > repetitive, and "recursive": I would not minimize the later lectionary use of all four gospels as having a significant effect on harmonization moving in directions other than toward Matthew, even though as the most popular gospel, most harmonizations still would tend to head in that direction. I do not, however, believe that deliberate scribal harmonization -- whenever it occurred, or in which direction -- would ever on its own end up dominating the entire textual tradition; other scribes and the cross-comparison and correction of MSS by other exemplars would effectively prevent dominance by a usurping reading. > 6) The consideration and careful study of Patristic and versional evidence > is *absolutely essential* if one wishes to address the problems of > cross-gospel harmonization, for their evidence can often antedate ANY of the > Greek gospel MS evidence. I would consider Patristic evidence of significance, but I also know full well that one cannot trust the Fathers, who themselves were often greater harmonizers than the MSS they consulted (or their own faulty memory which blended all four gospels into a mentally inseparable whole as much as Tatian did in written form). I would not ignore the Fathers, but I equally would not trust them to correct the MS evidence. > 7) For later Greek gospel MSS (say, X-XIV cents.), one must also reckon with > the "renaissance" of harmonization which took place during that period, and > which is textually documented in the many vernacular gospel harmonies in > esp. Western Europe, but also in the East (Arabic, Persian, etc.). This process did not seriously affect the Greek NT MSS themselves however, save in the minor modifications which can be seen primarily in von Soden's Kr group of around 200 MSS of the 12th-14th centuries. That group stands outside the basic Kx mainstream, however, and its effect did not spill over into most MSS copied even during the centuries in question. > to today, in translations: compare the RSV with the NRSV at Matt. 27.54 > with Mark 15.39; now compare the Greek. Shame on them if such be the case. *:-) I unfortunately do not have my NRSV at hand, but will check it at the office tomorrow. ========================================================================= Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ========================================================================= From majordom Wed Jan 31 23:35:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27566; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 23:35:05 +0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 23:32:28 -0500 (EST) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Future subjunctive In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 3249 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, Carlton Winbery wrote: > 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. > 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. 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 > was virtually limited to the old Kingdom of Nicaea in a very limited area. 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. > The editions of Erasmus plus those of Beza and Stephanus did bring the > 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 > 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. 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.