Subject: Re: Synoptic Harmonization

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 01:28:16 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:

> > 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.

Certainly attributing elements to an entire text-type that are 
characteristic of only a minority of its members is unjustified.  
However, all of the examples I listed above from the pericope of the Rich 
Young Ruler occur in the majority of the mss, not isolated Byzantine 
witnesses.
 
> > 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). 

How many letters per line are there in a typical line-omission in Aleph. 
I don't count more than 14 letters in any line of Aleph itself, and many
have fewer letters.  Of course, I realize that the exemplar might have had
16 characters per line.  Line omission was a central theme in A. C. 
Clark's (not the sci-fi writer!) _The Descent of Manuscripts_, in which he
argued that the longer (Western) recension of Acts was closer to the
original, since the shorter version was characterized by omissions whose
lengths corresponded to a line or multiple lines (I can't recall the line
length he used--was it perhaps 17 or 18 characters?). 

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: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 19:53:37 -0500 (EST)

> Young Ruler occur in the majority of the mss, not isolated Byzantine 

And this is where I believe a key methodological error occurs.  Merely 
because a texttype-as-a-whole has a reading which also occurs in a 
synoptic or other parallel should not automatically be inferred as the 
result of direct harmonization and not merely that in such a case 
parallel passages happen once more to agree (just as they do frequently).

A back-door example of this situation is the phrase "dia tou aimatos
autou" which appears in the TR in both Eph. 1:7 and Col.1:14.  The
Ephesians passage is textually certain.  In the Colossians passage
however, the Byzantine MSS are divided, with the slight majority of them
choosing NOT to include the harmonizing passage.  Were the Byzantine
scribes so strongly influenced by this tendency to harmonize, as alleged,
we would not find a mere 40% of them harmonizing Colossians to Ephesians,
but the "normal" 99+%.  The very fact that the vast majority of Byzantine 
MSS did NOT harmonize in such a doctrinally-significant phrase 
eloquently demonstrates that they did NOT have this overarching tendency.
Further illustrations in precisely the same vein can be given throughout 
the synoptic gospels as well.

The point should be well observed: merely because two readings in 
parallel places agree, it does not follow that harmonization occurred. 
The _possibility_ for harmonization exists in any such case, but by 
careful examination of the tendencies of individual scribes in their own 
separate MSS, one will clearly find that harmonization did occur on a 
sporadic basis, but not on the large scale so as to dominate the 
prevalent Textform as a whole.  

Even harmonizations alleged for the minority texttypes must be carefully
examined to determine whether they are really such, or perhaps the result
of scribal error by omission or other causes.  From my own examination of
the readings of the Alexandrian texttype, I find most differences from the
Byzantine to be explainable by the suggestion of error in a common
archetype rather than any deliberate attempt at harmonization.  The same
courtesy should be afforded the Byzantine texttype, mutatis mutandis, with
the understanding from a Byzantine-priority perspective that the common
archetype is considered to be the autograph, in which case any agreement
among parallel passages merely reflects the autograph, and nothing more. 

> have fewer letters.  

Line omission can encompass more than the actual number of letters in a
line.  It depends upon where the scribe's eye leaves the exemplar and
where he returns to.  Homoioteleuton is one type of parablepsis; line
omission is another.  Each of these can encompass a short passage or a
quite lengthy passage. But there are numerous instances which can be
documented in Aleph of unique omission (singular readings) which are more
than a single line, but less than two lines.  One example would be the
singular omission of the entire verse Mt.24:35 in Aleph, where 52 or 53
letters are omitted (certainly not a multiple of 14), and where
homoioteleuton would not play a part. 

> Of course, I realize that the exemplar might have had
> 16 characters per line.  

And that could be the case (but it would not help in the Mt.24:35 case 
above).  We probably should speak of a basic line omission PLUS several 
additional characters, until the scribe's eye finally found a resting 
place which was convenient.  *:-)

> Line omission was a central theme in A. C. 

Although some people seem to think A.C.Clark was writing text-critical 
fiction *:-).  On the whole, Clark does make some very good points, and 
ones which I believe do help explain the situation of the Alexandrian 
text as contrasted with the Byzantine.  Clark's error was in going back 
to far to establish the source.  

With due consideration he should have been able to see what Colwell saw
many years later regarding the Western text, viz., that it represented the
uncontrolled popular text of the second century, and was thus an
_expansion_ of whatever the original text may have been rather than itself
being that original text.  

Even though Colwell would not agree (though Kenneth W. Clark would have),
a cursory examination should demonstrate that the textual source of the
Western MSS must have been a Byzantine original.  Had Clark considered
these points more carefully, I think he might have reconsidered where his
textual train (which kept losing baggage at each stop along the way before
it ended up at Alexandria) had its station of origin. 

=========================================================================
                       Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.
            Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament
              Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
                      Wake Forest, North Carolina
                   <[email-masked]>
=========================================================================