Subject: MS copying simulation program

From: Timothy John Finney <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 15:24:20 +0800 (WST)

I am putting the source code (named simmss.c) for the copying simulation
program I mentioned during the discussion on archetype and autographs on
the tc ftp site: 

ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/uploads

To make it run you need to download it to your area of the machine you use
with ftp. Then compile it (type cc simmss.c on a unix machine) then run
it (type a.out on a unix machine). Lots of the machines through which
you get your email will do this. 

Sometimes you will just get a line of ones, which means that the original
MS was killed or died before it got copied. Other times you will get about
ten rows of numbers, which needs some explanation. For now, ignore the
first row. The other rows are manuscripts. The first five numbers in each
manuscript are: 

1) /* Is daughter MS alive? 1 = yes, 0 = no */
2) /* Year copy made */
3) /* MS lifespan */
4) /* Parent MS number */
5) /* Daughter MS number */

Notes on these numbers:

1) This number will always be 1 in the mss the program selects at the end
of its run because it finishes by selecting 10 (or some other number you
can choose) living mss. 

4) and 5) These are unique numbers consecutively assigned to each copy
as the program makes it, starting with 1 for the original. 

The other numbers are the variants. The original was a line of ones, but
the copies can have other numbers besides one. The way this happens is
that there is a probability (which you can set) that any particular
variation unit will change to a different variant. All the program
does is increments the existing variant by one. The heart of the program
is a random number generator which determines whether a variant is
incremented, whether a ms dies or is killed in a particular year or
whether a copy is made of a particular ms, which must be living to be
copied. 

Now for the explanation of the first row: the first five numbers are
always 1. The rest are the maximum numbers that the respective variants
were incremented to in each variation unit by the end of the program's
run. 

You can change the parameters the program runs with by using a text editor
to change them in the source program, then compiling and running it again.
A number of the parameters are inverse probabilities. An inverse
probability of 20 variants copied means that the likelihood of a variant
being changed (i.e. incremented) is one in twenty variants copied. 

Every time the program runs it should do something different (except for
when the original is killed before copies are made). 

Two files will be found in the same directory as the compiled program
(a.out) after the program has run. One is called Extant, and is a copy of
the mss chosen at random from those still living when the program has run
its course. The other is History which is a running history of the copying
as it happened. 

You can look at these and edit the source code (to change the parameters)
using a text editor. If your machine has pine as a mail program, it may
also have pico, which is a text editor. If so, type pico simmss.c to
edit the source code or pico History or pico Extant to look at those two
files. 

Tim Finney
Baptist Theological College
20 Hayman Rd, Bentley WA 6102
Australia

---

From: Timothy John Finney <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 15:34:49 +0800 (WST)

In partial reply to the comments by Maurice Robinson on 4 Apr 1996
concerning the scenario I put forward for the assemblage of an archetype
of the Pauline Corpus, I offer the following: 

It occurs to me that there is an important difference between the multiple
collections model of Maurice Robinson and the single collection model
which I reiterated (someone else must have already said it). The
difference is that the multiple model gives multiple independent early
witnesses to each component (i.e. autograph or copy of autograph), whereas
the single model does not. Therefore, the multiple model would, all other
things being equal, give a greater chance of recovering the autographs
than the single model, which would only allow recovery of its own
archetype which is the collection and not the autographs. So to answer the
question of the extent to which the autographs of the Pauline collection
are recoverable, it is necessary to decide between these models, if we
can. 

I am indebted to Maurice for his quote of Tertullian (who was writing a 
full century after the collection seems to have been made) which favours 
the multiple model. Nevertheless, I venture to say that Occam's razor 
favours the single model. (Occam's razor: The hypothesis which explains
the given evidence with the least (in number and difficulty) assumptions
is best.) I say that it is a lesser assumption that one person made the 
collection than a number of people or churches acting simultaneously. A 
kind of early canon would also be required for the multiple model, 
otherwise one would expect different sets of Pauline Letters in different 
MSS.

> My main argument against the single-corpus = archetype scenario is
> again transmissional: if errors existed in the corpus-archetype, why do
> they not exist among the extant MSS in significant quantity,
> transcending the various texttype limits?

Perhaps obvious primitive errors do not exist because they were corrected
by copyists who were used to correcting transcription errors. What happens
at the site of corruption is either a seamless correction, where the
intended text obvious, or Ôan explosion of variantsÕ, to paraphrase the
Alands, where not it is not so. How did you correct my errors? The "Ôtext
is obvious" in the first case, but did I intend to write "where not so" 
or "where it is not" or "where it is not so"? (Actually, I intended to
write what I did.)

> First problem: what are the "primitive corruptions" and how does one 
> authoritatively recognize them?  You cannot test a hypothesis without a 
> standard of comparison, and I doubt any two textual critics would agree 
> on a list of primitive corruptions for even Romans, let alone the 
> entire Pauline corpus.

Yes, this is a problem. Yet F.F. Bruce was bold enough to list what he 
thought may be a number of primitive corruptions in Hebrews.

Concerning the C program:

> Did you have a parameter included which would allow for a regular or 
> almost regular process of cross-comparison and correction to occur, 
> including a proviso that when the exemplar differed from the second MS 
> used for correction, a third copy might be sought out in at least 50% 
> of the cases.  If you can reprogram with that scenario included, I 
> again would be interested in the results.

I aÕm about to put the program on the tc ftp site. It is as I wrote it
without the suggested changes. There is a parameter that allows for
ÔcorrectinsÕ to be made, but not by comparison with otherMSS. The
suggestion to include a facility for MS correction by comparison is duly
noted, but will have to wait for more leisurely times. 

Tim Finney

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From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 09:50:14 -0400 (EDT)

Tim Finney has supplied us with the source code for his ms copying 
simulation program.  Thanks, Tim!  I need to correct the URL, however.  
The program can be downloaded from ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/pub/TC/simmss.c
(it is not possible to download from the uploads directory that Tim 
mentioned).  If anyone else on the list has material related to textual 
criticism that they would like to share with others, feel free to upload 
it ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/uploads.  Then let me (or the list) know 
that it is there, and I will move it to the /pub/TC directory.

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 <-----------------

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 20:03:14 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Timothy John Finney wrote:

> archetype which is the collection and not the autographs. 

This much is of course helpful to my own position, and I appreciate the 
slight nod in that direction.

> otherwise one would expect different sets of Pauline Letters in different 

Occam's Razor cuts both ways (a terrible pun), and I have myself argued 
that the hypothesis which offers the least amount of difficulties is that 
which should be presumptively favored.  

I can agree that, in the _absence_ of a recognized "canon" of Paul's
letters (disregarding theological or inspirational issues, but dealing
only with the primary issue of recognizing a basic "Pauline Corpus" as in
some way authoritative), the single model hypothesis would seem more
likely, and then the issue would become the date at which the single model
was created or collected, and how many intermediate steps may have
intervened between the autograph and that initial formation of the corpus
collection. 

However, if (as I obviously believe) the notion existed of some
"authority"  residing in the letters of Paul from the earliest stages or
very close thereto (as noted in e.g., 2Pet.3.15-16), then the multiple
model once more becomes the better hypothesis under Occam's razor.  If
there were an early concept of significance regarding Paul's letters, the 
Tertullian scenario becomes more likely than the alternatives, and it 
would be most logical for various churches to each secure their own 
copies of the Pauline epistles which were so recognized.  Although Paul 
certainly wrote other epistles, e.g. to the Corinthians and to the 
Laodiceans, either these were lost or destroyed, or for a significant 
reason they were not considered authoritatively Pauline or Pauline but 
not authoritative. 

Even within the single model hypothesis occurring at a later date, there 
would be no necessary reason why the one creator of the 14-epistle 
collection would suddenly be imbued with inviolability in the contents of 
that collection.  The text itself differs regarding texttype within the 
Pauline Corpus -- why could there not be multiple Pauline collections, 
some of which possessed only the longer epistles, some which contained 
only the prison epistles, some which included everything but the 
pastorals, and (especially) some which contained everything except Hebrews?
The single-model hypothesis does not prevent any of this from occurring, 
unless one desires to endow that original collector with infallibility 
which all churches subsequently recognized.   All in all, I still 
maintain that the multiple model not only best fits the historical 
situation, but also accords with the spread and development of texttypes 
within the Pauline Corpus without key errors spread among MSS of all 
texttypes, which should normally be the result if the archetype were 
founded at a point remote from the autographs.

> by copyists who were used to correcting transcription errors. 

This once more argues from silence for primitive errors which underlay 
significant portions of the text but are not present in our extant MSS, 
versions or fathers (or, alternatively, not in our Greek MSS, but 
preserved in versional or patristic witnesses alone).  Under the single 
model created remotely from the autograph, it would become highly 
unlikely that errors which already permeated the later archetype of the 
corpus would be independently and systematically eliminated by all 
scribes of all texttypes.  Cross-comparison and correction can go so far 
as to restore the text of the archetype, but would be unlikely to go 
beyond that archetype (assuming that the archetype and the autograph were 
unidentical).

> How did you correct my errors? The "text

But in that case, there was _no_ primitive error, but what was actually 
intended, and which made sense within the context, though still liable to 
correction by later revisionists.  Genealogical study of MSS which are 
known to be closely related (e.g. f1 f13 f1424, F-G, etc.) always tends 
to find commonly-held errors among the MSS comprising such a group.  It 
would be asking too much to assume that the case of the Pauline Corpus 
would be so different from what we see elsewhere.

> thought may be a number of primitive corruptions in Hebrews.

Bruce was a pessimist or an optimist, depending upon your point of view.  
I still want to see a place where _only_ the supposition of a primitive 
error can make sense out of the text we possess and where the existing 
text is otherwise incomprehensible or in utter error.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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