From majordom Wed May 1 01:28:53 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA14839; Wed, 1 May 1996 01:28:53 +0500 Message-Id: <9605010525.AA21650@osf1.gmu.edu> Subject: Re: Sampling and Vulgate To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 01:25:53 -0400 (EDT) From: "Stephen C Carlson" In-Reply-To: from "Maurice Robinson" at Apr 30, 96 10:25:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 975 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Maurice Robinson wrote: >The UBS apparatus is not exactly biassed toward texttype >interrelationships. The data taken from that apparatus still point to a >high degree of "mixture" in all non-Byzantine witnesses, and a mixture >which does not occur in any predictable pattern. In a brief comparison between my UBS4 (2d printing, which don't find difficult to read) and Hodges & Farstad, it is clear to me that numerous Byzantine-specific readings are not cited in UBS4. So I would say the UBS apparatus is biased against those readings in which the Byzantine texttype is the only support. If the goal is to determine how Byzantine the Vulgate is, the UBS apparatus almost systematically excludes the evidence most desired. 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 Wed May 1 07:30:30 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA15540; Wed, 1 May 1996 07:30:30 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 07:27:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Sampling and Vulgate In-Reply-To: <9605010525.AA21650@osf1.gmu.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2116 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 1 May 1996, Stephen C Carlson wrote: > Maurice Robinson wrote: > >The UBS apparatus is not exactly biassed toward texttype > >interrelationships. The data taken from that apparatus still point to a > >high degree of "mixture" in all non-Byzantine witnesses, and a mixture > >which does not occur in any predictable pattern. > In a brief comparison between my UBS4 (2d printing, which don't find > difficult to read) and Hodges & Farstad, it is clear to me that > numerous Byzantine-specific readings are not cited in UBS4. So I > would say the UBS apparatus is biased against those readings in which > the Byzantine texttype is the only support. > > If the goal is to determine how Byzantine the Vulgate is, the UBS > apparatus almost systematically excludes the evidence most desired. The statistical issue raised in regard to the UBS apparatus is primarily in regard to establishing basic MS interrelationships by way of near-neighbor clusters. For that purpose, the elimination of the strictly Byzantine readings would not change the normal totals which might be arrived at by analysis of the remaining readings. In the case of the Vulgate, I think that any comparison of the performance of the Vulgate versus "M" in N26 in those places which the UBS apparatus did not touch will show that the Vulgate hardly gets more "Byzantine" in places where the Byzantine reading is the strongest. Rather, the Vulgate partakes of a certain degree (ca.40%) of Byzantine "tendency" more in places where the Byzantine reading itself is divided and portions shared among MSS of other texttypes. My suspicion is that, were the more purely Byzantine readings added in from N27, the Vulgate would end up appearing even LESS aligned with the Byzantine Textform than the UBS data tend to imply. _________________________________________________________________________ Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From majordom Wed May 1 08:10:53 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA15675; Wed, 1 May 1996 08:10:53 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 96 07:07 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Mathematical methods (Was: Re: Sampling and Vulgate) Content-Length: 2744 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 30 Apr 96, broman@Np.nosc.mil (Vincent Broman) > >If your sampling method is biased, increasing the sample size won't help, >the larger sample will still be biased, it just has a smaller variance. I must disagree with both halves of this statement. First, increasing the sample size DOES help, at least somewhat (to argue by analogy -- if you take a public opinion poll, and ask 90% of the people, you don't have to use an unbiased sample; you will still be close. Not that I am claiming to sample anything like 90% of the variants). Also, we should not mistake the meaning of variance. This is REALLY important, folks. I am a mathematician; I KNOW. Everything you ever hear about variance, standard deviation, and other measures of "precision" is based on the so-called "Normal Distribution" or "Bell Curve." But not everything follows normal distributions. I could cite quite a few examples if I went to my math library (stellar radiation patterns spring quickly to mind). There is no reason to believe that textual relationships follow a normal distribution. It may be so, but the fact needs to be proved. (And until it is, you cannot draw ANY conclusions from variance.) There is, in fact, reason to believe that the distribution is NOT normal, but instead has a bunch of spikes. We call the spikes "Text-types." In any case, let's remember what variance and standard deviation are meant to measure. They measure the SPREAD of a curve around the mean. Thus, once the shape of a curve is established, increasing the sample size does NOT significantly reduce the variance. In any case, we are not measuring a distribution here. In any given reading, two manuscripts can do only two things. They can agree, or they can disagree. They cannot have "63% agreement," or some such. There is NO curve for the variance to measure. Just two spikes, with "truth values" 0 and 1. Please, folks, let's get our mathematics right. >The RELATIVE statistics are =exactly= what gets botched up >by bias in your sampling. What you need is a sampling method >that you can convince your readers is totally independent of >what you're trying to measure. "Totally" independent? No such thing. I'm not saying my sample is perfect. I would prefer one that is at once larger and less biased. But I have yet to see something better offered. Certainly the statistical basis used by the Alands is worse; the sample is smaller AND conforms to their peculiar baises. >And you would have a hard time convincing me that the selection >of variants in the UBS3 apparatus is =independent= of the attestation >by texttypes. That last statement, at least, I agree with. That's the exact reason why I increased the sample. Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Wed May 1 12:27:57 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA16698; Wed, 1 May 1996 12:27:57 +0500 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 12:26:10 -0400 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: nichael@sover.net (Nichael Lynn Cramer) Subject: Re: Mathematical methods (Was: Re: Sampling and Vulgate) Content-Length: 2892 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Robert B. Waltz wrote: >On Tue, 30 Apr 96, broman@Np.nosc.mil (Vincent Broman) >>If your sampling method is biased, increasing the sample size won't help, >>the larger sample will still be biased, it just has a smaller variance. >I must disagree with both halves of this statement. First, increasing >the sample size DOES help, at least somewhat (to argue by analogy -- >if you take a public opinion poll, and ask 90% of the people, you >don't have to use an unbiased sample; you will still be close. Not >that I am claiming to sample anything like 90% of the variants). I think, thought, that the critical phrase in the above, though, is "If your sampling method is biased". In the analogy of the public opinon poll an obvious case would be if, for some reason you were only to poll Republicans or, say, people in your immediate telephoning area (reportedly the fallacy that was responsible for the poll that led to that wonderful photograph of Truman holding the newspaper above his head). The point being that either of these cases simply increasing the sample size, under the _existing_ polling conditions, would do nothing to increase the accuracy of the poll (excluding the trivial case of "increasing the poll until you had polled every Republican in the country and were forced to start including others".) >Also, we should not mistake the meaning of variance. This is REALLY >important, folks. I am a mathematician; I KNOW. Yes, there are many of us here who have such training. (In point of fact, this in itself serves as a good example of point above. I.e. the population in question here is --because of the nature of the medium-- _strongly_ biased towards computer and other professionals who have had (typically much) more technical training than a comparably-sized sample of the "population at large". ;-) >[...] >>And you would have a hard time convincing me that the selection >>of variants in the UBS3 apparatus is =independent= of the attestation >>by texttypes. > >That last statement, at least, I agree with. That's the exact reason >why I increased the sample. But again, haven't we come full circle to the issue of manuscripts needing to be "weighed not counted"? The critical issue, of course, is the neccessity of demonstating the _independence_ of the elements of the sample, otherwise it is useless to simply increasing the total number of manuscripts. As a trivial example, if manuscript Y is shown to be a direct copy of manuscript X including both has does nothing meaningful increase the sample size in the same way that, say, were some verion shown to be tracable to a single exemplar the dozen or perhaps hundreds of manuscripts of that version carries no more weight than that of a single manuscript. Nichael nichael@sover.net __ http://www.sover.net/~nichael Be as passersby -- IC From majordom Wed May 1 12:29:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA16707; Wed, 1 May 1996 12:29:16 +0500 Date: Wed, 01 May 1996 10:34 -0500 (EST) From: Paul_O'Rear@SIL.ORG Subject: Swanson specifics To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Message-Id: <01I46U26C402000RZO@SIL.ORG> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 1878 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Just for other readers' general information, Swanson lists the following manuscripts as being cited in the introduction of all four volumes: Papyri: p1,p2,p5,p6,p19,p22,p25,p35,p36,p37,p39,p46,p52,p53,p59,p60,p62,p63,p6 6,p75,p76,p82 Uncials: Aleph,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,K,L,M,N,P,Q,S,T,U,W,Y,Gamma,Delta,Theta,Lambda,P i,Psi,Omega,071 or otherwise 01,02,03,04,05,07,09,012,013,017,019,021,022,024,026,028,029,030,032,0 34,036,037,038(in Swanson there is type of Theta = 037 as well as Delta),039,041,044,045,0171 Minuscules: 1(f1),2,13(f13),28,33,69(f13),118(f1),124(f13),157,565,579,700,788,107 1,1346(f13),1424,1582(f1) Church Fathers: Clement of Alexandria (Cl) ca.200 GNT editions: u = UBS 4th ed./Nestle-Aland 27th ed. w = Westcott/Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, 1935 tau = H KAINH DIAQHKH, Reproduced by photographic offset at the University of Chicago Press from H KAINH DIAQHKH (Oxford, 1873). ======================= Quite an impressive list and work. The inclusion of the GNT editions is also quite a nice bonus. Hope this helps! Attribute any errors here to scribal oversight! Paul O'Rear %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Paul A. O'Rear % Paul.O'Rear@sil.org %% %% International Translation Dept. % 100341.2131@compuserve.com %% %% Summer Institute of Linguistics % paul_orear@msn.com %% %% 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd. % CIS: 100341,2131 %% %% Dallas, TX 75236 % %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% From majordom Wed May 1 12:52:58 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA16796; Wed, 1 May 1996 12:52:58 +0500 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 12:51:12 -0400 To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: nichael@sover.net (Nichael Lynn Cramer) Subject: Re: Swanson specifics Content-Length: 761 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu At 10:34 AM 5/1/96, Paul_O'Rear@SIL.ORG wrote: > Just for other readers' general information, Swanson lists the > following manuscripts as being cited in the introduction of all four > volumes: > [...] Paul Thanks for clearing this up. I was the one who originally raised this question. As a specific example, the sample page included in the flier that was sent around seems to imply that only one of the papyri was included. It's good to know that this representative of the books as a whole. (And thanks to everyone who responded to my query about Swanson. I ordered my copies yesterday. ;-) Nichael nichael@sover.net __ http://www.sover.net/~nichael Be as passersby -- IC From majordom Wed May 1 12:56:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA16824; Wed, 1 May 1996 12:56:38 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 96 09:53:00 PDT From: broman@Np.nosc.mil (Vincent Broman) Message-Id: <9605011653.AA29311@Np.nosc.mil> To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu In-Reply-To: (waltzmn@skypoint.com) Subject: Re: Mathematical methods (Was: Re: Sampling and Vulgate) Content-Length: 4424 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- waltzmn@skypoint.com replied: > ...First, increasing > the sample size DOES help, at least somewhat (to argue by analogy -- > if you take a public opinion poll, and ask 90% of the people, you > don't have to use an unbiased sample; you will still be close. Not > that I am claiming to sample anything like 90% of the variants). Elementary counterexample: Try to estimate the number of homeless by taking a telephone poll, contacting 95% of the phone subscribers in your town. Your sample is huge, but it excludes nearly all the homeless, making the bias catastrophic. > Also, we should not mistake the meaning of variance. This is REALLY > important, folks. I am a mathematician; I KNOW. Perhaps. > Everything you ever hear about variance, standard deviation, and > other measures of "precision" is based on the so-called "Normal > Distribution" or "Bell Curve." A variance is defined for any random variable X with known distribution and finite mean (not just Normal distributions) as $ Var(X) = E( |X - E(X)|^2 ) $ if this quantity is finite. I think there is some confusion here between the $ \sigma^2 $ parameter of Normal distributions and the Variance defined for general distributions. > In any case, let's remember what variance and standard deviation > are meant to measure. They measure the SPREAD of a curve around the > mean. Thus, once the shape of a curve is established, increasing > the sample size does NOT significantly reduce the variance. The whole point of the Weak Law of Large Numbers and of the Central Limit Theorem (for general distributions) is to show that under certain conditions certain variances decrease to zero at a certain speed as you take more and more samples. Now these conditions require repeated independent samples from a random variable, and the New Testament textual tradition is not a random variable, but we treat it as such as long as we don't observe all the data out there but only subsets of the data. If larger samples don't decrease the uncertainty or variance, why would we ever take more than one sample? > In any case, we are not measuring a distribution here. In any > given reading, two manuscripts can do only two things. They can > agree, or they can disagree. They cannot have "63% agreement," or > some such. There is NO curve for the variance to measure. Just > two spikes, with "truth values" 0 and 1. > > Please, folks, let's get our mathematics right. Yes, please. Whenever historic data is discussed in terms of probabilities, we are not saying the past events themselves are still random, we are describing our uncertainties about the future event of our encountering the rest of the data. For example, we examine the MS in the even-numbered chapters and then predict the trends we expect to see in the odd-numbered chapters, not yet examined. When we talk about two MSS agreeing in, say, 58% of the units of variation listed in Tischendorf, then we mean one of two things, generally. 1. We have collated all of both MSS and counted the 58% agreement. or 2. We have compared samples from the MSS and _estimate_ that 58% of the sampled and unsampled units of variation would be agreements. Case 2 involves a model (perhaps unconscious) of the text being a sequence of Bernoulli trials, each having a probability, p, of showing an agreement and a probability 1-p of disagreement. Under certain conditions, the "best" estimator of this parameter, p, is the ratio of the number of sample agreements to the number of samples. > "Totally" independent? No such thing. Pardon the absolutistic language. "Independent enough for the present purpose" was meant. The one who judges the "enough" being the reader, of course. Vincent Broman, code 783 Bayside Email: broman@nosc.mil Naval Command Control and Ocean Surveillance Center Research Development Test and Evaluation Division San Diego, CA 92152-6147, USA Phone: +1 619 553 1641 === PGP protected mail preferred. For public key finger broman@np.nosc.mil === -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMYeWa2CU4mTNq7IdAQE7TAP/cj7MTsFE3RLOgXjnqCvWJoQVxHBt6JG4 cqBXBPhv89lZZihEuWc4LaJPrDnnUkYqTP/+Z2L3giCq412ff15UKo33ZcNC5hzn IG/cQ1lDxRf90NpgfVkpRweWJOJ5kUppHosfKjRhN31nQ3QQ1ObpyrLZANkzPx4R fX1AOqskH1c= =lV7c -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From majordom Wed May 1 13:43:58 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17099; Wed, 1 May 1996 13:43:58 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 96 10:40:23 PDT From: broman@Np.nosc.mil (Vincent Broman) Message-Id: <9605011740.AA29392@Np.nosc.mil> To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu In-Reply-To: (message from Maurice Robinson on Wed, 1 May 1996 07:27:28 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: Sampling and Vulgate Content-Length: 563 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu mrobinsn@mercury.interpath.com said: > ...My suspicion is that, > were the more purely Byzantine readings added in from N27, the Vulgate > would end up appearing even LESS aligned with the Byzantine Textform than > the UBS data tend to imply. Yup. Even the NA apparatus is highly biased (selective) in this regard. In a study I did of 179 variants dividing the Byzantine and Alexandrian traditions, 30% of them (53) went unmentioned in the NA26 apparatus, and of course many fewer in the UBS apparatus. Vincent Broman From majordom Wed May 1 14:34:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17467; Wed, 1 May 1996 14:34:02 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 96 13:30 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Mathematical Methods... A Modest Proposal :-) Content-Length: 2835 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Since I don't want this to descend into an all-mathematically-inclined-people war, may I offer a proposal: Can we, perhaps, come up with an agreement on what, exactly, we think is needed to accurately compare manuscripts? If we can state what we would ideally need, maybe we can decide how close to this we can come. The criteria I would look for (and note that I did _not_ claim to achieve them all, merely to have come closer than previous attempts) would include the following: 1. Large sample sizes (at least a thousand readings in the gospels, 300 in Acts, 750 in Paul, 200 in the Catholics, 250 in the Apocalypse). This not only increases the polling accuracy of our sample, it allows us to examine individual books and parts of books IF we need to. It also gives us a better shot at classifying fragments. 2. Unbiased but intelligent selection of readings. By "intelligent" I mean that we don't use too many variants of the type "add/omit article," or the like, which cannot be rendered in the versions, nor too many variants where scribes could easily have made a change my accident (e.g. between future indicative and aorist subjunctive). By "unbiased" I mean that we not take many variants of the "D-and-a-few-Old-Latin-against-the-world" type. 3. A mathematical methodology that counts more than simple agreements. For example, I have worked with overall agreements (which seek for sister manuscripts), agreements where both manuscripts are non-Byzantine (for seeking related mixed manuscripts), agreements where the Byzantine text is divided (for classifying Byzantine groups), and "near-singular readings" -- readings which are sufficiently unusual that they probably represent derivation from a common ancestor. 4. A complete independence from previous results. We must not start with preconceptions, and we must not assume it in our results. One of the worst mistakes I ever made was in assuming that the lists of "Alexandrian" manuscripts in Metzger and Greenlee were correct. I trusted them, and created a definition of the "Alexandrian" text in my database. And needed most of a year to recover from the mistake. I retain the right to add to this list. This is just what sprang to mind instantly. I'd also like to know what people are looking for in such results. Colwell gave offered a proposal -- the famous (or infamous) 70/10 rule -- and eventually fathered the Claremont method. Claremont works for sisters, but can't handle mixed manuscripts -- and also was biased by previous assumptions. The 70/10 rule works only if one studies un-mixed manuscripts. We need something better. We probably cannot, at this stage, achieve ALL our goals. But until we state them, we cannot decide how close we can come. Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Wed May 1 14:52:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA17540; Wed, 1 May 1996 14:52:10 +0500 Message-Id: <9605011847.AA15385@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 01 May 96 20:51:19 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de(Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Textual Theory To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 6049 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: >Please note that this theory is ONLY for Paul; my work on other > areas is incomplete. I appreciate this statement very much, since, looking on so much statements in the discipline of tc, one is often confronted with results, though initially stemming only from one part of the NT (for example from the Gospels, or even just from Luke), but boldly extrapolated to the whole of NT textual transmission. >The first step is to identify text-types. This is a complex >matter which cannot be covered briefly; suffice it to say that >it is based on a statistical technique based on 550 readings >(for statistical purposes I would like to have more readings, >but I just haven't been able to come up with them) and about 50 >manuscripts... >Based on this, we find a large number of manuscript groupings, >some of which (e.g. 330-451-2492) seem not to have been noticed >before, and others (e.g. Soden's family 1319, which ought to >be called family 2127) which have been inadequately classified. The _Text und Textwert_ volumes from 1991 for the Pauline Epistles give the collation results of 798 MSS at 231 variation units. Do the results drawn therefrom with respect to MSS grouping differ significantly from the results drawn from the 50 MSS at 550 variation units (supposing that "550 readings" means 550 variation units)? The examples mentioned above could be easily found out, when consulting _Text und Textwert_. >There are, in Paul, FOUR manuscript families which give good >evidence of being independent of, and in my view predating, >the Byzantine text. a.)The independence of the Byz. text of these four manuscript families is one thing. But, on what reasons do they _predate_ the Byz. text? b.) What about the above mentioned MSS group (330-451-2492), and what about other MSS groups (for example 1505-2495-1611)? Are they not independent enough from the Byz. text? What makes the independent status of manuscript families? >Since we now have FOUR groups, rather than the two that come up >so often in textual studies, we are usually able to proceed on >a Majority basis. If a reading is found in all four groups, it >is certain. If a reading is found in three, I will accept it >unless there is VERY strong internal evidence. (Usually the only >evidence I accept in this case is assimilation of parallels.) >If the groups split evenly, then some other criterion must be >resorted to. This is where internal evidence usually applies. What about cases in which _the_ group readings may be uncertain, for the intra-group testimony is split? I assume internal evidence is applied here, too. >However, I take a very limited view of internal canons of >criticism. I maintain that there is ONLY ONE canon for internal >evidence: "That reading is best which best explains the others." >All other canons ("Prefer the harder reading," "prefer the shorter >reading," etc.) are simply corollaries of this rule, and should >be applied in this light. (This simple rule has other corollaries >which are often forgotten, e.g., "Prefer the MIDDLE reading.") This I appreciate very much: "That reading is best which best explains the others". But, why excluding the Byzantine text from this procedure? Sometimes the Byz. text gives readings which may help to explain other readings, and there is at least one instance within the Corpus Paulinum where the Byz. text gives a reading that best explains all readings and settles the case of the somehow scattered evidence of the four manuscript families mentioned above: The position of the doxology of Romans 16,25-27. a.) Parts of the "Western" family omit the doxology: F (G) 629. b.) Family 1739 is split: 1739 and 630 give the doxology after 16,23; 6, 424, and 1881 give the doxology after 14,23. c) The (other) Alexandrian family is divided, too: B and Sahidic give the doxology after 16,23, whereas P 46 gives the doxology after 15,33. d) The traditional Alexandrian family is split: aleph, C, Bohairic, 81, and 436 give the doxology after 16,23; 1175 gives the doxology after 14,23; so does 1506 but omitting chapter 16; A and 33 give the doxology after 14,23 _and_ after 16,23. Arguing from internal evidence the position of the doxology after 14,23 clearly best explains all other readings, since it is most unlikely that it should have been inserted at that position, as long as it is found in other positions (i.e. after 15,33 or 16,23). On the other hand, the removal of the doxology away from 14,23 seems most logical as long as chapters 15-16 follow. Puzzling enough, no homogeneous family gives this reading that best explains the others (at best three members out of five, cf. family 1739). But, on the other hand, the Byz. text most homogeneously gives this reading. To conclude therefrom: In this peculiar instance, the Byzantine text as a distinct entity displays a state of the text which is earlier than most of the scattered evidence of the four manuscript families mentioned above. >Technically this is an eclectic method. But it is a very limited >eclecticism; the only place where I REALLY have to be subjective >are when >1. The four text-types split into two groups, or >2. The text-types split into FOUR groups, or >3. The members of the various text-types are so divided that > the group reading cannot be determined. The above mentioned example from the Romans doxology might point to at least a fourth scenario concerning the subjective element (combining 2. and 3.): 4. The text-types split into FOUR groups, _and_ the members of the various text-types are so divided that the group reading cannot be determined. To sum up: The limited eclectic method exposed looks quite impressive to my mind. Nevertheless, I suspect the subjective element involved is much greater than expected. I may also point to my above mentioned questions concerning the lateness of the Byzantine text and the singeling out of _only_ four manuscript families. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From majordom Wed May 1 16:18:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA18167; Wed, 1 May 1996 16:18:08 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 96 15:14 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: Textual Theory Content-Length: 13865 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 01 May 96, schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) >On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: > >>Please note that this theory is ONLY for Paul; my work on other >> areas is incomplete. > >I appreciate this statement very much, since, looking on so much statements in >the discipline of tc, one is often confronted with results, though initially >stemming only from one part of the NT (for example from the Gospels, or even >just from Luke), but boldly extrapolated to the whole of NT textual >transmission. As a matter of fact, these results DO NOT apply to other areas in the Mew Testament. Even in the Catholics, which superficially bear the greatest similarity to the Paulines, the results are very different. I found three major texts there, all with subdivisions. (In this I independently verified the results of Duplacy.) >>The first step is to identify text-types. This is a complex >>matter which cannot be covered briefly; suffice it to say that >>it is based on a statistical technique based on 550 readings >>(for statistical purposes I would like to have more readings, >>but I just haven't been able to come up with them) and about 50 >>manuscripts... > >>Based on this, we find a large number of manuscript groupings, >>some of which (e.g. 330-451-2492) seem not to have been noticed >>before, and others (e.g. Soden's family 1319, which ought to >>be called family 2127) which have been inadequately classified. > >The _Text und Textwert_ volumes from 1991 for the Pauline Epistles give the >collation results of 798 MSS at 231 variation units. Do the results drawn >therefrom with respect to MSS grouping differ significantly from the results >drawn from the 50 MSS at 550 variation units (supposing that "550 readings" >means 550 variation units)? The examples mentioned above could be easily found >out, when consulting _Text und Textwert_. True to some extent. The examples I cited (330-451-2492, etc.) are sister manuscripts. What cannot be found from _Text und Textwert_ is the mixed manuscripts. Take, for example, 6. Its closest relative, in my sample, is L, with 69% agreement. The figures for other Byzantine manuscripts are similar. By contrast, 6 agrees with 1739 only 64% of the time. I don't have _Text und Textwert_ in front of me, but if those figures are representative, then T&T would show literally HUNDREDS of manuscripts as being closer to 6 than is 1739. Which is all well and good, except that 6's important kinship is with 1739. Where 6 is non-Byzantine, 6 and 1739 agree 85% of the time. Where BOTH are non-Byzantine, they agree some 95% of the time. Other than the members of family 1739, 6's closest relative in non-Byzantine readings is B, at 72%. So 6 is a weak member of family 1739 -- and this is not evident from _Text und Textwert_. >>There are, in Paul, FOUR manuscript families which give good >>evidence of being independent of, and in my view predating, >>the Byzantine text. > >a.)The independence of the Byz. text of these four manuscript families is one >thing. But, on what reasons do they _predate_ the Byz. text? Whether I can prove they predate the Byzantine text, of course, depends on what date you assign the Byzantine text. If you accept the Byzantine text as being fourth century, then the four groups I mentioned can be shown to be earlier. The early date of the p46-B group follows from the fact that p46 is third century or earlier. Aleph-A-C-I-33 was in existence by the fourth century, and the group had already begun to fracture by that date; therefore it must predate the fourth century. In the case of D-F-G, the proof comes from the Old Latin. In the case of family 1739, the evidence is that this text is largely similar to that of Origen. Of course, if you accept the Byzantine text as original, I can't prove these text-types to precede it. But they are certainly all early. >b.) What about the above mentioned MSS group (330-451-2492), and what about >other MSS groups (for example 1505-2495-1611)? Are they not independent enough >from the Byz. text? What makes the independent status of manuscript families? I cannot trace the history of 330-451-2492 before the eleventh century. It may be post-Byzantine. Also, it is more Byzantine than not. So this group, while a family with independent text, does not qualify as an early text-TYPE. In the case of 1505-1611-2495-syh (to which 1022 can be added in the Pastorals), the family is obviously old, since it is found in the Harklean version. Beyond that it cannot be dated. It MAY be the vague remnants of an independent (Syriac?) text-type. But in any case, it is more Byzantine than anything else. So it offers little help in group analysis. One can never tell whether a group reading is an early survival or just Byzantine mixture. I noted that I had to resort to other methods when I had a two-versus-two split in text-types. One of my "other methods" was consulting the other manuscript groups. >>Since we now have FOUR groups, rather than the two that come up >>so often in textual studies, we are usually able to proceed on >>a Majority basis. If a reading is found in all four groups, it >>is certain. If a reading is found in three, I will accept it >>unless there is VERY strong internal evidence. (Usually the only >>evidence I accept in this case is assimilation of parallels.) >>If the groups split evenly, then some other criterion must be >>resorted to. This is where internal evidence usually applies. > >What about cases in which _the_ group readings may be uncertain, for the >intra-group testimony is split? I assume internal evidence is applied >here, too. Sometimes, but not often. For example, if family 1739 is split, it will usually be found that several members of the family are Byzantine, while the others are non-Byzantine. Since all the members of the family suffer Byzantine influence, and all but 1730 have suffered heavy Byzantine influence, I take the non-Byzantine reading. Technically, I suppose this is "internal evidence." But the process is hardly subjective. The only place where I really have trouble is where p46 and B split. There I do have to guess at readings sometimes -- but this rarely makes a difference in the ultimare result. >>However, I take a very limited view of internal canons of >>criticism. I maintain that there is ONLY ONE canon for internal >>evidence: "That reading is best which best explains the others." >>All other canons ("Prefer the harder reading," "prefer the shorter >>reading," etc.) are simply corollaries of this rule, and should >>be applied in this light. (This simple rule has other corollaries >>which are often forgotten, e.g., "Prefer the MIDDLE reading.") > >This I appreciate very much: "That reading is best which best explains the >others". But, why excluding the Byzantine text from this procedure? Who said I omitted the Byzantine text from this procedure? I will admit that I may miss something in analysing it. But in analysing which reading best explains the others, I try to take ALL text-types into account. >Sometimes >the Byz. text gives readings which may help to explain other readings, and >there >is at least one instance within the Corpus Paulinum where the Byz. text >gives a >reading that best explains all readings and settles the case of the somehow >scattered evidence of the four manuscript families mentioned above: The >position >of the doxology of Romans 16,25-27. > >a.) Parts of the "Western" family omit the doxology: F (G) 629. >b.) Family 1739 is split: 1739 and 630 give the doxology after 16,23; 6, 424, >and 1881 give the doxology after 14,23. >c) The (other) Alexandrian family is divided, too: B and Sahidic give the >doxology after 16,23, whereas P 46 gives the doxology after 15,33. >d) The traditional Alexandrian family is split: aleph, C, Bohairic, 81, >and 436 >give the doxology after 16,23; 1175 gives the doxology after 14,23; so >does 1506 >but omitting chapter 16; A and 33 give the doxology after 14,23 _and_ after >16,23. > >Arguing from internal evidence the position of the doxology after 14,23 >clearly >best explains all other readings, since it is most unlikely that it should >have >been inserted at that position, as long as it is found in other positions >(i.e. >after 15,33 or 16,23). On the other hand, the removal of the doxology away >from >14,23 seems most logical as long as chapters 15-16 follow. >Puzzling enough, no homogeneous family gives this reading that best >explains the >others (at best three members out of five, cf. family 1739). But, on the other >hand, the Byz. text most homogeneously gives this reading. > >To conclude therefrom: In this peculiar instance, the Byzantine text as a >distinct entity displays a state of the text which is earlier than most of the >scattered evidence of the four manuscript families mentioned above. In assessing this evidence, let me point out that one of the purposes of my method is to eliminate the effects of Byzantine mixture. That's one reason why we need family groupings. Thus in two cases the family reading is obvious: family 1739, as represented by 1739 630, places the doxology after 16:23 (the other manuscripts of the group have been influenced by the Byzantine text) (Which brings up a footnote: readings of 424* have NO SIGNIFICANCE. The absence of a correction in 424** does not mean that the exemplar used for correction agreed with 424*. The corrector could have missed a reading, or been unsure of what the correction meant, or could have been sure that the corrected text was wrong. We cannot speculate on readings we cannot see -- e.g. the readings of the manuscript used to correct 424 when 424 shows no correction.) The Alexandrian text, as represented by aleph, C, bo, has the doxology after 16:23. The reading of A 33 is the result of mixture. 1175, although late Alexandrian in most of Paul, is thoroughly Byzantine in Romans (so is 33, for that matter. And 2464. I didn't get into those details). The readings of p46 are 1506 are peculiar, and deserve notice (I've been fascinated for years by 1506's omission of Romans 16). But since they are singular, no great case can be built upon them. I concede the split in the "Western" text. I can't agree with your assessment of the internal evidence. It omits at least one point: Marcion's editorial work on the epistle. I think the possibility must at least be considered that the variation in the placement of the doxology is the result of Marcion's using a shorter form of Romans. We must also consider the possibility that Marcion _wrote_ the doxology. If it makes any difference, I concede this is a very difficult reading. I could cite others (Col. 3:6 springs to mind). But one or two difficult readings do not invalidate the method. >>Technically this is an eclectic method. But it is a very limited >>eclecticism; the only place where I REALLY have to be subjective >>are when >>1. The four text-types split into two groups, or >>2. The text-types split into FOUR groups, or >>3. The members of the various text-types are so divided that >> the group reading cannot be determined. > >The above mentioned example from the Romans doxology might point to at least a >fourth scenario concerning the subjective element (combining 2. and 3.): >4. The text-types split into FOUR groups, _and_ the members of the various >text-types are so divided that the group reading cannot be determined. I will agree -- theoretically. But I know of only one reading where this _both_ conditions apply to the extent that it affects things. The reading is in 1 Cor. 6:5 (and the NA27 apparatus does not treat it). I'm sure there are others -- but not many. >To sum up: The limited eclectic method exposed looks quite impressive to my >mind. Nevertheless, I suspect the subjective element involved is much greater >than expected. I don't deny subjectivity. But I consider it much less subjective than the system followed by the UBS editors. And more solidly grounded than the method followed by Westcott and Hort. >I may also point to my above mentioned questions concerning the >lateness of the Byzantine text and the singeling out of _only_ four manuscript >families. There could well be more manuscript families. There COULD even be some early families. I don't claim this is the last word. If I could, I would apply my techniques to all the manuscripts and be certain. But as a non- professional, I haven't had time. I'm doing what I can. The one thing I would observe is that the results in _Text und Textwert_ would seem to imply that there are no more "outstanding" manuscripts out there. (By "outstanding" I mean entirely free of Byzantine influence.) I have little use for the Alands' system of classifying minuscules, but it does provide an indication of Byzantine influence. Of their Category I and II manuscripts, I have classified almost all: p46 -- with B aleph -- Alexandrian A -- Alexandrian, with some slight mixture B -- with p46 C -- Alexandrian, with some mixture D -- "Western" F -- "Western" (and why is F category II and not G?) I -- Alexandrian 33 -- Alexandrian (except in Romans) 81 -- Late Alexandrian 256 -- family 2127 (probably; based on von Soden's collations) 1175 -- Late Alexandrian (Mostly; not in Romans or Thessalonians) 1506 -- Alexandrian (although of a peculiar type; needs a good study) 1739 -- family 1739 1881 -- family 1739 1962 -- Late Alexandrian; with 436 2127 -- family 2127 2464 -- Late Alexandrian (and not really good enough to be category II) This list includes everything but 442 (which MIGHT go with 1962, but I haven't much to go on). So it seems unlikely that there are any PURE representatives of PURE text-types omitted. And I'm sure this is all anyone ever wanted to hear on the subject! Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Wed May 1 21:53:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA19461; Wed, 1 May 1996 21:53:06 +0500 Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 21:50:06 -0400 From: SheMichael@aol.com Message-Id: <960501215005_388213778@emout14.mail.aol.com> To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Textual Theory Content-Length: 138 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu In a message dated 96-05-01 16:28:31 EDT, you write: >in the >Mew Testament. < ) \l/ } l ) ) /l\ < From majordom Thu May 2 15:15:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA23579; Thu, 2 May 1996 15:15:16 +0500 Message-Id: <9605021910.AA24255@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 02 May 96 21:14:22 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de(Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Re: Textual Theory To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 9185 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Wed, 1 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: >What cannot be found from _Text und Textwert_ is the mixed >manuscripts. >Take, for example, 6. Its closest relative, in my sample, is L, >with >69% agreement. The figures for other Byzantine manuscripts are >similar. >By contrast, 6 agrees with 1739 only 64% of the time. >I don't have _Text und Textwert_ in front of me, but if those >figures >are representative, then T&T would show literally HUNDREDS of >manuscripts >as being closer to 6 than is 1739. Since I have _Text und Textwert_ in front of me, I may give the statistics therefrom concerning 6 related to 1739. I may point out that in these statistics only the units of variation were counted where 6 departs from the Majority text -safe for those instances where the Majority text is judged to be original (1/2 readings in Aland's terminology)-, _and_ displays no singular reading (these statiscis are easily found in the _Hauptliste_, concluding each presentation of the data of the different epistles): Romans - 86% agreement, with two MSS closer to 6 than 1739. 1.Cor - 97% agreement, no MS closer to 6. 2.Cor - lower than 70%, not in the list. Gal - 78% agreement, no MS closer to 6 . Eph - 82% agreement, 1739 is the colsest non fragmentary MSS to 6. Phil - 100% agreem., 1739 is the closest non fragmentary MS to 6. Col - 50% agreement, with 12 MSS closer to 6. 1.2.Thess - 80% agreement, with 6 other MSS closest to 6. Pastorals + Philemon - 90% agreement, no MS closer to 6. Hebrews - 90% agreement, with one MS closer to 6. Safe for 2.Cor and Col the overall picture is clear: NO OTHER MS is closer to 6 than 1739. >So 6 is a weak member of family 1739 -- and this is not evident >from _Text und Textwert_. Well, the statistics given above tell a different story. One should better check the tools, before criticizing them. Robert b. Waltz further wrote: [quoting Schmid:] >>a.)The independence of the Byz. text of these four manuscript >>families is one >>thing. But, on what reasons do they _predate_ the Byz. text? >Whether I can prove they predate the Byzantine text, of course, >depends on what date you assign the Byzantine text. >If you accept the Byzantine text as being fourth century, then the >four groups I mentioned can be shown to be earlier. The early date >of the p46-B group follows from the fact that p46 is third century >or earlier... No comment on that for the moment. I only wanted to know, if there is other reasoning involved, apart from the classical argument from the age of the witnesses. (Assessing this point seems to be Maurice's job). [again quoting Schmid:] >>This I appreciate very much: "That reading is best which best >>explains the others". But, why excluding the Byzantine text from >>this procedure? >Who said I omitted the Byzantine text from this procedure? Nobody said that explicitely. I was just assuming this, when following Bob's line of argument. >I will admit that I may miss something in analysing it. But in >analysing which reading best explains the others, I try to take >ALL text-types into account. Well, I just missed this, my fault. Thank you for clarification. Robert B. Waltz further wrote: [omitting Schmid's long quotation on the evidence concerning the place of the doxology:] >I can't agree with your assessment of the internal evidence. It >omits at least one point: Marcion's editorial work on the epistle. >I think the >possibility must at least be considered that the variation in the >placement of the doxology is the result of Marcion's using a >shorter form of Romans. >We must also consider the possibility that Marcion _wrote_ the >doxology. Well, "Marcion's editorial work on the epistle" often serves as _deus ex machina_. Especially with respect to the ending of Romans Marcion is either held responsible for omitting chapters 15-16, or for writing the doxology. But this is mostly due to not being acquainted with the evidence. In my recent post I refrained from taking Marcion's testimony into account, simply because I wished to know how Bob handles the problem. The undisputed evidence concerning Marcion's shorter form of Romans is the following: a.) Origen testifies that the Marcionite letter to the Romans lacked chapters 15-16, _and_ the doxology. b.) Tertullian testifies that the Marcionite letter to the Romans was heavily mutilated (lacking at least parts of Rom 2 and most of Rom 9-11). c.) There is additional evidence within the Old Latin prologue tradition and the Old Latin capitula systems that a shorter form of Romans (lacking chapters 15-16, but including the doxology) circulated even outside the Marcionite tradition. To conclude therefrom: a.) It seems most unlikely that Marcion added the dogology to the shorter form of Romans, since the Marcionite edition(s) of the 3rd century lacked the doxology too (cf. Origen). b.) It seems also most unlikely that Marcion _created_ the shorter form of Romans (lacking chapter 15-16), because there is evidence of this form of Romans outside Marcionite circles, but there is NO evidence of the secure Marcionite omissions (parts of Romans 2 and most of Romans 9-11) outside Marcionite circles. c.) The only logical conclusion to me is to assume that there once must have been a pre-Marcionite edition of Romans (most likely being part of a pre-Marcionite edition of a 10 letter Corpus) that lacked chapters 15-16 (presumably due to mechanical corruption). Due to the abrupt ending of Romans after 14,23 the concluding doxology was added and so became part of the tradition. d.) The resulting variation of the postion of the doxology within the NT textual transmission can be easily explained by assuming cross contamination between the longer form of Romans 1,1-16,24 _lacking_ the doxology and the shorter form 1,1-14,23 _including_ the doxology. I now may return to Bob's referrence to Marcion. The "possibility that Marcion _wrote_ the doxology" is theoretically and practically ruled out -remember Origen's testimony in conjunction with Occam's razor. The consideration "that the variation in the placement of the doxology is the result of Marcion's using a shorter form of Romans" is vague to the extreme and in itself quite typical of how Marcion's testimony is generally used. It simply does not explain, why the doxology, being originally placed after 16,23, should ever have been removed from that position and put after 14,23 as long as chapters 15-16 still follow. What impact should "Marcion's using a shorter form of Romans" really have on this issue, especially when taking into consideration that a) Marcion's shorter form lacked the doxology, b) Marcion's shorter form also lacked parts of Rom 2 and most of Rom 9-11 (which certainly had no impact on tradition), and c) Marcion was at least from the time of Irenaeus considered as mutilating scripture? To my mind it seems beyond a reasonable doubt that Marcion neither created the shorter form of Romans (omitting chapters 15-16), nor appended the doxology, nor influenced the rest of tradition at this point. This is a pre-Marcionite phenomenon and the Byzantine tradition in this specific instance testifies to the presumably oldest form of the cross contamination of the longer and the shorter form of Romans. Lastly, I would like to apologize to Bob for having singled out his appeal to "Marcion's using a shorter form of Romans" in order to attack this type of argument. I shurely did not want to offend Bob with my somehow zealous attack. I should say that this appeal is very frequent, but only seldomly thought through with all it's implications. Seeing it repeated again and again just brings me up. So, sorry for that. I brought up the problem of the Romans doxology for two reasons: a.) I wanted to illustrate that applying the limited eclected method exposed by Bob sometimes may face problems that can not be solved from within the mere grouping and counting of ancient manuscript families. b.) Even more disturbing, there seems to be evidence of phenomena transcendending and antedating all our known text-types: different editions of Pauls letters. The limited eclectic method like most other theories presuppose the existence of one archetype of the textual transmission. But there is evidence that with respect to the textual transmission of the Pauline Corpus we have to deal with no clear only-one-archetype-situation. To conclude therefrom: I plea for weighing the _evidence_ (i.e. readings) rather than merely counting it, and focussing on an "unbiased but intelligent selection of readings". There I feel very much in agreement with Bob Waltz. He also wrote on Wed, 1 May 1996 in another post: > By "intelligent" I mean that we don't use too many variants of >the type "add/omit article," or the like, which cannot be rendered >in the versions, nor too many variants where scribes could easily >have made a change my accident (e.g. between future indicative and >aorist subjunctive). By "unbiased" I mean that we not take many >variants of the "D-and-a-few-Old-Latin-against-the-world" type. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From majordom Thu May 2 17:57:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA24295; Thu, 2 May 1996 17:57:21 +0500 Date: Thu, 2 May 96 16:54 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: Textual Theory Content-Length: 7687 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Thu, 02 May 96, schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) wrote: >On Wed, 1 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: > >>What cannot be found from _Text und Textwert_ is the mixed >manuscripts. >>Take, for example, 6. Its closest relative, in my sample, is L, >with >>69% agreement. The figures for other Byzantine manuscripts are >similar. >>By contrast, 6 agrees with 1739 only 64% of the time. > >>I don't have _Text und Textwert_ in front of me, but if those >figures >>are representative, then T&T would show literally HUNDREDS of >manuscripts >>as being closer to 6 than is 1739. > >Since I have _Text und Textwert_ in front of me, I may give the statistics >therefrom concerning 6 related to 1739. I may point out that in these >statistics >only the units of variation were counted where 6 departs from the Majority >text >-safe for those instances where the Majority text is judged to be original >(1/2 >readings in Aland's terminology)-, _and_ displays no singular reading (these >statiscis are easily found in the _Hauptliste_, concluding each >presentation of >the data of the different epistles): > >Romans - 86% agreement, with two MSS closer to 6 than 1739. >1.Cor - 97% agreement, no MS closer to 6. >2.Cor - lower than 70%, not in the list. >Gal - 78% agreement, no MS closer to 6 . >Eph - 82% agreement, 1739 is the colsest non fragmentary MSS to 6. >Phil - 100% agreem., 1739 is the closest non fragmentary MS to 6. >Col - 50% agreement, with 12 MSS closer to 6. >1.2.Thess - 80% agreement, with 6 other MSS closest to 6. >Pastorals + Philemon - 90% agreement, no MS closer to 6. >Hebrews - 90% agreement, with one MS closer to 6. > >Safe for 2.Cor and Col the overall picture is clear: NO OTHER MS is closer >to 6 >than 1739. Interesting. Although, if I read your statement correctly, this is only in non-Byzantine readings. Not overall readings. Still, I would make three comments: 1. The fact that someone else generally agrees with my result hardly invalidates my method. :-) 2. If the closest manuscript to 6, in the list of overall agreements, is still 1739, it is a very strong argument for Broman's contention that the nature of one's sample STRONGLY AFFECTS one's results. 3. The results above are calculated based on PITIFULLY small samples. As I recall, _Text und Textwert_ uses only about 250 readings in the entire Pauline corpus. In individual books there are about three readings per chapter. (For instance, I believe there are ten readings in Colossians.) This is FAR too small a sample to give meaningful results -- especially since 6 has Byzantine readings in many of these places. I'm not saying the _Text und Textwert_ data is wrong. But it is not sufficient. (I'm not alone in saying this. Eldon Jay Epp has made similar comments.) >>So 6 is a weak member of family 1739 -- and this is not evident >from >>_Text und >Textwert_. Try looking at it from the other direction. What manuscript stands closest to 1739 in _Text und Textwert_? I think that, in a number of the list, it is B. (I could be wrong; I can't check this for a few days. But I think I recall that.) Rarely, if ever, does 6 top the list. But 6 _is_ a member of family 1739, and B is not. B just has a lot more non-Byzantine readings. So the only way I can locate 6 as a member of family 1739 is working from 6's list. We need a reciprocal tool. I have one; _Text und Textwert_ doesn't. >Well, the statistics given above tell a different story. One should better >check >the tools, before criticizing them. Depends on what one means by "criticism." _Text und Textwert_ is a massive achievement. It allows us to distinguish the 80-90% of minuscules which are Byzantine from the relatively few that are something else. >Robert b. Waltz further wrote: > >[quoting Schmid:] >>>a.)The independence of the Byz. text of these four manuscript >>families is >one >>>thing. But, on what reasons do they _predate_ the Byz. text? > >>Whether I can prove they predate the Byzantine text, of course, >depends on >what date you assign the Byzantine text. > >>If you accept the Byzantine text as being fourth century, then the >>four groups I mentioned can be shown to be earlier. The early date >>of the p46-B group follows from the fact that p46 is third century >>or earlier... > >No comment on that for the moment. I only wanted to know, if there is other >reasoning involved, apart from the classical argument from the age of the >witnesses. (Assessing this point seems to be Maurice's job). That's complicated. In Paul, the first witnesses to have a _purely_ Byzantine text are the ninth century uncials. But we see Byzantine influence as early as A and C, and quite a bit in the Syriac versions. It might be worth asking: Does it follow that the Byzantine text is the same age in all parts of the scriptures? I don't know. [...] > >Robert B. Waltz further wrote: > >[omitting Schmid's long quotation on the evidence concerning the place of the >doxology:] > >>I can't agree with your assessment of the internal evidence. It >omits at >>least >one point: Marcion's editorial work on the epistle. >I think the >>possibility must at least be considered that the variation in the >>>placement of >the doxology is the result of Marcion's using a >shorter form of Romans. >>We must also consider the possibility that Marcion _wrote_ the >doxology. > [Long argument about Marcion's text omitted] > >To my mind it seems beyond a reasonable doubt that Marcion neither created the >shorter form of Romans (omitting chapters 15-16), nor appended the >doxology, nor >influenced the rest of tradition at this point. This is a pre-Marcionite >phenomenon and the Byzantine tradition in this specific instance testifies to >the presumably oldest form of the cross contamination of the longer and the >shorter form of Romans. > >Lastly, I would like to apologize to Bob for having singled out his appeal to >"Marcion's using a shorter form of Romans" in order to attack this type of >argument. I shurely did not want to offend Bob with my somehow zealous >attack. I >should say that this appeal is very frequent, but only seldomly thought >through >with all it's implications. Seeing it repeated again and again just brings me >up. So, sorry for that. I don't consider this an attack. You have more facts at my disposal than I do. But if Marcion didn't make changes to the ending of Romans, nonetheless those changes OCCURRED. That still seems to me an easier explanation for the phenomena of Romans than Byzantine priority. >I brought up the problem of the Romans doxology for two reasons: >a.) I wanted to illustrate that applying the limited eclected method >exposed by >Bob sometimes may face problems that can not be solved from within the mere >grouping and counting of ancient manuscript families. Agreed. But if NT textual criticism were simple, we wouldn't still be arguing about it. :-) >b.) Even more disturbing, there seems to be evidence of phenomena >transcendending and antedating all our known text-types: different editions of >Pauls letters. The limited eclectic method like most other theories presuppose >the existence of one archetype of the textual transmission. But there is >evidence that with respect to the textual transmission of the Pauline >Corpus we >have to deal with no clear only-one-archetype-situation. On this I would be interested to hear your opinion. In most cases (Ephesians and Romans being perhaps exceptions), there could only be ONE autograph. There could well have been various editions of the Pauline corpus, but these are later than the autographs. Which are you proposing to reconstruct? Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Fri May 3 11:43:17 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27281; Fri, 3 May 1996 11:43:17 +0500 Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 11:40:11 -0400 From: SheMichael@aol.com Message-Id: <960503114011_389530831@emout17.mail.aol.com> To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Textual Theory Content-Length: 60 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu ouch, I thought my message was going to the sender. Sorry! From majordom Fri May 3 12:35:54 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA27535; Fri, 3 May 1996 12:35:54 +0500 Message-Id: <9605031603.AA46945@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 03 May 96 18:06:58 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de(Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Re: Textual Theory To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 14861 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Thu, 2 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: [quoting Schmid:] >>Safe for 2.Cor and Col the overall picture is clear: NO OTHER MS >>is closer to 6 than 1739. >Interesting. Although, if I read your statement correctly, this is >only in non-Byzantine readings. Not overall readings. Correct. There are basically two statistics in _Text und Textwert_. The _Hauptliste_ where the agreements in non-Majority text readings are given, and the _Ergaenzungsliste_, where the overall agreements are given. >Still, I would make three comments: >1. The fact that someone else generally agrees with my result >hardly invalidates my method. :-) Nobody said that. I was just commenting on Bob' statements on what _Text und Textwert_ in his opinion could not serve for. The 6-1739 relationship was his example. >2. If the closest manuscript to 6, in the list of overall >agreements, is still 1739, it is a very strong argument for >Broman's contention that the nature of one's sample STRONGLY >AFFECTS one's results. In the list of overall agreements 1739 is evidently NOT closest to 6. These results are found in the _Ergaenzungsliste_, where 1739 usually not even found its way into the printed statistics (some 30 closest MSS) related to 6 (the full statistics of the _Ergaenzungsliste_ as well as the full statistics of the _Hauptliste_ are available here in Muenster). >3. The results above are calculated based on PITIFULLY small >samples. As I recall, _Text und Textwert_ uses only about 250 >readings in the entire Pauline corpus. In individual books there >are about three readings per chapter. (For instance, I believe >there are ten readings in Colossians.) This is FAR too small a >sample to give meaningful results -- especially since 6 has >Byzantine readings in many of these places. Well, in the _Hauptliste_ (agreements in non-Majority text readings) 1739 is closest to 6 (mostly 80% and more agreements). In the _Ergaenzungsliste_ (overall agreements) 1739 is mostly not counted under the 30 closest MSS to 6 (around 60% agreements). >I'm not saying the _Text und Textwert_ data is wrong. But it is >not sufficient. (I'm not alone in saying this. Eldon Jay Epp has >made similar comments.) I do not claim that _Text und Textwert_ data are "sufficent". By the way, what does "sufficient" really mean in this particular instance? Sufficient for what purpose? Remember, my initial question was: "Do the results drawn from _Text und Textwert_with respect to MSS grouping differ significantly from the results drawn from the 50 MSS at 550 variation units?" I just wanted to assess the value and the limits of this published tool of referrence, when compared to other results. Bob offered up to now no example that proves his data to be more "sufficient" than the data from _Text und Textwert_. What other scholars state in this regard is simply of no value, _unless_ they prove the results from the data to be inferior when compared to other samples. I do not say that this might be impossible, but I need hard facts in order to know the limits of _Text und Textwert_ and to use it in an appropriate way. I concede that the handling of _Text und Textwert_ is not very easy, but from my own experiences it offers more significant results than most critics expect. >Try looking at it from the other direction. What manuscript stands >closest to 1739 in _Text und Textwert_? I think that, in a number >of the list, it is B. (I could be wrong; I can't check this for a >few days. But I think I recall that.) Rarely, if ever, does 6 top >the list. But 6 _is_ a member of family 1739, and B is not. B just >has a lot more non-Byzantine readings. So the only way I can >locate >6 as a member of family 1739 is working from 6's list. We need a >reciprocal tool. I have one; _Text und Textwert_ doesn't. If properly used _Text und Textwert_ too has a reciprocal tool. When compared to 1739, 6 is usually found under the 3 to 20 closest MSS. When looking at the rare or near singular readings which can also be done from the _Hauptliste_, then one finds some striking agreements between 1739 and 6 even in the _Hauptliste_ of 1739, which automatically would attract the attention of a careful student. So, please, before assessing the value of _Text und Textwert_, when compared to other statistics, use it and find out what can be achieved. We can, and should, talk about its limits, but only when carefully examined. >That's complicated. In Paul, the first witnesses to have a >_purely_ >Byzantine text are the ninth century uncials. But we see Byzantine >influence as early as A and C, and quite a bit in the Syriac >versions. >It might be worth asking: Does it follow that the Byzantine text >is the same age in all parts of the scriptures? I don't know. This is, indeed, a complicated matter. The questions of canonical status of various parts of the NT as well as the problem of randomly preserved witnesses are involved. For example in the General epistles the testimony of Chrysostomos is almost totally lacking. He is normally held to be to oldest extant witness to a fully developped Byzantine text, but, as you shurely know, most of Chrysostomos works are not available in modern critical editions, and the reliability of the Migne editions is an open question (though I personally would not be overall pessimistic on this issue). Even more disturbing, S. New, J. Geerlings, G. Zuntz, and others have severely challenged the view of a full blown Byz. text in the works of Chrysostomos even for the Gospels. Nevertheless, looking solely on the historically settled evidence from the General epistles the full blown Byz. text seems to be later at date compared to the Byz. text of the Gospels. When collecting the historically settled evidence from the General epistles, one finds, apart from some very interesting testimonies from the Old Latin (sometimes with highly interesting connections to P 72), simply speaking the older uncials (including few minuscules like 1739) and the late Byzantine text. But somehow in between we also find the Harclean Vorlage (105-1611-2138-2495 with some other MSS more or less connected). The Harklean Vorlage has roughly speaking two interesting features: a) compared to both, old uncials and late Byz. text, it shares some very significant distinct readings, b) again compared to both, it gives proportionally more readings that are found in the Byz. text than in the old uncials. So, it depends on how you look on that. I prefer to arrange the evidence in the way how it looks like in a historical perspective, i.e. the Harklean Vorlage testifies to the emergence of the Byz. text rather than to its full blown existence. But from a pro-Byzantine viewpoint one may arrange the evidence the other way round. Though I still hold the latter to be less likely, I think the ultimate decision on that must be sought by weighing the evidence. Therefore, I wish to focus on as much "unbiased and intelligent" units of variation as possible. And to my mind one such thing is the doxology of Romans. Concerning the doxology Bob further wrote: >You have more facts at my disposal than I do. But if Marcion > didn't make changes to the ending of Romans, nonetheless >those changes OCCURRED. That still seems to me an easier >explanation for the phenomena of Romans than Byzantine priority. Well, if changes occur, one simply has to apply the criteria of our discipline. The most prominent and valuable is: "That reading is best which best explains the others". And with respect to the position of the Romans doxology, the placing after 16,23 simply cannot explain the placing after 14,23 with chapters 15-16 still following. To my mind in this particular instance it is no matter of "easier explanation", but simply of _no_ explanation, when favoring the postion after 16,23. Note, we are not dealing here with transriptional matters that are often unconscious or subconscious phenomena. The changing position of the doxology involves editorial reasoning, and I simply fail to see any reasoning in the position of the doxology after 14,23 with chapters 15-16 still following. I also did not opt for absolute "Byzantine priority", but only for the relative priority of the reading that is most homogeniously attested by the Byzantine text, when compared to most of the older witnesses. Nevertheless, I do not consider the Byz. reading in this peculiar instance as the original reading. >>[quoting Schmid:] >>But there is evidence that with respect to the textual >>transmission of the Pauline Corpus we >>have to deal with no clear only-one-archetype-situation. >On this I would be interested to hear your opinion. In most cases >(Ephesians and Romans being perhaps exceptions), there could only >be ONE autograph. >There could well have been various editions of the Pauline corpus, >but these are later than the autographs. Which are you proposing >to reconstruct? Shure, theoretically there only could be ONE autograph with respect to the individual epistles as distinct entities. But practically, I think, one has to consider at least two initial copies of the individual epistles. Since Paul evidently used a secretary, often names co-authors, and sometimes refers to previous epistles, it seems evident to me that one copy of the individual epistles was sent and one copy was retained. This would be normal practice. And shurely the two copies would slightly differ (due to human nature). I do not hold this to be disturbing, and nobody else in antiquity would have been bothered by that, so I do not think that there was much cross-checking at a very early stage. However, there is a very early referrence to a faked letter (cf. 2.Thess 2,2; 3,17). But the issue there seems to be the fake of a whole letter and not of parts of a letter. Cross-checking normally only takes place, when there are severe doubts expressed (Pliny comes to my mind. He sometimes asked the emperor in his letters to cross-check various appeals of individuals based on written documents with the copies of that retained in Rome). So much to the initial stages. Editions including a certain number of letters prepared for publication and wider circulation is quite another thing. First, it depends on who did the job. If it was the author (cf. Pliny), he or (once for all) "she" would have presumably relied on the copies he retained (presumably without cross-checking). If it was not the author, but the one the letters had been addressed to (cf. Cicero's letters to Atticus), he would have taken the copies he had recieved (presumably without cross-checking). Second, if it was neither the author nor the recipient, it would depend on to what he actually had access, what he could assemble, to what purpose the edition was prepared (local edition, editio maior, etc.), and last, but not least what authority is ascribed to the one who did it. For example, Polycarp assembled letters from Ignatius, in fact the Philippian comunity seemed to have assumed that Polycarp was able to edit and distribute their Ignatian epistle. In this process I find only slight possibilites of cross-checking, because normally everyone trusts the other. And, if the edition once is prepared and circulates, the normal effect would be that its form of the text of the individual epistles supersedes the may be slightly different forms of the autographs. This is due because the editor is normally credited to have done a good job. Cross-checking against autographs would be not very likely. Only very few could have done this, and only with respect to a limited part of the whole edition. I may add that no matter who did the job, he was perfectly able to alter somehow the text of the individual letter, mainly by leaving out what he considers to be of no overall interest. He also would have been free to choose, if some letters are included or excluded. So, we are now confronted with a new archetype situation. This is presumably the normal way, how things go, when looking for a reasonable scenario covering the way from the individual letter to a letter edition replacing the autograph of the individual letter (cf. David Trobisch on the technical aspect of the whole subject). When looking at the Corpus Paulinum, the first thing to notice is that our extant MSS give no undisputed evidence to the circulation of individual letters. In fact, to my mind, the overall attested codex form heavily points to letter _collections_ even for the fragments. Second, the patristic evidence only points to two larger, major editions of the Corpus Paulinum: The 10 letter edition of Marcion (which is to my mind of pre-Marcionite origin) and the canonical 14 (13) letter edition, with the somehow ambigous role of Hebrews. Third, the letter sequenzes in our extant MSS are relativly stable. Fourth, within our extant textual tradition of the Corpus Paulinum, there is ample evidence that not all of the letters attributed to Paul are included. Assuming the integrity of the Pauline letters in their actual state of appearence, parts of the Corinthians and may be also parts of the Philippians correspondences seem to lack. Further, assuming Ephesians to be Ephesians and not Laodiceans, then Laodiceans is lacking too. Fifth, Romans (cf. the ending) and Ephesians (cf. the address) display a puzzling textual history within our extant textual tradition, and the solving of this puzzle seems to be found in the pre-Marcionite 10 letter edition (there Romans only had 14 chapters, and Ephesians was held to be Laodiceans). What we are reconstructing is either way only the text of the editions. This may sound pessimistic, but I do not think that there was so much evil doing involved, except for few very bad anti-judaic additions within the 10 letter edition. All in all most of the text is practically unaltered preserved, and up to now I found no compelling reason for judging it not going back to the autographs. But, remember some of Pauls letters are not part of the editions. So, it depends on one's own perspective to assume what else may be credited to the editors. As I said earlier, I personally do not think that there was much evil doing involved, I shurely do not believe in any conspiracy theory. Occam's razor is lurking behind all this stuff. But, on the other hand, it seems most unlikely to me to detect at each and every variation unit "the" reading of the autograph. What we are dealing with is the archetype of a textual tradition that was spread through _editions_, presumably through two major ones and not too much smaller ones. So this is, believe it or not, _in short_, what I think on this issue. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From majordom Fri May 3 15:18:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA28312; Fri, 3 May 1996 15:18:27 +0500 Date: Fri, 3 May 96 14:15 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: Textual Theory Content-Length: 13901 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Fri, 03 May 96, schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) wrote: >On Thu, 2 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: [omitting a large amount of material to which I have nothing to add] > >>3. The results above are calculated based on PITIFULLY small >>samples. As I recall, _Text und Textwert_ uses only about 250 >>readings in the entire Pauline corpus. In individual books there >>are about three readings per chapter. (For instance, I believe >>there are ten readings in Colossians.) This is FAR too small a >>sample to give meaningful results -- especially since 6 has >>Byzantine readings in many of these places. > >Well, in the _Hauptliste_ (agreements in non-Majority text >readings) 1739 is closest to 6 (mostly 80% and more agreements). In >the _Ergaenzungsliste_ (overall agreements) 1739 is mostly not >counted under the 30 closest MSS to 6 (around 60% agreements). > >>I'm not saying the _Text und Textwert_ data is wrong. But it is >>not sufficient. (I'm not alone in saying this. Eldon Jay Epp has >>made similar comments.) > >I do not claim that _Text und Textwert_ data are "sufficent". By >the way, what does "sufficient" really mean in this particular >instance? Sufficient for what purpose? Remember, my initial >question was: "Do the results drawn from _Text und Textwert_with >respect to MSS grouping differ significantly from the results drawn >from the 50 MSS at 550 variation units?" I just wanted to assess >the value and the limits of this published tool of referrence, when >compared to other results. Bob offered up to now no example that >proves his data to be more "sufficient" than the data from _Text >und Textwert_. > >What other scholars state in this regard is simply of no value, >_unless_ they prove the results from the data to be inferior when >compared to other samples. I do not say that this might be >impossible, but I need hard facts in order to know the limits of >_Text und Textwert_ and to use it in an appropriate way. I concede >that the handling of _Text und Textwert_ is not very easy, but from >my own experiences it offers more significant results than most >critics expect. I will concede the last statement. For example, I think it *proves* that there are, in Paul, *no* "Western" witnesses except D F G 629 and the Latin versions. I think it also demonstrated the existence of the 330-451-2492 family that I alluded to earlier (though it does not clearly show the rather complex relationships between the three). I will also admit that it is hard for me to prove the superiority of my sample. *I* have found many more relationships using my sample, but that *may* be because the data in _Text und Textwert_ is so hard to use (its practical utility would probably be doubled if all results for the same manuscript were placed on the same page). If I cannot demonstrate the superiority of my method, part of the problem lies in my sample -- too few readings (I would like 50% more), too biased a sample (I was forced to use readings found in GNT/UBS3 or in _Text und Textwert_), too many innacurate collations (e.g. half my readings for 1611 came from Merk's imperfect transcription of Von Soden's imperfect collations). But conceding all that, I remain very troubled by the data in _Text und Textwert_. I think the readings are biased (too many variants which have the "Western" text on one side and everything else on the other). I think there are too few variants where the Byzantine text divides. This makes it very difficult to establish the families within the Byzantine text -- and we *know* that families exist in the gospels, and can only suspect they are to be found elsewhere (e.g. 056 and 0142 form a pair, as do K and 0151). But most of all, I think there are too few variants. Ten entries in Colossians? That means each variant is responsible for 10% of a manuscript's score. One *typographical error* in entering a collation could completely obscure the results. One misread marginal comment could produce a singular reading in a manuscript. A sample that small is just too subject to "noise." Which also brings us to the question of statistical significance. This is worth remembering: A five percent difference in a sample with twenty readings is *not* significant. That represents a difference in one reading. If we had instead eighty or a hundred readings, and still maintained our five percent difference, *that* is significant. Turn to the Catholics for a minute. We've both alluded to the "harklean" family (which I follow Duplacy in calling family 1611). This family in fact has a large number of subfamilies -- 614+2412, 1505+2495, 630+1799+206+429, etc. Perhaps *you* could find them by examining _Text und Textwert_. I couldn't. I repeat, I think _Text und Textwert_ is a *tremendous* accomplishment. But it is *not* a sufficient manuscript classification tool. Probability theory makes this claim, and -- while I can't prove my statement otherwise -- unless firm COUNTERevidence can be offered, I will trust the mathematics. Which is a lot to say about what is really a rather minor point (the nature of _Text und Textwert_). We were *supposed* to be talking about how one uses the information derived from sampling methods. For the most part, _Text und Textwert_ confirms my claims. Which means that we can get back to analysing our critical data. And my apology for the long digression. :-) >>Try looking at it from the other direction. What manuscript stands >>closest to 1739 in _Text und Textwert_? I think that, in a number >>of the list, it is B. (I could be wrong; I can't check this for a >>few days. But I think I recall that.) Rarely, if ever, does 6 top >>the list. But 6 _is_ a member of family 1739, and B is not. B just >>has a lot more non-Byzantine readings. So the only way I can >>locate >>6 as a member of family 1739 is working from 6's list. We need a >>reciprocal tool. I have one; _Text und Textwert_ doesn't. > >If properly used _Text und Textwert_ too has a reciprocal tool. >When compared to 1739, 6 is usually found under the 3 to 20 closest >MSS. When looking at the rare or near singular readings which can >also be done from the _Hauptliste_, then one finds some striking >agreements between 1739 and 6 even in the _Hauptliste_ of 1739, >which automatically would attract the attention of a careful >student. Now *that* surprises me. Not that 6 has a number of near-singular agreements with 1739 (since that is a statistic I keep), but that you could work through the data enough to find it. But that's just because of the way _Text und Textwert_ is presented. Would you have discovered that fact if you had not been looking? [...] > >When collecting the historically settled evidence from the General >epistles, one finds, apart from some very interesting testimonies >from the Old Latin (sometimes with highly interesting connections >to P 72), simply speaking the older uncials (including few >minuscules like 1739) and the late Byzantine text. But somehow in >between we also find the Harclean Vorlage (105-1611-2138-2495 with >some other MSS more or less connected). The Harklean Vorlage has >roughly speaking two interesting features: a) compared to both, old >uncials and late Byz. text, it shares some very significant >distinct readings, b) again compared to both, it gives >proportionally more readings that are found in the Byz. text than >in the old uncials. The question -- which I do not claim to have the answer to -- is, "Was there ever a purer text behind family 2138?" This family, in the general epistles, is clearly distinct from the Byzantine text. But it is not an Alexandrian text (so Duplacy against Richards. And the evidence, as far as I'm concerned, clearly supports Duplacy). Duplacy thinks family 2138 is the "Western" text. I think not; it doesn't share many readings with the Old Latin. (Though this is hardly proof, given how few Old Latin witnesses there are in the general epistles.) This is a question that needs a good study. >So, it depends on how you look on that. I prefer to arrange the >evidence in the way how it looks like in a historical perspective, >i.e. the Harklean Vorlage testifies to the emergence of the Byz. >text rather than to its full blown existence. But from a >pro-Byzantine viewpoint one may arrange the evidence the other way >round. Though I still hold the latter to be less likely, I think >the ultimate decision on that must be sought by weighing the >evidence. Therefore, I wish to focus on as much "unbiased and intelligent" >units >of variation as possible. And to my mind one such thing is the doxology of >Romans. Agreed in general. >Concerning the doxology Bob further wrote: > >>You have more facts at my disposal than I do. But if Marcion >> didn't make changes to the ending of Romans, nonetheless >>those changes OCCURRED. That still seems to me an easier >explanation for the >phenomena of Romans than Byzantine priority. > >Well, if changes occur, one simply has to apply the criteria of our >discipline. >The most prominent and valuable is: "That reading is best which best explains >the others". We obviously agree on this one, since I said that it is the ONLY canon of internal criticism. >And with respect to the position of the Romans doxology, the >placing after 16,23 simply cannot explain the placing after 14,23 with >chapters >15-16 still following. To my mind in this particular instance it is no >matter of >"easier explanation", but simply of _no_ explanation, when favoring the >postion >after 16,23. Note, we are not dealing here with transriptional matters >that are >often unconscious or subconscious phenomena. The changing position of the >doxology involves editorial reasoning, and I simply fail to see any >reasoning in >the position of the doxology after 14,23 with chapters 15-16 still following. Agreed. I think that, if the fourteen chapter form circulated widely, it would explain the inclusion of the doxology after chapter 14. But apparently the fourteen chapter form was not common. >I >also did not opt for absolute "Byzantine priority", but only for the relative >priority of the reading that is most homogeniously attested by the Byzantine >text, when compared to most of the older witnesses. Nevertheless, I do not >consider the Byz. reading in this peculiar instance as the original reading. That follows from my approach to the witnesses, but you've certainly offered some interesting arguments. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Maurice Robinson. Unlike most other proponents of the Byzantine text, he clearly *knows* the evidence, and has a developed theory of the text. I wish I knew more about it. [large omission with which I have no quarrel] > >When looking at the Corpus Paulinum, the first thing to notice is that our >extant MSS give no undisputed evidence to the circulation of individual >letters. >In fact, to my mind, the overall attested codex form heavily points to letter >_collections_ even for the fragments. Second, the patristic evidence only >points >to two larger, major editions of the Corpus Paulinum: The 10 letter edition of >Marcion (which is to my mind of pre-Marcionite origin) and the canonical >14 (13) >letter edition, with the somehow ambigous role of Hebrews. I would agree, with one caveat: p46 apparently omitted the Pastorals. So there may have been *three* editions. Still, it seems quite clear that *at least* the ten letters in Marcion's canon were found in all editions which circulated. I think, in fact, that the evidence of p46 supports your belief that Marcion's canon preceded him. >Third, the letter >sequenzes in our extant MSS are relativly stable. Fourth, within our extant >textual tradition of the Corpus Paulinum, there is ample evidence that not all >of the letters attributed to Paul are included. Assuming the integrity of the >Pauline letters in their actual state of appearence, parts of the Corinthians >and may be also parts of the Philippians correspondences seem to lack. >Further, >assuming Ephesians to be Ephesians and not Laodiceans, then Laodiceans is >lacking too. Fifth, Romans (cf. the ending) and Ephesians (cf. the address) >display a puzzling textual history within our extant textual tradition, >and the >solving of this puzzle seems to be found in the pre-Marcionite 10 letter >edition >(there Romans only had 14 chapters, and Ephesians was held to be Laodiceans). > >What we are reconstructing is either way only the text of the editions. >This may >sound pessimistic, but I do not think that there was so much evil doing >involved, except for few very bad anti-judaic additions within the 10 letter >edition. All in all most of the text is practically unaltered preserved, >and up >to now I found no compelling reason for judging it not going back to the >autographs. But, remember some of Pauls letters are not part of the editions. >So, it depends on one's own perspective to assume what else may be credited to >the editors. As I said earlier, I personally do not think that there was much >evil doing involved, I shurely do not believe in any conspiracy theory. >Occam's >razor is lurking behind all this stuff. But, on the other hand, it seems most >unlikely to me to detect at each and every variation unit "the" reading of the >autograph. I agree. I believe that there are probably places where "the" original reading is lost to us. Westcott and Hort had their marginal readings and their obeli marking questionable readings. I think this has some value; in my personal text I mark questionable readings and readings where I simply *cannot* determine the original with confidence. >What we are dealing with is the archetype of a textual tradition that >was spread through _editions_, presumably through two major ones and not too >much smaller ones. > >So this is, believe it or not, _in short_, what I think on this issue. :-) Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Fri May 3 19:02:49 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA29603; Fri, 3 May 1996 19:02:49 +0500 Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 18:06:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Textual Theory In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 3788 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Fri, 3 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: [Re: the doxology in Romans] [Schmid:] >>I >>also did not opt for absolute "Byzantine priority", but only for the relative >>priority of the reading that is most homogeniously attested by the Byzantine >>text, when compared to most of the older witnesses. Nevertheless, I do not >>consider the Byz. reading in this peculiar instance as the original reading. [Waltz:] > That follows from my approach to the witnesses, but you've certainly offered > some interesting arguments. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Maurice > Robinson. Unlike most other proponents of the Byzantine text, he clearly > *knows* the evidence, and has a developed theory of the text. I wish I > knew more about it. [Robinson:] I wrote to Ulrich privately and said I would gladly bow out of this discussion, since he was _de facto_ defending the Byzantine placement of the doxology as (at least) the source which underlies all extant MSS. In that regard I agree fully, though of course I still will maintain that the Byzantine reading does _not_ imply a 14-chapter version of Romans which somehow preceded what we have; rather I think that Romans reads quite well with the Byzantine doxology at 14:23 and the inclusion of 16:24 as the "real" end of Romans. My suspicions are that Paul was intending to end his epistle at chapter 14, but then added chs. 15 and 16 as an afterthought (one still has to deal with the peculiar placement of the doxology in P46 at the end of ch.15 as a clear early deviation from whatever else must have been the original form, since no good reason would, as Ulrich noted, ever have existed for the re-location of the doxology to the end of ch.14 had it not been there originally). I personally see no reason to argue for a shorter original form of Romans in the utter absence of MS evidence. I would suggest that, for the Pauline Epistles at least, the matter of the Romans doxology is a very significant matter. If indeed the Byzantine Textform is correct here, in regard to the placement of a significant block of text, and if no other extant form among our existing witnesses could easily be acknowledged as the source of all the other variants (I did say "existing" and not hypothetical speculations regarding what might have been), then a presumptive case remains for the possible autograph originality of the Byzantine Textform in at least the remainder of Romans, and as likely within the entire Pauline Corpus. So long as a definite transmissional history is attempted, and not a mere disjointed eclectic procedure in which the doxology is just one other unrelated variant unit, there seems to be little relief from the implication of the Byzantine placement of the doxology. Of course, if one wishes to speculate concerning non-existent "partial" or "short" copies of Romans, or creatively speculate concerning an original doxology at either the end of ch.15 or at its current location at the end of ch.16, I will definitely listen to the hypotheses, but I will be most interested in learning how, after the doxology or the other chapters are inserted in different places, the Byzantine scribes all decided to include both the doxology at the end of ch.14 as well as include all of chs.15 and 16 without relocation of the doxology to the end of ch.16 as the supposedly "earlier" or "original" (as per UBS4/N27) Alexandrian scribes seem to have done (if earlier, why would anyone relocate it to ch.14?). _________________________________________________________________________ Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From majordom Sun May 5 10:02:31 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05560; Sun, 5 May 1996 10:02:31 +0500 Message-Id: <9605051357.AA55122@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 05 May 96 16:01:42 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de(Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Pastorals on Papyri? To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 307 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu By the way, who focussed recently on supposed non-existent papyri testimonies for the Pastorals? May be someone else checked this too. May be I simply miss the point, due to lapse of memory, but P32 is a fragment from Titus 1,11-15 (recto); 2,3-8 (verso), dated around 200 AD. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From majordom Sun May 5 10:02:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05567; Sun, 5 May 1996 10:02:48 +0500 Message-Id: <9605051358.AA50781@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 05 May 96 16:02:00 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de(Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Re: Textual Theory To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 15621 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Fri, 3 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: [quoting Schmid:] >>What other scholars state in this regard is simply of no value, >>_unless_ they prove the results from the data to be inferior when >>compared to other samples. I do not say that this might be >>impossible, but I need hard facts in order to know the limits of >>_Text und Textwert_ and to use it in an appropriate way. I >>concede that the handling of _Text und Textwert_ is not very >>easy, but from my own experiences it offers more significant >>results than most critics expect. >I will concede the last statement. For example, I think it >*proves* that there are, in Paul, *no* "Western" witnesses except >D F G 629 and the Latin versions... I would like to withdraw the term "prove" in my obove mentioned statement, and have to have it replaced by "give examples that". >I will also admit that it is hard for me to prove the superiority >of my sample. *I* have found many more relationships using my >sample, but that *may* be because the data in _Text und Textwert_ >is so hard to use (its practical utility would probably be doubled >if all results for the same manuscript were placed on the same >page). I do not want anybody to "prove" something in this peculiar instance, for what we are dealing with are only reative samples compared to the overall evidence. I was just focussing on the point that there are some critics of _Text und Textwert_ who seem to simply rule down the validity of that tool, without giving evidence that they fully evaluated the data. There are two things I would like to say on that. First, I again concede that it is not easy to work with _Text und Textwert_. But, I suspect, doubeling its practical utility by, for example, placing all the results for the same manuscript on one page, would have doubled the space needed. Second, I recall my own first steps in getting acquainted with _Text und Textwert_. It took me a good deal of time, and I was driven down at least one blind alley. But, since it is a _published_ tool of referrence, I would like to know about others experiences in testing it in order to assess its validity and limits, when compared to other samples. >But conceding all that, I remain very troubled by the data in >_Text und Textwert_. I think the readings are biased (too many >variants which have the "Western" text on one side and everything >else on the other). I think there are too few variants where the >Byzantine text divides. This makes it very difficult to establish >the families within the Byzantine text... Well, the readings are choosen out of the pool of known variant readings which the different textual theories (safe, I think, the pro-Byzantine position) up to know considered as significant. I admit that it is only a small sample out of that pool, and one could argue on some of the readings. On the other hand, the goal of _Text und Textwert_ was _not_ to achieve an exhausted survey into the depths of the Byzantine text, but to single out the MSS which deviate more or less significantly from the Majority text. The predominant intention was to get a referrence tool that may be of help when choosing MSS for a new _editio critica maior_. And therefore, the deviation from the Majority text was singled out as a point of referrence in order to detect those MSS which had to become part of a critical apparatus. >But most of all, I think there are too few variants. Ten entries >in Colossians? That means each variant is responsible for 10% >of a manuscript's score... >Which also brings us to the question of statistical significance. >This is worth remembering: A five percent difference in a sample >with twenty readings is *not* significant. That represents a >difference in one reading. If we had instead eighty or a hundred >readings, and still maintained our five percent difference, *that* >is significant. I totally agree with that. The fewer items a sample has, the lesser is the significance drawn from percentage alone. To partly overcome such a situation it is absolutely necessary to weigh the evidence. Therefore, the full collation data are given, so one could check every single reading within the conspectus of all readings of a variation unit. The _quality_ of a reading (transposition, addition, omission, substitution, etc.), especially when rare readings or subsingulars are involved, has a high value (may be with the exception of the Byzantine text, for in its later strata almost no such readings seem to occur). I admit that not all of the units of variation are pertinent to such an assessment. But, I think, for the sake of balance one also has to include some transpositions or minor additions, because they too could turn out to be more significant than usually expected. >Turn to the Catholics for a minute. We've both alluded to the >"harklean" family (which I follow Duplacy in calling family 1611). >This family in fact has a large number of subfamilies -- 614+2412, >1505+2495, 630+1799+206+429, etc. Perhaps *you* could find them >by examining _Text und Textwert_. I couldn't. The Catholics are a good example, because my friend Klaus Wachtel -who wrote his dissertation on _Der Byzantinische Text der Katholischen Briefe_- and I got our training on _Text und Textwert_ from the General epistles. Before we started to work with T&T we had been focussing on Claremont-profile, because we could not imagine that T&T would be particularly helpful when assessing the Byz. text; T&T simply was not designed for that. Then we started with MSS groupings from T&T and related the findings to von Soden's groupings. Klaus carefully examined all the MSS groups he singled out on the bases of T&T (for details consult his book published in: Arbeiten zur Neutestamentlichen Textforschung 25, deGruyter: 1995). I should add that Klaus not only counted the evidence, but also gives a 215 pp. textual commentary on the 98 _Teststellen_. Here I may give only few results based on counting. a.) With respect to the Harklensis Vorlage (1505-1611-2138-2495) Klaus not only could determine the intra-group relationships, but he also could classify the related MSS (206-429-522-614-630- 1292-2200-2412) in their relationship to one another and to the primary witnesses. For example the differences are mainly due to the supplementation of the related MSS in the last three epistles (2John -Jude) from at least two different Vorlagen. And lastly another partly close MS to 2138 could be identified: In James and 1Peter 1890 is very close to 2138, _and_ 1890 turned out to be the missing 1522. b.) The first interesting fact with respect to the Majority text was that NO single MS completely AGREES with the Majority of witnesses at all the given 98 Teststellen (orthographicals or itacims are not counted as deviations from the Majority text!). So by consequence, a Majority text theory built solely on mere counting would result in an eclectic text! NO single Majority-text manuscript in the proper sense of the term can be found within the bulk of 522 MSS for the General Epistles. (This is not contra Maurice Robinson. I am well aware that he holds other theoretical standards. But may be there are some who want to go an easier way.) c.)To assess the Byz. MSS Klaus singled out _Leitlesarten_ -i.e. readings that depart from the Majority text, but are attested by at least 100 Byz. MSS. These readings are very interesting because the could help finding out even slighter changes within the Majority text. It turned out that von Soden's Kr group was identified by means of a distinct pattern at the _Leitlesarten_, shurely more complete and more precise than von Soden's. In the General epistles 23 MSS belong to Kr -i.e. they give at 98 units of variation identical readings and share the distinct pattern. (Complete collation samples of two of these MSS in Jamens and 1Peter prove this striking feature even from the corrections in these MSS.) Another 15 MSS depart from that characteristic pattern only once, and another 10 only twice. >I repeat, I think _Text und Textwert_ is a *tremendous* >accomplishment. >But it is *not* a sufficient manuscript classification tool. >Probability theory makes this claim, and -- while I can't prove >my statement otherwise -- unless firm COUNTERevidence can be >offered, I will trust the mathematics. There is no need to distrust the mathematics at this point. From T&T of the General epistles it is possible to classify most of the 150 MSS that depart more than 10% from the Majority-text by means of grouping them. From the remaining 372 MSS roughly 18% could be settled by referrence to Kr. This, I would say, is indeed a tremendous accomplishment, especially when compared to von Soden. But, I never claimed T&T to be a sufficient manuscript classification tool. Exactly therefore I would like to compare the results drawn therefrom with the results drawn from other samples. >Now *that* surprises me. Not that 6 has a number of near-singular >agreements with 1739 (since that is a statistic I keep), but >that you could work through the data enough to find it. >But that's just because of the way _Text und Textwert_ is >presented. >Would you have discovered that fact if you had not been looking? Well, after a few bad experiences as a novice, I developped a certain manner to work with T&T. Since the information are very condensed in only few statistics, one normally has to look at least twice at the _Hauptliste_. This is, as I am used to it, no major problem, if the parameters are clear. >The question -- which I do not claim to have the answer to -- is, >"Was there ever a purer text behind family 2138?" This family, in >the general epistles, is clearly distinct from the Byzantine text. I do not have an answer to this question either. But it is interesting that Thomas of Harkel, who used in 616 AD a text very similar to family 2138 as Vorlage, chose one Greek MS for Acta and the General epistles, two for the Pauline Epistles and three for the Gospels. As far as I can see up to now, Thomas' text in the Pauline epistles tends to be slightly more Byzantine (as do 1505-1611-2495), but could by no means be called Byzantine. So may be this points to different dates the Byz. text of the various parts of NT developped. Another striking feature in the Harklensis Corpus Paulinum seems to be that Thomas' second MS he used did not display a more Byzantine text compared to the other Vorlage (1505-1611-2495), but a text that displays readings found in MSS like aleph B D F G 1739. If we take into consideration the goal for and the time in which the Harklensis was made, the whole thing becomes disturbing for a pro-Byzantine position. The Harklensis was made in 616 AD and designed to be an exact (!) translation from Greek MSS for the Syriac monophysite church to improve on and supersede the (Peshitta and) Philoxeniana in order to get an adequate referrence tool for theological debates with the main Greek speaking churches at that time. For this task good MSS had been chosen, presumably ones that reflected not only mere local texts, unless one presumes this local texts to be recognized (and spread) from Egypt to Syria and probably Byzanz too. But if so, then the label "local text" has to be applied to the Byz. text too, and explains virtually nothing with respect to an overall theory of textual transmission from a pro-Byz. viewpoint. Concerning the ending of Romans, Bob further wrote: >I think that, if the fourteen chapter form circulated widely, it >would explain the inclusion of the doxology after chapter 14. But >apparently the fourteen chapter form was not common. I think it depends on how early the cross-contamination took place and what other evidence can be added. a.) The fourteen chapter form evidently was part of the pre-Marcionite 10 letter edition. There is evidence to this edition even outside Marcionite circles not only with respect to the shorter form of Romans, but also with respect to the distinct letter sequenzes. b.) There are various other readings in Gal, 1.Cor, Eph, and 1.Thess, that the Marcionite text testifies to, which are found exclusively either in the Old Latin ("Western"), or Old Syriac, or Alexandrian or Byzantine textual tradition. To one of these readings the "Western" text testifies by giving a conflate reading (Marcionite text on the one side and Alex. + Byz. texts on the other side), to another of these readings the Byz. text testifies by giving a conflate reading (Marcionite text + 3 minuscules on the one side and most of the Alex. witnesses on the other side). c.) To conclude therefrom: The Marcionite text seems to antedate all our known text-types at least in their actual state of appearance. Since it seems to be more plausible to assume a pre-Marcionite text to have spread these readings, than the Marcionite text himself as a distinct _Marcionite_ entity, there is more evidence to a pre-Marcionite 10 letter edition that affected the rest of tradition. d.) I agree with presupposing that the 14 chapter form of Romans once must have played a more prominent role, but I think, this has to be assessed within the conspectus of the pre-Marcionite 10 letter edition. This edition indeed must have played a prominent role, since some of its readings (including the doxology of Romans) are now to be found spread all over the textual tradition. But on the other hand, since Marcion himself charged others on the base of the 10 letter edition of having corrupted Pauls letters, and was charged the same by others mainly on the base of the 14 (13) letter edition, it is easily explanable why the 10 letter edition was singled out and no longer transmitted outside Marcionite circles. Some remainders of that edition, nevertheless, survived within NT textual transmission (MSS, versions, patristic testimonies). [quoting Schmid Bob further wrote:] >>Second, the patristic evidence only points to two larger, major >> editions of the Corpus Paulinum: The 10 letter edition of >>Marcion (which is to my mind of pre-Marcionite origin) and the >>canonical >14 (13) letter edition, with the somehow ambigous role >>of Hebrews. >I would agree, with one caveat: p46 apparently omitted the >Pastorals. So there may have been *three* editions. I am really not shure on P46 omitting the Pastorals. The crucial point is that P46 apparently lacks 14 pages at the end, but the missing 2Thess and Pastorals would have required (cf. Kenyon) 23 pages. Kenyon assumes that P46 originally contained 2Thess but lacked the rest leaving the last 10 pages blank. Others think Philemon was originally contained too leaving the last 8 1/2 pages or so blank. Others opted for a shortened form of the Pastorals included. There are three points which to my mind have to be taken into consideration: a.) For a single-quire codex as P46, due to its nature, one has to calculate the space required for the text _before_ starting to write. b.) The stichoi numbers in P46 are somehow misleading (Eph, though longer than Gal, was counted as having 59 stichoi less than Gal). c.) From the middle of the codex the numbers of letters per line and the numbers of lines per page tend to increase. To conclude therefrom: P46 gives at least some evidence that there must have been initial miscalculation taken place. So, this MS cannot be used as firm evidence with respect to a third and different edition of Pauls letters. Ulrich Schmid. Muenster From majordom Sun May 5 17:11:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA06928; Sun, 5 May 1996 17:11:21 +0500 Date: Sun, 5 May 1996 17:06:32 -0400 Message-Id: <199605052106.AA14077@vnet.net> X-Sender: mburrill@popmail3.vnet.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: "Mark E. Burrill" Subject: Acts 9:5 Content-Length: 588 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Can someone comment on the phrase in Acts 9.5-6 SKLHRON SOI PROS KENTRA LAKTIZEIN....KAI O KURIOS PROS AUTON I'm currently teaching Acts in my SS class. I've noticed that many commentators use this phrase to suggest an inward conviction of Paul prior to his conversion. Since the "Standard" text (and translations thereof) does not include the phrase, I am puzzled as to its history. What MS evidence is there in support of it? Am I correct in assuming that since my UBS-4 does not even address it, that the evidence for it is negligible? Thank You Mark E. Burrill mburrill@vnet.net From majordom Sun May 5 18:01:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA07019; Sun, 5 May 1996 18:01:24 +0500 Date: Sun, 5 May 96 16:58 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: Acts 9:5 Content-Length: 1159 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Sun, 5 May 1996, mburrill@popmail3.vnet.net wrote: >Can someone comment on the phrase in Acts 9.5-6 > >SKLHRON SOI PROS KENTRA LAKTIZEIN....KAI O KURIOS PROS AUTON > >I'm currently teaching Acts in my SS class. I've noticed that many >commentators use this phrase to suggest an inward conviction of Paul prior >to his conversion. Since the "Standard" text (and translations thereof) does >not include the phrase, I am puzzled as to its history. What MS evidence is >there in support of it? Am I correct in assuming that since my UBS-4 does >not even address it, that the evidence for it is negligible? > The evidence is slight, but not negligible. These words, or variations, are found in E 431 629 gig h p t vg-am,bam,cav,sang*,val,CL syp syh** mae geo. However, the position of the words varies widely. Since D is defective here, it would seem that this is a "Western" reading. (Notice that, of the three Greek witnesses to include the reading, two -- E and 629 -- are Greek-Latin diglots.) The reason for the insertion is not hard to find: The words are derived from the parallel in Acts 26:14. I hope this helps. Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Sun May 5 18:30:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA07155; Sun, 5 May 1996 18:30:22 +0500 Date: Sun, 5 May 1996 18:25:30 -0400 Message-Id: <199605052225.AA17250@vnet.net> X-Sender: mburrill@popmail3.vnet.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: "Mark E. Burrill" Subject: Re: Acts 9:5 Content-Length: 417 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu >Since D is defective here, it would seem that this is a "Western" reading. >(Notice that, of the three Greek witnesses to include the reading, two -- >E and 629 -- are Greek-Latin diglots.) > >The reason for the insertion is not hard to find: The words are >derived from the parallel in Acts 26:14. > >I hope this helps. > It sure does. I had not even considered the parallel. It makes much more sense now. Mark From majordom Mon May 6 10:39:17 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA09666; Mon, 6 May 1996 10:39:17 +0500 Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 10:36:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: Acts 9:5 In-Reply-To: <199605052106.AA14077@vnet.net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 844 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Sun, 5 May 1996, Mark E. Burrill wrote: > SKLHRON SOI PROS KENTRA LAKTIZEIN....KAI O KURIOS PROS AUTON > > Am I correct in assuming that since my UBS-4 does > not even address it, that the evidence for it is negligible? I agree with Bob Waltz that the evidence is not "negligible", since it does reflect a certain Western understanding of the text. However, I also would be swift to point out that the inclusion of the phrase in Ac.9:5f is _not_ part of the Byzantine Textform, even though it is included in the various TR editions. _________________________________________________________________________ Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From majordom Mon May 6 13:14:17 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA10764; Mon, 6 May 1996 13:14:17 +0500 Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 13:14:06 -0400 (EDT) From: "James R. Adair" X-Sender: jadair@scholar To: TC List Subject: TC journal's first articles! Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 979 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu The first two articles in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism are now available (see below for URL). The articles are: James R. Adair, "Old and New in Textual Criticism: Similarities, Differences, and Prospects for Cooperation" and George Anton Kiraz, "Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Final Report and Announcement of Publication" These articles are currently available in HTML format, although text, SGML, and Postscript versions will be available soon. Abstracts for the articles are available, as is a message from the editor (me). Just follow the links from the TC home page (which has also been updated). More articles are on the way, as well as several book reviews, so stay tuned. Once again, I invite the members of this list to submit articles for consideration by the journal's editorial board. Jimmy Adair General Editor of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism ------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/TC.html <----- From majordom Wed May 8 10:56:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA06536; Wed, 8 May 1996 10:56:02 +0500 Date: 08 May 96 10:45:22 EDT From: Mike Arcieri <102147.2045@CompuServe.COM> To: TC-LIST Subject: J. K. Elliott Message-Id: <960508144522_102147.2045_EHT156-1@CompuServe.COM> Content-Length: 1279 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu As most of you know, TIME mag has published several articles re. Thiede and his dating of the Matthew papyrus fragment (including one article in the last issue of TIME, dated April 8). In the current issue (May 13), TIME has published a letter from J. K. Elliott regarding this issue. For the benefit of fellow TC-LISTers, here is Elliott's letter: In your article on the search for Jesus, you stated that German scholar Carsten Peter Thiede thinks a tiny papyrus fragment containing a couple of verses of the Magdalen St. Matthew's Gospel could have been written around A.D. 70 by someone who was an eyewitness to the events described (April 8). A 1st century date for all four Gospels is now agreed upon by most scholars. Even if St. Matthew's Gospel were written as early as Thiede suggests, this would tell us nothing about the historical value or theological truth of its contents. A Gospel written by an eyewitness or near contemporary need be no more trustworthy than a later account. Your article correctly quoted me as making the above point, but you inaccurately gave my last name as Lincoln. This error might indeed tell us something about the historical value of contemporary reporting. J. Keith Elliott Dept. of Theology Univ. of Leeds Mike A. From majordom Wed May 8 14:02:52 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA07636; Wed, 8 May 1996 14:02:52 +0500 Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 12:32:24 -0500 X-Sender: ljgrn@bluejay.creighton.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: ljgrn@creighton.edu (Leonard Greenspoon) Subject: Books for Review Content-Length: 1462 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu It is clear that TC was becoming a recognized "force" in biblical text criticism, even before the actual publication of our first volume. I say this because we have already received several batches of books for review. At the moment, Jimmy Adair, Johann Cook, Bill Petersen, and myself have books to review. As book review editor, I am now soliciting reviews from list members. We are hoping to distinguish ourselves in rapid turn-around time (reviews to be done within six weeks of receipt of book and published as soon as possible thereafter), as well as in the fact that reviewers are not bound by space-constraints. So, if you have interest in one of these volumes, let me know as soon as possible. They are all from SCHOLARS PRESS: Jones, Barry Alan. THE FORMATION OF THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE: a study in text and canon Geer, Jr., Thomas C. FAMILY 1739 IN ACTS Greenspoon, Leonard and Olivier Munnich, eds. VIII CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR SEPTUAGINT AND COGNATE STUDIES PARIS 1992 Sollamo, Raija. REPETITION OF THE POSSESSIVE PRONOUNDS IN THE SEPTUAGINT Wevers, John W. NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT OF DEUTERONOMY Gentry, Peter J. THE ASTERISKED MATERIALS IN THE GREEK JOB Jobes, Karen H. THE ALPHA-TEXT OF ESTHER ITS CHARACTER AND RELATIONSHIP TO THE MASORETIC TEXT I hope at least some of you are interested in at least one of these. I look forward to hearing from you and shipping all of these out, Leonard Greenspoon From majordom Fri May 10 07:11:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA04752; Fri, 10 May 1996 07:11:40 +0500 Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 07:08:24 -0400 (EDT) Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by InfoAve.Net From: jwest@SunBelt.Net (Jim West) Subject: Joshua 20:3 X-Sender: jwest@mail.sunbelt.net (Unverified) To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Message-Id: <01I4J5YH2Y4M90VE7W@InfoAve.Net> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 269 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu The MT seems to reflect a Vorlage which is shorter than LXX. of Josh 20:3 (referring to the end of the verse, BHS note c). Is this an example of the LXX tendency to harmonize (cf Nu 35:12); or does the LXX reflect a genuinely "different" Vorlage? Thanks, Jim West From majordom Fri May 10 08:16:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05013; Fri, 10 May 1996 08:16:22 +0500 From: "Sipil{ Seppo" Organization: University of Helsinki To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 15:14:16 EET DST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Joshua 20:3 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22) Message-Id: <3BF84387B52@Teologi1.helsinki.fi> Content-Length: 1112 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Jim West wrote > The MT seems to reflect a Vorlage which is shorter than LXX. of Josh 20:3 > (referring to the end of the verse, BHS note c). > Is this an example of the LXX tendency to harmonize (cf Nu 35:12); or does > the LXX reflect a genuinely "different" Vorlage? I would vote for the second alternative here. In chapter 20 the difference between the LXX and the MT is exceptionally large and if you take the whole chapter into account, it would be hard to explain the difference in any other way than assuming a Vorlage different from the present MT. You may also like to consult prof. Graeme Auld's article _Cities of Refuge in Israelite Tradition._ JSOT 10 (1978), 26-40. Also, I do not believe that "LXX" in a sense of translation has a "tendency to harmonize" in Joshua. The translation is quite literal and seems to reflect its Vorlage well. If there is any harmonization it comes from the Hebrew Vorlage. One must carefully notice the difference between the concepts " Vorlage" and "translation". I personally think that we should use LXX only for the latter. Hope this helps, Seppo From majordom Fri May 10 12:02:01 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA06634; Fri, 10 May 1996 12:02:01 +0500 Date: Fri, 10 May 96 14:00 +0200 From: cook@maties.sun.ac.za To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Message-Id: <1634073708388846@maties.sun.ac.za> Subject: RE: Joshua 20:3 X-Mailer: Netmail V3.17 Content-Length: 1664 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Received: from sunvax.sun.ac.za by maties4.sun.ac.za with smtp; Fri, 10 May > 96 13:18:27 +0200 > Received: from gabriel.cc.emory.edu by SUNVAX.SUN.AC.ZA with SMTP; > Fri, 10 May 1996 13:15:47 +0100 (WET-DST) > Received: from scholar.cc.emory.edu (scholar.cc.emory.edu [170.140.38.9]) by > gabriel.cc.emory.edu (8.7.3/8.6.9-950630.01osg-itd.null) with SMTP id > HAA10514; Fri, 10 May 1996 07:12:10 -0400 (EDT) > Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) > id AA04752; Fri, 10 May 1996 07:11:40 +0500 > Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 07:08:24 -0400 (EDT) > Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by InfoAve.Net > From: jwest@SunBelt.Net (Jim West) > Subject: Joshua 20:3 > X-Sender: jwest@mail.sunbelt.net (Unverified) > To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Message-Id: <01I4J5YH2Y4M90VE7W@InfoAve.Net> > Mime-Version: 1.0 > X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu > > The MT seems to reflect a Vorlage which is shorter than LXX. of Josh 20:3 > (referring to the end of the verse, BHS note c). > Is this an example of the LXX tendency to harmonize (cf Nu 35:12); or does > the LXX reflect a genuinely "different" Vorlage? > > Thanks, > > > Jim West I suggest you read the article by A. Rofe "Joshua 20: Historico-Literary Criticism Illustrated" in JH Tigay (ed.), Empirical Methods of Biblical Criticism, Philadelphia 1985, pp. 131-147. Johann Cook Acting head of the Dept of Ancient Near Eastern Studies University of Stellenbosch SOUTH AFRICA > From majordom Tue May 21 12:34:26 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA04891; Tue, 21 May 1996 12:34:26 +0500 Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 12:31:02 -0400 (EDT) Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by InfoAve.Net From: jwest@SunBelt.Net (Jim West) Subject: TC course X-Sender: jwest@mail.sunbelt.net To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Message-Id: <01I4YUG9VNGI8X2P9X@InfoAve.Net> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 87 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Does anyone know of a TC text which incorporates both testaments? Thanks, Jim West From majordom Tue May 21 12:54:50 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05048; Tue, 21 May 1996 12:54:50 +0500 Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 12:51:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Gross To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: TC course In-Reply-To: <01I4YUG9VNGI8X2P9X@InfoAve.Net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 354 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 21 May 1996, Jim West wrote: > Does anyone know of a TC text which incorporates both testaments? The American Bible Society just put out a volume that has BHS and Aland 27 together. I believe you can get it from Eisenbrauns as well (and probably CBD). I forget the actual name, but I'm sure it won't be difficult to find. andrew gross From majordom Tue May 21 13:25:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05229; Tue, 21 May 1996 13:25:06 +0500 Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 13:21:39 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199605211721.NAA18392@utc-01.campus.mci.net> X-Sender: cierpke@utc.campus.mci.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: jwest@SunBelt.Net (Jim West) From: "Kevin W. Woodruff" Subject: Re: TC course Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Content-Length: 549 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu The American Bible Society has the _Biblia Sacra: Utriusque Testamenti_ which is the _Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia_ bound with Nestle's _Novum Testamentum Graece_ (27th ed.) It retails for around $59.95 (hardback). I've had mine rebound in leather. You may contact the American Bible Society at 1-800-32-BIBLE (phone orders) or fax at 1-212-408-8765 Kevin W. Woodruff Reference Librarian Cierpke Memorial Library Temple Baptist Seminary Tennessee Temple University 1815 Union Ave. Chattanooga, TN 37404 423/493-4252 Cierpke@utc.campus.mci.net From majordom Tue May 21 13:40:59 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA05368; Tue, 21 May 1996 13:40:59 +0500 Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 13:37:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Nichael Cramer To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Cc: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: TC course In-Reply-To: <01I4YUG9VNGI8X2P9X@InfoAve.Net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 847 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 21 May 1996, Jim West wrote: > Does anyone know of a TC text which incorporates both testaments? > > Thanks, > > Jim West Jim This is almost certainly not what you want, but Kenyon's "Text of the Greek Bible" studies the entire Bible in Greek. But I suspect that what you want is a single volume does TC for the HS in Hebrew and the NT in Greek. Given the radical difference in the problems in TC in the respective testaments, it seems very unlikely that a single volume could do justice to both topics. Essentially what would be needed was a single book that combined both (say) Tov and Metzger. Granted, there would be some reduction as the basic, definitional material wouldn't have to be repeated; but OTOH not much would be gained, as that non-topic specific material accounts for a small fraction of either book. N From majordom Tue May 21 22:39:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA07574; Tue, 21 May 1996 22:39:08 +0500 Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 22:36:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Maurice Robinson To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: TC course In-Reply-To: <199605211721.NAA18392@utc-01.campus.mci.net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1689 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 21 May 1996, Kevin W. Woodruff wrote: > The American Bible Society has the _Biblia Sacra: Utriusque Testamenti_ > which is the _Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia_ bound with Nestle's _Novum > Testamentum Graece_ (27th ed.) It retails for around $59.95 (hardback). I've > had mine rebound in leather. You may contact the American Bible Society at > 1-800-32-BIBLE (phone orders) or fax at 1-212-408-8765 Since our seminary requires a year of both Greek and Hebrew, all of us who teach the languages have decided to require this one volume instead of making the students buy N27 and BHS separately. It is convenient, handy, and saves in overall cost as well. It may not be the textual criticism dual text which Jim West enquired about, but it provides the basic OT and NT data upon which to build such a study. I don't know about paying to get it rebound in leather, but I would like to offer a strong suggestion to the UBS that they consider moving to a far better binding for this volume as well as for the separate N27 and BHS editions. The poor quality of the current bindings deteriorates fairly quickly with constant use. Some lessons might be well learned from the major hardback publishers in this regard -- quality binding does not require that much more added cost (unless of course the poor quality binding is deliberate, to ensure planned obsolescence). _________________________________________________________________________ Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From majordom Wed May 22 14:00:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA10908; Wed, 22 May 1996 14:00:12 +0500 Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 14:00:06 +0500 Message-Id: <9605221800.AA10902@scholar.cc.emory.edu> From: Jimmy Adair (tc-list-owner) Subject: tc-list Quarterly Reminder Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5727 Apparently-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu ****************************************************************************** General Information about the List ****************************************************************************** tc-list: a discussion list of biblical textual criticism This list is loosely associated with the new electronic journal _TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism_, and it is intended for a discussion of any matters relating to biblical textual criticism, broadly defined. The rationale for the creation of the TC journal is given below. It is hoped that subscribers to the tc-list will reflect on and respond to material from articles in TC, will deal with issues that arise in the context of text-critical study in the community of biblical scholars at large, and will use the list to suggest new ideas and methodologies. Notes on any aspect of the textual criticism of the Jewish and Christian scriptures (including extracanonical and related literature) are welcome, and threads that transcend the traditional boundary between textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament textual criticism are especially encouraged. We would also like to see threads that discuss the relationship between textual criticism and other disciplines. Archives of tc-list are automatically maintained, and they may be accessed by sending a message like the following to majordomo@scholar.cc.emory.edu: get tc-list tc-list.yymm where yy is a 2-digit year and mm is a 2-digit month (e.g., tc-list.9604 for April 1996). The first month archived is November 1995 (tc-list.9511). ****************************************************************************** Subscribing, Unsubscribing, and Sending Messages to the List ****************************************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, send the appropriate message to majordomo@scholar.cc.emory.edu (_not_ to the list itself): subscribe tc-list [your e-mail address] unsubscribe tc-list [your e-mail address] The e-mail address is optional, since subscription will default to the address you are sending from. You may also subscribe to this list in digest form (i.e., messages bundled and sent out a few times per week) by sending this message to majordomo@scholar.cc.emory.edu: subscribe tc-list-digest [your e-mail address] If you subscribe to the digest, be sure to unsubscribe from the list so you won't receive everything twice. To send a message to the list for all to read, send your message to tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu. Don't send to tc-list-digest, even if you're subscribed to the digest. Just send to tc-list. If you do not want to receive messages for a while (e.g., you're going on vacation or will be away from your computer for an extended time), please unsubscribe from the list. There is no "vacation" command on this list. When you want to start receiving messages again, simply subscribe to the list again. ***************************************************************************** TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism ***************************************************************************** One of the benefits of increasingly widespread Internet access is the ease with which scholars in a particular field can communicate with one another. Although the sciences have dominated the electronic journal field up until this point, several journals in the humanities are now available online. TC follows in the (brief) tradition of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, the International Journal of Tantric Studies, and the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies. As far as we are aware, TC is the first Web journal in the area of biblical studies. Why "biblical" textual criticism (rather than t-c of the NT or the Hebrew Bible/OT)? It is time for textual critics in the two camps to communicate more with one another. Textual critics in one field can only benefit by hearing what those in the other field have to say. The journal will accept papers dealing with any aspect of textual criticism of the OT/Hebrew Bible or NT, and it especially encourages "crossover" papers that deal with both areas. Papers dealing either with specific cruxes or with larger issues (methodology, use of versional evidence, etc.) are welcome. Brief notes or full-length articles are equally acceptable. Why an electronic journal? The fact of the matter is that printing a journal costs a lot of money (especially with recent increases in paper prices). In addition, it is debatable whether the field of textual criticism could generate a large enough base to support a paper journal. There are technical difficulties with displaying non-Latin characters that will have to be addressed, but these difficulties can be overcome. With an electronic journal, scholars and students around the world can have free access to one or another form of the journal, either via the World Wide Web, FTP, or e-mail. TC is now in the early stages of implementation (our first articles are now ready!), and we are looking for articles. Please submit your articles in electronic form to: Jimmy Adair Scholars Press P.O. Box 15399 Atlanta, GA 30333-0399 USA You are also welcome to send articles via e-mail to jadair@scholar.cc.emory.edu, or you may upload your articles directly to our FTP site at ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/uploads/TC. TC has a home page on TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web site (http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/TC.html), and interested parties can look at this page for announcements. We look forward to your participation in TC and tc-list! The list-owner of tc-list is Jimmy Adair (jadair@scholar.cc.emory.edu). From majordom Wed May 22 14:51:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA11336; Wed, 22 May 1996 14:51:38 +0500 Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 13:48:05 -0500 (CDT) From: "Larry W. Hurtado" To: TC-List Subject: Adair article Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1010 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Yesterday I read Jimmy Adair's new article in TC and I want to commend it to others. It is a very helpful survey of the commonalities and distinctives of NT and OT textual criticism. I myself can recall an e-mail exchange with a younger OT scholar about the term "eclectic" text. For him an "eclectic" edition meant anything other than printing a single ms and giving an apparatus. For me, as a NT text-critic, "eclectic" refers to the approach/method that might be used in constructing a critical edition, and for me a critical edition is not the same thing as a diplomatic edition. In that light, the Biblia Stuttgartensia is a printed edition with a critical apparatus, and not a critical edition of the OT, at least not a "critical edition" as we would use the term in NT textual criticism, not an edition where at each variation unit the editors put into the main printed text the reading they think most likely to be "original" or earliest. Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba From majordom Tue May 28 16:15:44 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA09074; Tue, 28 May 1996 16:15:44 +0500 Date: Tue, 28 May 96 15:12 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: The "Alexandrian" Text Content-Length: 7573 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Dear TCers, Since this list has been quiet of late, it's probably time to spark a little controversy. What follows is deliberate textual heresy. I do not necessarily hold to the views expressed below. But I think them worth considering. Today's Subject: Textual Theory in the Gospels Eldon Epp has pointed out several times (see, e.g., "The Twentieth-Century Interval in Textual Criticism") that there has been no major advance in textual theory since Westcott and Hort. This statement is too broad; we have seen real progress in Paul (Zuntz; also, IMHO, me :-) ), in the Catholics (Duplacy), and in the Apocalypse (Schmidt). In all three areas, the scholars isolated text-types not found in the WH system. There is also major work being done on Acts (though I don't know the status of that). But in the gospels -- nothing. Gathering of data, yes (see the IGNTP). But theoretical advances -- not really. We are still working with the text-types of Westcott and Hort, which in fact go back to Griesbach. (The fact that we now call this text "Alexandrian," after Griesbach, rather than "Neutral," after WH, does NOT count!) Since WH, there have been a number of attempts at theoretical breakthroughs. We have seen the rise -- and more recently the decline -- of the "Caesarean" text. We have seen an attempt to define a "Syriac" text. We have seen the "Western" text under attack. We have seen many efforts to clarify the history and nature of the Byzantine text (the most ambitious effort along these lines has been the development of the Claremont Profile Method). Every one of these attempts has been reasonable -- but has borne limited fruit. The methods Streeter and others used to define the "Caesarean" text (divergences from the TR) was clearly inadequate. So was their attempt to take anything not nailed down and include it in the "Caesarean" group. (If you look at Streeter's list of Caesarean witnesses, it includes nearly every uncial not in the Kx family!) More recently, Hurtado has shown that, if there is a Caesarean text, it has no "core witness." But no one ever claimed that there was such a core witness (except in part of Mark, where Streeter thought W was a core witness. He was, of course, wrong). Still, there *is* something about the witnesses Theta, 565, family 1, family 13, arm, geo. They *do* have a fairly strong rate of agreement where they are not Byzantine. Is it a text-type? For now the matter is open. Similarly in the case of the "Western" text. Kurt Aland has questioned its very existence. And with some justification. In the gospels, there is only *one* "Western" witness in Greek. That one, obviously, being Codex Bezae. But Bezae is problematic. There can be no question but that it has been edited. This is *proved* by the fact that Luke's genealogy of Jesus is replaced by Matthew's. (This reading, be it noted, is not shared by any of the Latins except d.) It may be that this is the only deliberate alteration in D. But that seems improbable. So D's value as a "Western" witness must be considered diminished. Still, there does appear to be a "Western" text-type; the Latin witnesses have too many common readings not found in the Greek. Codex Bezae supports this type; we just cannot trust it unless it has strong Old Latin support. But while the "Caesarean" and "Western" texts have been coming and going, we continue to accept, almost without thinking, the WH definition of the Alexandrian text as "the agreement between B and Aleph." Why is this? What proof do we have that B and Aleph belong to a common text- type? They *do not* in Paul (Zuntz). Their relationship in the Catholics is questionable. Even within Duplacy's "Alexandrian" text (B Aleph A 33 etc., excluding C-1241-family 1739), we see several subgroups: p72-B, A-33-436-81 (my work this time). Aleph stands alone. In LXX we see some similarity between B and Aleph (they go together in Jeremiah, for instance), but there is still considerable distance between them. Long ago, Hoskier found (I believe it was) over 6000 differences between B and Aleph. Most are trivial, and many of the remainder are in the early part of John (where Aleph is accused of having a "Western" text). But many are substantial, and not all are in John. That there is a group centered around B is clear. We all know that p75 stands very close to B. (It is interesting to note that, based on my results, B is the closest uncial relative of every major papyrus manuscript: p13, p46, p66, p72, p75, *and* p45!) It's not mentioned as often, but T stands almost as close to B as does p75. The Sahidic Coptic also falls with this group. 2427, wherever it came from, clearly belongs with B. And while L has a lot of Byzantine readings, where it is non-Byzantine it generally sides with B rather than Aleph. So too with X (though there the Byzantine element is extraordinarily large.) So there is a family B. The question is, is Aleph a more distant member of this family, or does it belong with a family of its own? It would appear to belong with its own family. Z clearly goes with Aleph. Delta (in Mark, where it has the greatest value) is closer to Aleph. So is 579 (especially in Mark). The Bohairic Coptic, unlike the Sahidic, is as close to Aleph as to B. So we have two families: Family B and Family Aleph. Could they belong to the same text-type? Certainly -- but we find the same situation in Paul, and there the two do *not* belong together. Conclusions, anyone? Just to give people some grist to work with, here are some comparison tables for witnesses with strong Alexandrian elements. (Note: The results are based on my own sample of 990 readings. Other samples would, of course, give different numbers, though the relationships between the manuscripts would probably not change much. This sample, since it includes many of the readings found in UBS/GNT, is biased toward places where p75 and B disagree. I don't claim that this is a perfect sample, but it's a start.) MS Agreements with B Agreements with Aleph Overall Non-Byzantine Near-singular Overall Non-Byzantine Near-singular p66 57% 74% 75 49% 77% 18 p75 83% 90% 57 58% 79% 21 Aleph 60% 77% 114 100% 100% 253 B 100% 100% 279 60% 77% 114 C 49% 75% 26 52% 76% 20 L 61% 80% 67 59% 78% 48 T 88% 90% 6 45% 76% 1 X 39% 67% 11 40% 59% 6 Z 55% 74% 8 73% 81% 11 Delta (Mark) 62% 73% 4 64% 78% 10 Psi (Mark) 76% 86% 5 69% 85% 3 070 66% 82% 10 63% 84% 6 33 48% 71% 29 50% 70% 30 579 45% 67% 21 49% 73% 26 892 48% 75% 32 52% 76% 32 1241 (Luke) 58% 82% 13 59% 82% 6 2427 89% 94% 17 68% 78% 6 sa 65% 82% 111 57% 76% 78 bo 60% 77% 70 61% 77% 67 Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Tue May 28 18:22:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA10105; Tue, 28 May 1996 18:22:05 +0500 Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 17:16:54 -0500 (CDT) From: "Larry W. Hurtado" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Subject: Re: The "Alexandrian" Text In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1269 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu A quick response to Robert Walz. First, as Colwell pointed out some time ago, the relationship of mss has to be examined *book by book*, in some cases, even chapter by chapter. Aleph & B do *not* of course agree at a constant level across the NT, for example. As Fee showed, there is even marked variation in their agreement within the Gospel of John. This "block mixture" of mss is more frequent than might be imagined, but only careful collation practices & methods can detect it. So, the varying level of agreement of Aleph & B is not a basis for posing (only?) two text-types. Second, discussion of "text-types" raises the question of what we mean. Here I recommend *strongly* Epp's essay on "The Significance of the Papyri . . . A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in the Epp/Fee volume, _Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual Criticism_ (pp. 274ff.). Third, Epp's famous "Interlude" essay did not assert no significant steps had been made, but rather that in the realm of *textual theory*, esp. in our grasp of the major history of the text, we had made surprisingly little agreed-upon progress. Epp refers to Aland's work, to Zuntz's justly important work on the epistles, etc. Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba From majordom Tue May 28 19:45:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA10414; Tue, 28 May 1996 19:45:40 +0500 Date: Tue, 28 May 96 18:42 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: The "Alexandrian" Text Content-Length: 5304 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu I was going to see how this discussion developed, but I guess I need to clarify something. First, off, note that I was not saying that B and Aleph *did not* belong to the same text-type. I was simply saying that we must not *assume* that. Now on to the message I was responding to. On Tue, 28 May 1996, "Larry W. Hurtado" >A quick response to Robert Walz. First, as Colwell pointed out some time >ago, the relationship of mss has to be examined *book by book*, in some >cases, even chapter by chapter. I would say rather that we must be *prepared to* examine them book by book or chapter by chapter. Manuscripts that clearly need this include L, W, Delta, Psi, 579, etc. -- all marked by block mixture or (in the case of L and probably 579) a much heavier degree of correction in the earlier books than in the latter. You'll note that, in my table of manuscript statistics, I cited several manuscripts only for particular books. But for manuscripts that do not show such mixture, we can do overall comparisons. What's more, for such manuscripts, overall comparison is *more* accurate because it allows us to examine more readings. Besides, would anyone want to have seen all the results for every individual books? >Aleph & B do *not* of course agree at a >constant level across the NT, for example. As Fee showed, there is even >marked variation in their agreement within the Gospel of John. True. But not relevant to the thesis. If Aleph is "Western" in the early part of John (a fact which I alluded to), that has no effect on the question of whether there is an "Aleph-text" or not. >This >"block mixture" of mss is more frequent than might be imagined, but only >careful collation practices & methods can detect it. I question this. I think most changes in textual complexion are the result of correctors being more or less diligent. Take, for instance, L. In the first part of Matthew it is mostly Byzantine. Does this mean that part of L was copied from a Byzantine manuscript and the rest from an Alexandrian? I think not. Far more likely that the ancestor of L was heavily and carefully corrected in Matthew and much more sporadically corrected elsewhere. Since I'm a mathematician, I'm going to hit you all with statistics. Taking Wisse's CPM evaluation of 1385 gospel manuscripts, we find 335, or 24%, displaying mixture. However -- and this is a *big* however -- only *nine* manuscripts (W Xi Psi 157 565 700 884 1342 2542), or less than one percent, show a *significant* shift in affiliation (from Alexandrian to Byzantine, for instance). 25 other manuscripts (e.g. C Theta 1071) are "mixed," and so *might* contain block mixture. The rest of the manuscripts show no major change in textual complexion; they either show shifts within the Byzantine tradition or no shift at all. > So, the varying level of agreement of Aleph & B is not a basis >for posing (only?) two text-types. I may be dense, but I fail to see what that has to do with my argument. I am simply stating that the two *are* different. The question is, do they belonf to the same text-type? Or, more correctly, do the texts of family B and family Aleph (which are *not* the same as the texts of B and Aleph, any more than the text of family 13 is identical to 13) belong to the same family. > Second, discussion of "text-types" raises the question of what we >mean. Here I recommend *strongly* Epp's essay on "The Significance of >the Papyri . . . A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in the Epp/Fee >volume, _Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual Criticism_ (pp. >274ff.). What do you think started me thinking along these lines? :-) I am not entirely fond of Epp's "trajectory" analogy. But as someone who has spent most of his life dealing with evolutionary processes (folk music, "genetic" type phenomena, even computer programming), I firmly believe in a dynamic view of textual history. B and Aleph represent stages in the evolution of the text. If they belong to the same text-type, then their texts continued to interact until a time very close to their copying. If not, then there is a point much further back at which they divided. Which really happened? To date, no one has offered an answer. > Third, Epp's famous "Interlude" essay did not assert no >significant steps had been made, but rather that in the realm of *textual >theory*, esp. in our grasp of the major history of the text, we had made >surprisingly little agreed-upon progress. Epp refers to Aland's work, to >Zuntz's justly important work on the epistles, etc. This is exactly what I said. In the twentieth century, we have gathered vast amounts of data. Zuntz gave us a major breakthrough in the textual theory of Paul (though his results do not seem to have gotten through to the UBS committee). Duplacy, if I understand the results in Vaganay/Amphoux, has laid the groundwork for similar progress in the Catholics. But in the gospels, we have the CPM and nothing more. We're still talking about "Western" and "Alexandrian" texts, and the "Alexandrian" text is the same as it was in Hort's day. I don't say Hort was wrong. I don't know. He may have been absolutely right. I just think we need to examine the matter, not take it as -- ahem! -- gospel. Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From majordom Wed May 29 13:57:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA00921; Wed, 29 May 1996 13:57:13 +0500 Message-Id: <199605291753.TAA22624@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 29 May 96 19:57:01 +0100 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" text To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Content-Length: 4473 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu On Tue, 28 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote: >...we have seen real progress in Paul (Zuntz; also, IMHO, me :-) >), in the Catholics (Duplacy), and in the Apocalypse (Schmidt). >In all three areas, the scholars isolated text-types not found in >the WH system. There is also major work being done on Acts (though >I don't know the status of that). >But in the gospels -- nothing. Gathering of data, yes (see the >IGNTP). But theoretical advances -- not really. We are still >working with the text-types >of Westcott and Hort, which in fact go back to Griesbach. a.) When working on the textual transmission of the Gospels one is struck by the tremendous amount of data: MORE THAN 2300 MSS with Gospel text are known up to now (Corpus Paulinum some 780 MSS, Acts + Catholics some 650 MSS, Revelation "only" 287 MSS). b.) Another striking feature within the Gospels, at least within the Synoptics, is the well known fact of "assimilation". Not only the Byz text testifies to it (cf. Wisselink) but virtually every MS is somehow affected by this tendency. Therefore a great deal of variation within the textual transmission of the Synoptics might be due to a tendency that independently produced partially identical text-type alignments with no "real" text-type relation underlying. Or, looking at this from the other side, the tendency towards assimilation might weaken "real" text-type relations, for some of the MSS originally belonging together may independently desert in some readings while retaining others. The combination of a.) and b.) might explain some of the problems "theoretical advances" in the Gospels have to handle. Therefore, "gathering of data" might not be inappropriate. Bob further wrote: >Long ago, Hoskier found (I believe it was) over 6000 differences >between B and Aleph. Most are trivial, and many of the remainder >are in the early part of John (where Aleph is accused of having a >"Western" text). But many are substantial, and not all are in >John. Hoskier (Codex B and its Allies, Part II, 1914) found 3036 differences between B and aleph (656 in Matt., 567 in Mark, 791 in Luke, 1022 in John). To assess the validity of Hoskiers's samples is not easy (I know that Streeter was not impressed). But the least one can say from a first look is: a.) Hoskier includes not very few near-singulars of either B or aleph, which are in fact singulars to my mind -some of them are found only in one patristic writer, others only in one version. A very telling example is the randomly choosen "difference" at Matt. 16,17: ALLA hO PATHR aleph + sahidic + bohairic versus ALL hO PATHR B and the rest. b.) Most of the only-versional-support singulars, even if more than one version is involved, are of no value, since very often there are Greek composits or different tempora involved. c.) Quite a lot of the "differences" are only textual trivia mostly due to assimilation. To be shure, Hoskier pointed out differences between B and aleph, but to what do they give conclusive or even probable evidence? On Tue, 28 May 1996, Bob wrote in his second post: >I think most changes in textual complexion are the >result of correctors being more or less diligent. Take, for >instance, L. In the first part of Matthew it is mostly Byzantine. >Does this mean that part of L was copied from a Byzantine >manuscript and the rest from an Alexandrian? I think not. Far more >likely that the ancestor of L was heavily and carefully corrected >in Matthew and much more sporadically corrected elsewhere. a.) From the manuscript tradition it is obvious that all of the Papyri, most of the uncials and quite a lot minuscules are mutilated at the beginning and/or the end due to mechanical break off. b.) The MSS 206 429 522 614 630 1292 1890 2200 2412 related to the Harklensis-Vorlage (1505-1611-2138-2495) in the General Epistles give ample evidence that the slightly changing textual character of these MSS compared to the Harklensis-Vorlage takes place in the last three of the epistles, where most of them desert. To conclude from the presented evidence: "More or less diligent correctors" may also be found within manuscript tradition, but exhaustive evidence points to mechanical corruption and restoration when dealing with changing textual character within one and the same manuscript, at least at its beginning and/or end (L being a perfect example of this feature). Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From owner-tc-list Thu May 30 11:47:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA03362; Thu, 30 May 1996 11:47:38 -0400 From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de Message-Id: <9605301544.AA26392@mail.uni-muenster.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 30 May 96 17:47:37 +0100 Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu content-length: 2044 On Tue, 28 May 1996, Larry W. Hurtado wrote: > Second, discussion of "text-types" raises the question of what we >mean. Here I recommend *strongly* Epp's essay on "The Significance >of the Papyri...A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in the >Epp/Fee volume, _Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual >Criticism_ (pp. 274ff.). Epp identifies in this essay three text-types being in existence already in the second century: a "B" text-type (P75 + B as nucleus), a "C" text-type (P45 + W only in Mark), and a "D" text-type (P29, P48, P38, 071, and perhaps P69 + D). "(T)hese concentrations or lines of trajectory identify clusters that in turn differentiate themselves sufficiently from other clusters" (p. 297). In defining a cluster or text-type Epp refers to Colwells famous quantitative definition ("A text-type is a group of manuscripts that agree more than 70 percent of the time and is seperated by a gap od about 10 percent from its neighbors."), and in the case of highly fragmentary MSS to the Alands' principle: "If a fragment preserves a passage where there is any variation in the tradition, it is quite sufficient to signal the textual character of the whole manuscript." With these essentials in mind I may shortly assess Epp's text-types "C" and "D". a.) Text-type "C" (P45 + W): "Yet the affinity of variations-units between P45 and W in Mark virtually reaches the seventy percent mark (68,9%)" (Epp, p. 292). In my words: ...shortly MISSES the seventy percent mark. What do definitions serve for, if they are not taken serious? b.) Text-type "D" (P29, P48, P38, 0171, and perhaps P69 + D): These are all, save for D, fragments, and certainly 0171 and P69 desert from the D-text of Luke approximately as often as they testify to it. The handeling of fragments when establishing text-type relations is an open question to my mind. Therefore, I must confess, I am not very much impressed by these results. More arguments could be adduced, but I will leave it for now. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From owner-tc-list Fri May 31 10:12:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA08902; Fri, 31 May 1996 10:09:18 -0400 Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 10:09:08 -0400 (EDT) From: "James R. Adair" To: TC List Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu content-length: 2607 When we upgraded our operating system on Wednesday, this message to the list didn't get delivered, so I'm forwarding it now to the list. Those of you subscribed to tc-list-digest will see this message twice. 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: schmiul@uni-muenster.de Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text On Tue, 28 May 1996, Larry W. Hurtado wrote: > Second, discussion of "text-types" raises the question of what we >mean. Here I recommend *strongly* Epp's essay on "The Significance >of the Papyri...A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in the >Epp/Fee volume, _Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual >Criticism_ (pp. 274ff.). Epp identifies in this essay three text-types being in existence already in the second century: a "B" text-type (P75 + B as nucleus), a "C" text-type (P45 + W only in Mark), and a "D" text-type (P29, P48, P38, 071, and perhaps P69 + D). "(T)hese concentrations or lines of trajectory identify clusters that in turn differentiate themselves sufficiently from other clusters" (p. 297). In defining a cluster or text-type Epp refers to Colwells famous quantitative definition ("A text-type is a group of manuscripts that agree more than 70 percent of the time and is seperated by a gap od about 10 percent from its neighbors."), and in the case of highly fragmentary MSS to the Alands' principle: "If a fragment preserves a passage where there is any variation in the tradition, it is quite sufficient to signal the textual character of the whole manuscript." With these essentials in mind I may shortly assess Epp's text-types "C" and "D". a.) Text-type "C" (P45 + W): "Yet the affinity of variations-units between P45 and W in Mark virtually reaches the seventy percent mark (68,9%)" (Epp, p. 292). In my words: ...shortly MISSES the seventy percent mark. What do definitions serve for, if they are not taken serious? b.) Text-type "D" (P29, P48, P38, 0171, and perhaps P69 + D): These are all, save for D, fragments, and certainly 0171 and P69 desert from the D-text of Luke approximately as often as they testify to it. The handeling of fragments when establishing text-type relations is an open question to my mind. Therefore, I must confess, I am not very much impressed by these results. More arguments could be adduced, but I will leave it for now. Ulrich Schmid, Muenster From owner-tc-list Fri May 31 12:10:23 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA09608; Fri, 31 May 1996 12:09:17 -0400 Resent-Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 04:25:25 +0800 Date: Wed, 29 May 96 15:07 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 To: nt-mss@entmp.org From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" text Resent-Message-ID: <"uwFb82.0.PN6.qABhn"@joshua> Resent-From: nt-mss@entmp.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/105 X-Loop: nt-mss@entmp.org Resent-Sender: nt-mss-request@entmp.org ReSent-Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 12:05:40 -0400 (EDT) ReSent-From: "James R. Adair" ReSent-To: jadair@scholar.cc.emory.edu ReSent-Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ReSent-Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 12:08:54 -0400 (EDT) ReSent-From: "James R. Adair" ReSent-To: TC List ReSent-Message-ID: Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu content-length: 8703 On Wed, 29 May 96, schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) > >a.) When working on the textual transmission of the Gospels one is struck >by the >tremendous amount of data: MORE THAN 2300 MSS with Gospel text are known up to >now (Corpus Paulinum some 780 MSS, Acts + Catholics some 650 MSS, Revelation >"only" 287 MSS). > >b.) Another striking feature within the Gospels, at least within the >Synoptics, >is the well known fact of "assimilation". Not only the Byz text testifies >to it >(cf. Wisselink) but virtually every MS is somehow affected by this tendency. >Therefore a great deal of variation within the textual transmission of the >Synoptics might be due to a tendency that independently produced partially >identical text-type alignments with no "real" text-type relation >underlying. Or, >looking at this from the other side, the tendency towards assimilation might >weaken "real" text-type relations, for some of the MSS originally belonging >together may independently desert in some readings while retaining others. > >The combination of a.) and b.) might explain some of the problems "theoretical >advances" in the Gospels have to handle. Therefore, "gathering of data" might >not be inappropriate. Agreed -- but now the data has been gathered -- both by the Institute at Munster and by the IGNTP staff (as represented by Wisse and the CPM). I can't help but think that, now that that data has been gathered, the situation in the Gospels is actually *easier* than in the epistles. Simply because so much of the data can be set aside. Consider Paul: A good solid text of Paul should be based on, at minimum, some 23 minuscules (and more would be better): 6 33 81 104 256 330 365 424** 436 451 629 630 1175 1319 1505 1506 1611 1739 1881 1962 2127 2464 2492 If I could, I would add 69 88 263 323 326 1852 1908 1912 2495 and probably others. And of this list, at least three -- 33 1506 1739 -- deserve as much weight as the old uncials. Several more -- e.g. 81 1175 2127 -- are almost as good. Still more -- e.g. 330-451-2492 and 1505-1611-2495-syh -- represent texts which are largerly Byzantine but still preserve elements not found in the more important manuscripts. That's a lot of manuscripts to work with. And we also need some Byzantine representatives. In the Gospels, of course, we have many more uncials. But the list of valuable minuscules is, if anything, *shorter*. There are, of course, the members of family 1 and family 13. (If Wisse is to be trusted, we should also probably define a family 22). Beyond this, the list of minuscules showing anything other than a simple Byzantine text (based on a hasty check of Wisse) is short: 28 33 47 67 149 157 160 173 176 179 213 372 377 382 399 427 472 508 563 565 574 579 683 695 700 713 792 799 844? 851 892 903 1013 1048 1061 1071 1093 1166 1171 1215 1217 1230 1241 1253 1273 1282 1289 1299 1325? 1330 1331 1337 1342 1364 1443 1542 1573 1574 1604 1641 1647 1670 1682 1692 1697 1714 1797 1823 2095 2178 2405 2430 2525 2533 2546 2561 2643 2665 2680 2747 2757 Of these, only 33 157 372? 565 579 700 892 1071 1093? 1241 1273? 1342 appear to have substantial value for criticism. And even these are of much less value than the old uncials. Most of the pther manuscripts listed appear to be Byzantine texts that do not happen to fall into one of Wisse's groups. Even allowing for the fact that other minuscules (e.g. 2427) will emerge in other books or chapters, it would appear that the basis for work in the gospels is *less* in the Gospels than in, say, Paul. >Bob further wrote: > >>Long ago, Hoskier found (I believe it was) over 6000 differences >between >>B and >Aleph. Most are trivial, and many of the remainder >are in the early part of >John (where Aleph is accused of having a >"Western" text). But many are >substantial, and not all are in >John. > >Hoskier (Codex B and its Allies, Part II, 1914) found 3036 differences >between B >and aleph (656 in Matt., 567 in Mark, 791 in Luke, 1022 in John). Oops. My apologies for the mistake. But the fact that I multiplied by two in my head does not materially affect the arguement. >To assess the validity of Hoskiers's samples is not easy (I know that Streeter >was not impressed). But the least one can say from a first look is: >a.) Hoskier includes not very few near-singulars of either B or aleph, >which are >in fact singulars to my mind -some of them are found only in one patristic >writer, others only in one version. A very telling example is the randomly >choosen "difference" at Matt. 16,17: ALLA hO PATHR aleph + sahidic + bohairic >versus ALL hO PATHR B and the rest. I'll certainly agree that that is a trivial difference! And I know that Hoskier has a bad tendency to overstate the case (the introduction to "Codex B and its Allies" reads like something Burgon might have written). >b.) Most of the only-versional-support singulars, even if more than one >version >is involved, are of no value, since very often there are Greek composits or >different tempora involved. >c.) Quite a lot of the "differences" are only textual trivia mostly due to >assimilation. Agreed on both counts. >To be shure, Hoskier pointed out differences between B and aleph, but to >what do >they give conclusive or even probable evidence? If I knew the answer, I would not be posing the question. :-) The number of differences between B and Aleph is not really the point. The point is that there are several witnesses tightly clustered around B (including p75 T sahidic). There are also witnesses clustered (rather more loosely) around Aleph. We tend to speak of only two levels of textual groupings: families and text-types. But there are intermediate levels (I think the term "tribes" has been used). I think the existence of a "B tribe" can be accepted without question. There may well be an "Aleph tribe" as well. But are these tribes members of the same text-type? The question is not being addressed. >On Tue, 28 May 1996, Bob wrote in his second post: > >>I think most changes in textual complexion are the >>result of correctors being more or less diligent. Take, for >instance, L. In >the first part of Matthew it is mostly Byzantine. >Does this mean that >part of L >was copied from a Byzantine >manuscript and the rest from an Alexandrian? I >think not. Far more >likely that the ancestor of L was heavily and carefully >corrected >in Matthew and much more sporadically corrected elsewhere. > >a.) From the manuscript tradition it is obvious that all of the Papyri, >most of >the uncials and quite a lot minuscules are mutilated at the beginning >and/or the >end due to mechanical break off. >b.) The MSS 206 429 522 614 630 1292 1890 2200 2412 related to the >Harklensis-Vorlage (1505-1611-2138-2495) in the General Epistles give ample >evidence that the slightly changing textual character of these MSS compared to >the Harklensis-Vorlage takes place in the last three of the epistles, >where most >of them desert. Agreed in part. Certainly I agree that the beginnings and ends of manuscripts were most liable to destruction. And this *does* affect manuscript relationships. You cite 206. The reason it deserts family 2138 is that the later books are from another hand. This also explains why 33 is Byzantine in Romans and Alexandrian in the rest of Paul: Romans comes from another hand. But there are examples that, at least arguable, go the other way. Consider 323. In James it is primarily Byzantine (in my sample, 66%). In 1 and 2 Peter it moves toward family 1739; it's exactly 50% Byzantine. And in 1 John-Jude it is a strong family 1739 text, with only about 35% Byzantine readings (about the same percentage as 1739 itself). >To conclude from the presented evidence: "More or less diligent >correctors" may >also be found within manuscript tradition, but exhaustive evidence points to >mechanical corruption and restoration when dealing with changing textual >character within one and the same manuscript, at least at its beginning and/or >end (L being a perfect example of this feature). I would simply say that we cannot assume one solution or the other. The essential fact that I am stating is that very few manuscripts seem to derive readings from more than two sources, one of them usually being Byzantine. There are exceptions (W is the obvious example; another is 630, which goes with family 1739 in Acts and Romans-Galatians, is Byzantine in Ephesians-Hebrews, and goes with family 2138 in the Catholics), but they are few. And I must admit that I've forgotten what this has to do with the internal relations of the Alexandrian text of the gospels. So I will spare you any further conclusions. :-) Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com From owner-tc-list Fri May 31 12:37:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA09787; Fri, 31 May 1996 12:35:56 -0400 Date: Fri, 31 May 96 11:32 CDT X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz) Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu content-length: 4703 On or about Wed, 29 May 1996, schmiul@uni-muenster.de wrote: >On Tue, 28 May 1996, Larry W. Hurtado wrote: > >> Second, discussion of "text-types" raises the question of what we >mean. >>Here >I recommend *strongly* Epp's essay on "The Significance >of the Papyri...A >Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in the >Epp/Fee volume, _Studies in the >Theory & Method of NT Textual >Criticism_ (pp. 274ff.). > >Epp identifies in this essay three text-types being in existence already >in the >second century: a "B" text-type (P75 + B as nucleus), a "C" text-type (P45 + W >only in Mark), and a "D" text-type (P29, P48, P38, 071, and perhaps P69 + D). >"(T)hese concentrations or lines of trajectory identify clusters that in turn >differentiate themselves sufficiently from other clusters" (p. 297). >In defining a cluster or text-type Epp refers to Colwells famous quantitative >definition ("A text-type is a group of manuscripts that agree more than 70 >percent of the time and is seperated by a gap od about 10 percent from its >neighbors."), and in the case of highly fragmentary MSS to the Alands' >principle: "If a fragment preserves a passage where there is any variation in >the tradition, it is quite sufficient to signal the textual character of the >whole manuscript." > >With these essentials in mind I may shortly assess Epp's text-types "C" >and "D". > >a.) Text-type "C" (P45 + W): "Yet the affinity of variations-units between P45 >and W in Mark virtually reaches the seventy percent mark (68,9%)" (Epp, p. >292). >In my words: ...shortly MISSES the seventy percent mark. What do definitions >serve for, if they are not taken serious? I must insert here a strong argument *against* the Colwell definition of a text-type. Two, in fact. The first is the use of exact numbers in deciding text-types. Unless we are prepared to examine *all* variations in the manuscripts involved (as Hurtado, to his credit, did), the numbers mean nothing. If we use a comparison based on sampling, the rate of agreement between manuscripts will depend on the sample being taken. To show what I mean, let's take a sample. I'm going to use a biased one to get my point across. Take as our sample the variations shown in UBS3 for Luke 24. There are nineteen of them. But *eight* of them consist of D and the latins against *every other manuscript.* So in Luke 24, based on this sample, it turns out that *every manuscript*, except D, agrees with *every other manuscript* at least 70% of the time. Does that mean that all of them belong to the same text-type? Hardly! The cut-off line for defining a text-type *must* depend on the sample. But even for a particular sample, I don't think we can fix a cut-off and say, "All manuscripts that meet this criterion belong to this text-type." The great problem with the Colwell definition is that it ignores mixture. Take a manuscript like 424. Even after diligent correction, it is still more Byzantine than anything else. Depending on the sample, it might well be rated as 70% Byzantine. But is it a Byzantine manuscript? Well, maybe... but what makes it interesting is not the 75% of the text that is Byzantine, but the 25% that agrees very closely with 1739 6 etc. 424, as corrected, is not a Byzantine text. It is not a family 1739 text. It is a text *with family 1739 elements*. And *that* is what makes it important. Whereas, by Colwell's definition, it's just another Byzantine manuscript. Which leads to another problem: Can a text-type be defined without a "core text"? This is precisely the problem of the "Caesarean text." If one omits p45 and W (as Hurtado has shown we should), there is no "core" Caesarean witness. Does this mean that the Caesarean text *cannot* exist? I think that too strong an argument. Note that I am not saying that the Caesarean text *does* exist; that remains to be settled. I'm just saying that we cannot use Colwell's definition to settle the matter. >b.) Text-type "D" (P29, P48, P38, 0171, and perhaps P69 + D): These are all, >save for D, fragments, and certainly 0171 and P69 desert from the D-text >of Luke >approximately as often as they testify to it. The handeling of fragments when >establishing text-type relations is an open question to my mind. This I heartily agree with. We should not draw conclusions about text-types based on fragments. And 0171 and D are distinctly different, so they cannot *both* be assumed to be "core" "Western" witnesses. But I'll ask another question: Why should D be assumed to be a core witness to the "Western" text? At least in Luke, D shows clear signs of editorial handling! Just another insertion of unorthodoxy into this debate. :-) Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com