Subject: Re: Sampling and Vulgate

From: "Stephen C Carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 01:25:53 -0400 (EDT)

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
[email-masked]              : Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs
http://osf1.gmu.edu/~scarlso1/     : chant the words.  -- Shujing 2.35

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 07:27:28 -0400 (EDT)

> 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
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From: [email-masked] (Vincent Broman)
Date: Wed, 1 May 96 10:40:23 PDT

[email-masked] said:
>                                         ...My suspicion is that, 

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