Subject: Re: Holmes Overview Revisited

From: [email-masked] (Robert B. Waltz)
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 07:41 CDT

On Mon, 10 Jun 1996, Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]> wrote,
in part (quoting Holmes):

[ ... ]
>
>>         --a reasoned eclectic like K. Aland worked with an explicit and
>> well-developed theory of tranmission of the text, as is clear from Aland and
>> Aland, _Text_.
>
>Is there really an "explicit and well-developed theory of transmission"
>in that volume?  If so, I must have missed it.  All I see therein is a
>notion that the papyri are a key to the original text and that the
>Byzantine is the late "Imperial text" (whatever is really meant by that,
>since no recension or imposed authority seems to be suggested).  No
>explanation really exists therein to explain how the utterly mixed text
>of the competing papyri actually came to be that way, nor how the
>existing texttypes derived from the mixed papyri, let alone from the
>autograph.  A theory of transmission simply does not exist by citing
>sporadic data without being comprehensive in explaining the whole process
>of transmission.

I have to agree with Maurice on this. While I concede that scholars
such as Zuntz and Metzger had textual theories (Metzger's being a
slightly modernized version of Westcott & Hort), Aland seems almost
to deliberately reject one. He concedes only two text-types (Alexandrian
and Byzantine), denies that they existed before the fourth century,
procedes to rate all the minuscules based on their similarity to
the UBS and Byzantine texts  -- and bases his text on "local genealogical"
methods that *sound* like rigorous eclecticism.

[ ... ]
>
>I would be especially interested to learn of either Fee's or Metzger's
>theory of transmission, since I have never seen such attempted by either
>scholar.  Do you have some privy information in this regard?

As noted, I would say that Metzger largely follows WH. See the
introduction to the UBS commentary volume, and his dissents there
on the subject of the "Western Non-Interpolations" (plus Aland's
comments on Metzger's conservative view of the "Western" text).

[ ... ]
>
>Colwell I know did _not_ have a theory of transmission, once he abandoned
>his quest to establish the Alexandrian texttype as the autograph (which
>came as he and K.W.Clark attempted to reconstruct that supposed
>Alexandrian autograph and gave the project up as hopeless).  Most of
>Colwell's later writings clearly show his discontent with modern
>eclecticism, but also his frustration with not being able to come up with
>much of anything better, even though he knew and admitted that "textual
>criticism without a history of the text is impossible."

Again, I am inclined to agree. Colwell sought methods to write the
history of the text -- but (whether one accepts his methods or not,
and it should be noted that I'm not the only one to question some of
his techniques!) he never actually *prepared* such a history.

>I still maintain, therefore, and unapologetically, that "modern eclecticism
>still proceeds as if it has no theory of textual transmission ... "
>I suggest you ask Epp and see whether he does not agree with me on this
>point.

I'm not sure that Epp would go that far -- but his recent collection of
essays suggests that he is *still* frustrated at the lack of progress in
this area.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 21:38:33 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> slightly modernized version of Westcott & Hort) ....

Metzger chooses to retain the "Lucianic Recension" and "Byzantine
conflation" concept from Hort while abandoning virtually everything else
in Hort's transmissional theory except the deprecation of the Byzantine 
Text.  In the end, Metzger remains a variant-by-variant eclectic with no 
integrated theory of transmission.

> essays suggests that he is *still* frustrated at the lack of progress in

I definitely would be interested in knowing precisely what Epp thinks on 
this point.  All I know is what he has written in numerous articles, and 
the thrust seems to be in the direction I stated (and he told me what 
seemed like much the same over lunch in Cleveland some years ago).

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