Subject: Re: Manuscript fragments....

From: [email-masked] (Nichael Lynn Cramer)
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:17:12 -0400

At 10:45 AM 6/10/96, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
>TCers --
>
>Just wondering aloud here....
>
>Why is it that uncials are usually fragments, while minuscules are
>generally complete or nearly? As I recall, about 80% of uncials are
>fragmentary, often only a single leaf. Whereas a (very quick) check
>of the Kurzgefasste Liste seemed to show that only about 5% of
>minuscules are fragmentary (I was checking for manuscripts, not
>of the Apocalypse, of less than fifty folios), and the number of
>single-page manuscripts is infinitesimal.
>
>Is this just because many of the papyri and uncials are recovered
>from rubbish heaps and the like, whereas minuscules are usually
>kept in libraries? Or is there something else involved that might
>help us in our discussion of the destruction of manuscript's
>ancestors?

Wouldn't a major consideration be simply their difference in age (in
general).  Most Uncials date from before the 9th century; most (all?)
miniscules after.

Also, there may be a "false resonance" here.  Presumably the total number
of manuscripts produced in any century grew from the first century until
the introduction of printing.  Viewed in this way it would make sense that
there are more younger(=Miniscule) better preserved manuscripts than
older(=Uncial) manuscripts.

Nichael
[email-masked]                                               __
http://www.sover.net/~nichael              Be as passersby   -- IC

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 20:21:33 -0400 (EDT)

> general).  Most Uncials date from before the 9th century; most (all?)

This alone does not answer the situation, since the scaled graph referred
to in my response to Waltz clearly shows a massive "balooning" of total
number of MSS instantly within the 9th and 10th centuries, versus a mere
trickle from the 4th - 9th centuries (and I should perhaps point out that
I refer to a chart which I prepared some years ago that is scaled
_accurately_, and does not give a distorted view of matters as in the
misleading chart that appears as part of Daniel Wallace's article within
the Holmes/Ehrman volume). 
 
> older(=Uncial) manuscripts.

I would agree with the premise expressed here, except for two factors: 

(1) the same graph shows a continuing growth from the 9th - 13th centuries, 
but a decline in extant MSS from the 14th - 16th centuries.  Certain 
historical occurrences as well as a saturation of MSS to available 
churches may serve to explain this particular phenomenon; 

(2) this assumption still does not account adequately for the total number
of extant MSS dropping from a very large number in the 10th - 9th
centuries to a mere trickle in the 8th - 4th centuries.  A massive and
systematic destruction of the uncial exemplars must have taken place to
produce such a lopsided preservation of documents. 

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