Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text

From: [email-masked] (Carlton L. Winbery)
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 17:02:08 +0400

Larry Hurtado wrote;
>Maurice (and others):  If you imagine that the only way "Byzantine
>readings" can have made their way into mss is through the "influence" of
>a "Byzantine text-type" (i.e., a relatively matured type of text such as
>we have in the primary Byzantine mss reps.), then, yes, readings in early
>mss would suggest that this text-form might be there.  But, if (as I see
>it) "text-types" are basically the result of scribal copying/transmission
>habits/tastes/objectives, etc. (shaped of course by ecclesiastical
>concerns etc.), then what becomes the "Byzantine text-type" is basically
>a matured form/degree (late, so the evidence) of scribal/editorial
>tendencies observable quite early in their initial operation.  So, the
>"Byzantine text" is basically an "ecclesiastical" text, that reflects a
>few centuries of transmission with readability, inoffensiveness,
>harmonization, etc. operational.  These tendencies began very early, so
>they show up ad hoc in such early witnesses as P45, P46, etc.  But a more
>programmatic operation of these tendencies gathers force over time.
>
Larry has made an excellent statement that seems to me to account for the
evidence that we have.  This explanation of the growth of texts makes
unnecessary elaborate and imaginative explanations for obvious scribal
improvements such as the obvious harmonization in I Thess. 1:1.

Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 22:27:46 -0400 (EDT)

> improvements such as the obvious harmonization in I Thess. 1:1.

I'm not sure whether Larry's comments really serve to explain 1 Thess.1:1
on which I commented some time ago; but I hardly thought the explanation
of the non-Byzantine text as simple transcriptional error was "elaborate
or imaginative," given the extant data and postulating upon the
circumstances regarding the dissemination of the minority versus the
majority variant therein.  My further comments in response to various
transmissional matters taken as a whole still would supersede taking an
individual variant unit in isolation of the entire transmissional history
and then declaring that variant "typical" or "normative". 

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