Subject: Re: versions : what do you expect?

From: [email-masked] (Jean Valentin)
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 07:24:37 +0100

Hello all greek tc scholars.

I have a very concrete question for you all. Very concrete because the
answer you will give to it may affect the way I'll be working on a
project...

Here it is: What do you expect of a critical edition of a version? Put in
other words, in order for the edition of a version to be
useful/interesting/reliable for your work, what would you like to find in
it?

Could you for example discuss several of those points. Let's take as a
hypothese the edition of an arabic version that hasn't been published yet
(15/20 manuscripts + a handful of lectionaries in Sinai only, I still have
to trace other mss in other libraries). The first mss appear in the XIth
century and reflect a mixture of cesarean text and syriac variants. Then
with the time it's submitted to an increasing influence of the byzantine
greek text and of the other, later arabic version called the "alexandrian
vulgate". As I would like to give NT scholarship access to this text, I
need some feedback about those and other points that you might wish to
discuss:

* Do you need a translation of the text (and, probably of the variants or
some of them) to accompany it? If yes, in what language? Latin, French,
English?
* How can our textual apparatus be helpful to you?
* As it is a very first publication, and there's been few (in fact: not
any) stemmatic work done, do you feel it's more prudent to give the text of
a manuscript with the variants of the others in the apparatus, or try an
eclectic text?
* Do you feel a second apparatus with comparison with greek mss and other
known versions is useful - or do you prefer to do it yourselves?
* Should I directly incorporate the lectionary mss, or publish them separately?
* What would you like to find in the introduction?
* If recensions can be separated, do you prefer seeing them in columns like
in Shanidze's georgian editions, or with the variants of the later
recension(s) simply in the apparatus like in Lake and Briere's ? What if
three or four recensions happen to be found instead of two?
* Is it a good thing if there are longuer annotations to try to show the
origin of a variant?
etc, etc... Just tell me everything you think about, and if you disagree
with each other, it's also interesting for me to know why!

If you use several versions in your work, please tell me what helps you in
those publications, and what may confuse you or make them less accessible
to you. In your use of the versions, what are the good and bad features of
the publications you use? What makes that the edition of a latin, syriac,
armenian, etc... or arabic version ?

Also, it's a known fact that some versions need to be re-edited. What would
you expect from an edition of the syriac peshitto, for example, as I'm in
contact with people who are considering it?

Thanx for your suggestions!

shlomo w-shayno!

Jean Valentin - Brussels - Belgium

Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complique est inutilisable.
What's too simple is wrong, what's too complicated is unusable.

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 09:27:13 -0700

On Tue, 5 Nov 1996, [email-masked] (Jean Valentin) wrote:

>Here it is: What do you expect of a critical edition of a version?

[ ... ]

>some of them) to accompany it? If yes, in what language? Latin, French,

I could argue for Greek. But I would say that, in general, it should
be in the language of the vorlage of the version. (I will admit that
I don't even know what the Arabic vorlage is, but that would argue,
e.g. for translating Georgian into Armenian. This might, in turn,
be rendered into Greek.

>* How can our textual apparatus be helpful to you?

The only comment I would make is that it should give primary attention
to variants which imply differences in the vorlage.

>a manuscript with the variants of the others in the apparatus, or try an

On this we should probably defer to you. Is there an "old Arabic" version?
If so, try to reconstruct that. Otherwise, print the best (or, perhaps,
the most typical) manuscript, and then take variations from that.

>known versions is useful - or do you prefer to do it yourselves?

Even if we redo it, a preliminary analysis is helpful.

>* Should I directly incorporate the lectionary mss, or publish them

Incorporate them.

>* What would you like to find in the introduction?

Descriptions of the mss, your analysis of their interrelations, a
history of the version, and anything it can tell us about the Greek
text.

Also, possibly, a list of special readings of the Arabic (readings
unattested elsewhere, or found only in select groups on manuscripts).

>three or four recensions happen to be found instead of two?

I would print all recension separately if they can be clearly distinguished.
Otherwise, I might just print them in groups in the apparatus.

>* Is it a good thing if there are longuer annotations to try to show the

Yes!

>armenian, etc... or arabic version ?

I don't know how much work it is, but I much prefer the Nestle system of
marking variants in the text to the Merk system of simply quoting
lemmata. If I'm reading the text, I want to know when I need to look at
the apparatus.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 96 19:38:33 +0100

I totally agree with Bob Waltz's reply to Jean Valentin's questions regarding 
projected editions of versions (both on Tue, 5 Nov 1996). I simply wish to 
emphasize the question of the Vorlage. Although not knowing Arabic, I, 
personally, would feel very uncomfortable with lists of alleged Greek variant 
readings stemming from arabic MSS without thoroughgoing examination of how they 
happened to get there. For example, if the Syriac descendence of (some?) Arabic 
Gospel MSS could be substantiated as the Syriac descendence of (some?) Armenian 
Gospel MSS, the Arabic MSS would give no independent testimony to the Greek 
text, unless there is strong evidence to the contrary (e.g., later revisions of 
the Arabic text with the assistance of other Syriac -presumably the first 
candidate to test- or Greek texts). An edition of any version that *bores* me 
with pros and cons of that sort on the bases of evidence will be appreciated.  
All too easy access to Greek texts without all the other evidence will not 
convert a single sceptic.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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From: Vincent Broman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 11:01:46 -0800 (PST)

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> some of them) to accompany it? If yes, in what language? Latin, French,

If you want the work to be usable by scholars without a good command
of Arabic (i.e. almost all biblical scholars) some translation would
be needed.  A greek retroversion would be of much greater theoretical
interest than a fresh translation into English or French, because
the Greek Vorlage (or Vorlage of the Vorlage) will always be referred to
when the relationship of the Arabic texts to the rest of the NT tradition
is investigated.  Minor variants may not be translatable into
Greek or English or French, so that some annotations or sigla would
also be desired.

As an example, the Gothic edition of Streitberg (and from Metzger's
comments I suppose the other Gothic editions are similar) displays the
Gothic and Greek Vorlage on facing pages, the Gothic page supplied
with linguistic notes, the Greek page with text-critical notes.  The
few pages with more than one Gothic MS extant (in Paul) displayed the texts
in double columns (but of course an Arabic text with many MSS would
need to appear in apparatus form).

One problem of Streitberg's that you would want to avoid is that
his Greek Vorlage is not a direct retroversion of the Gothic MSS,
but a reconstruction of the Greek text Ulfilas is supposed
to have translated from, prior to the contaminating influence of
the Latin Vulgate intruding into the Gothic tradition.  He does
this by identifying Vulgate readings and replacing them with Koine readings.
While his theory of contamination is plausible, printing a hypothetical
reconstruction instead of a straight retroversion makes it harder to
untangle what is the basic evidence and what is just his theory.

Vincent Broman,  code D783 Bayside                       Email: [email-masked]
Naval Command Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, RDT&E Div.
San Diego, CA  92152-6222,  USA                          Phone: +1 619 553 1641
=== PGP protected mail preferred.  For public key finger [email-masked] ===

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From: "M. Bakker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 14:27:20 +0100 (MET)

> untangle what is the basic evidence and what is just his theory.

Something similar is the case with the reconstructions of the Old Slavic 
Gospels published by Vajs in 1935 and 1936. Reconstructing the Greek Vorlage 
from which St Cyril translated was simply one bridge too far.

Vajs' reconstruction of the Old Slavic Tetraevangelion needs to be 
reviewed in many places. It is therefore strange that it was used to 
represent the Slavic evidence in UBSGNT4. When I asked Bruce Metzger 
about it he said he was surprised it was decided to include Slavic 
evidence in the apparatus but not the Gothic version. Perhaps it was 
thought that its inclusion would please traditionalists in Slavic 
countries. One has to be careful with barely examined evidence, 
inclusion of all these exotic sigla may turn an apparatus into a veritable 
Variantenfriedhof.

Dr. Michael Bakker
Slavic Seminar
University of Amsterdam