Subject: Re: More on 2427

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:35:55 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996 [email-masked] wrote:

> Wouldn't a logical extension of this logic be to consider B a copy of P75
> based on like percentages?  

The P75/B connection has been heavily analyzed, particularly by Carlo M.
Martini in his monograph in Italian, and the conclusion appears to be
that both B and P75 have a common ancestor, but that B is not a direct
copy of P75.  It is of course possible that 2427 and B might have a (lost)
common ancestor, but given the date of 2427 in relation to B, it seems
more likely in that case that 2427 is either a copy of B, with corrections
being made in the process, or that the exemplar of 2427 was copied from B,
with corrections then added in from a non-B type of MS.

Does anyone have the percentage of agreement between B and P75, from
Martini or other sources?

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:49:57 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> This brings up an interesting philosophical point. I said that 2427 was
> *not* a copy of B, because it differs in dozens of places from Vaticanus --
> and relatively few of these differences are in the direction of the
> Byzantine text-type. They look more like they came from another Alexandrian
> witness.

Which is why I was careful to note that it was corrected by a "non-B" type
of MS.  However, items in 2427 such as the long ending of Mark are more
likely to have been inserted from a more Byzantine type of MS, I suspect,
though I would have to see collation data there for 2427 to see if any of
the Alexandrian distinctive readings of the long ending might be present.

> This brings up a serious question: How much change can a manuscript
> tradition undergo and still be considered direct descent? For example,
> I've seen people who consider F G of Paul to be direct descendents of
> D -- which is simply ludicrous. I'd just like to know how others feel.

If virtually all MSS are "mixed" in varying degrees (which I think is a
given, even among the Byzantine Textform MSS), then the only matter of
"direct descent" would be when one has something like D/D-abschrift in the
Epistles.  

Yet stemmatically, one MS might be copied directly from another, and still
be quite distinct, due to errors made while copying, corrections made
while copying, inclusion of correction data from the exemplar, use of a
second exemplar for verification at certain points, etc.  Multiply these
factors geometrically by the same possibilities recurring in subsequent
copies, and the amount of mixture which can result over even one or two
copying generations can become immense.  After 10 or more copying
generations, the ultimate parent may well no longer be discernable. 

Even the "family" groups (like f1, f13, etc.) which are closely related
and descend from a hypothetical lost uncial exemplar differ widely among
themselves (see the various Studies and Documents volumes), and the
archetype of the lost uncial from which they derive is generally assumed
to be established by taking only those readings where family group members
_depart_ from the Byzantine Textform, on the assumption that the
correction trend would be away from non-Byzantine to Byzantine readings by
that time period (which of course would likely be correct, though I would
suggest that following the non-Byzantine reading of but _one_ family
member against the remainder of the group will likely result in an
aberrant reading being claimed as that of the uncial exemplar rather than
the reverse).

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:08:16 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996, Dave Washburn wrote:

> Hort developed his whole text-type system 
> based on the principle "identity of error implies identity of 
> origin," but I'm not sure that's a valid canon.  How much "identity 
> of error"?  What is meant by "identity of origin?"

This is most definitely a valid canon when dealing with a stemmatic or
genealogical approach to the NT MSS.  The amount of identity in error has
to be more than might occur by mere coincidence or accident (e.g. the very
few Armenian and Spanish Hebrew MS joint readings), and thus requires a
sufficient amount of data. "Identity of origin" is relative only to the
archetype of the MSS in question which possess the common errors.

The problem with Hort's use of this valid principle is that Hort virtually
turned the principle on its head and based his "genealogical" method on
the false (or "less-true" if one wants to be politically correct)
principle that "identity of _reading_ implies identity of origin".  From
this, Hort moved his entire methodology into grouping MSS based upon
shared readings, regardless of whether such were genealogically-
significant "errors" or not (in fact, most of them were not).  

By this shift, Hort was then able to reduce all MSS possessing a close
identity of reading into a single archetype, to be played off against
other single archetypes (i.e. neutral, Alexandrian, Western, Syrian [=
Byzantine]), and thus bypass all need for any _real_ genealogical research
from the first. His "evidence of groups" reflects precisely this shift
from "identity of error" as a basis for genealogical research into
"identity of reading". The excuse of course could be easily rationalized:
if the original text only is genuine, then all non-original readings are
"errors"; however, this is most certainly _not_ what is intended by the
original stemmatic principle.

> It seems to me that what we need most in order to answer this 
> question are some clear examples of direct descent and/or copying so 
> that we can - at least for one period of the stream of transmission - 
> examine the forces that were in action, i.e. how much change, 
> correction by other mss., and all the rest.  Without such clear 
> examples, I'm not totally convinced that we can answer this question 
> (though I remain hopeful that somehow we can).

Since we do have some MSS where direct descent is known to exist, as well
as the various family relationships where clear descent from a lost
exemplar is known, it should be fairly easy to compare collation data and
see what factors played a part in the alteration of texts away from the
parent exemplar.  Much of my own theory derives from what I have seen in
the errors, corrections, and alterations in MSS in general as compared
with what appears in the various family collation data.