Subject: Re: Original Text and Limits of TC

From: Michael Holmes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 16:56:39 -0600 (CST)

Re the ongoing thread about the meaning of an "autograph" and the goals or
objectives of TC, etc.:  in view of what I wrote (in a deliberately
polemical and provocative style) in my essay in the Metzger festschrift Bart
Ehrman and I edited (see The Text of The NT in Contemporary Research, pp.
353-354), I am glad to see discussion of just what it is we are trying to
recover as textual critics.  Permit me to toss out two opinions on points
that have arisen lately.

1) Literary criticism and textual criticism are inescapably inter-related.
To be sure, the MSS provide, in a very concrete way, data (or, to use
Waltz's term, FACTS), but facts do not exist in a vacuum, and their
interpretation certainly does not.  That is, *all* interpretation takes
place within some kind of theoretical framework, and in the case of textual
criticism, that interpretative framework is "often" (I should probably
insert a stronger term) influenced or provided by aspects of literary
criticism.  This is esp. the case when we begin to discuss what it is that
we have reconstructed by means of TC.  E.g, suppose that there is a
concensus  that all surviving copies of a document are descended from X.
What we then choose to call X--autograph? archetype? edited edition of
earlier documents?--is sharply affected by literary-critical kinds of
decisions and judgments.  Tov (whom I was glad to see referenced in the
early stages of this thread) has brought this out clearly with regard to the
OT; his work has, as some have noticed, implications for NT work.  The
current thread is a good start in developing them, but only a start.
Moreover, textual critics have tended to be rather naive/silent/unaware/???
regarding the philisophical underpinings or implications of how they
conceive of what it is they are trying to recover.  See further  my essay,
p. 353 note83.

        (Yes, the interaction between lit criticism and TC is certainly a
two-way street.  More than a few literary theories collapse in the face of
the historical realia of surviving MSS.  But that is not the point at the
moment, and I leave it aside).

2) Textual criticism is not limited to what now survives in the form of ink
on writing material.  Paul Maas laid out clearly the four aspects of TC:
recensio, selectio, examinatio, and divinatio.  The first is an
investigative and taxonomic process that examines surviving MSS in order to
discover (a) a surviving witness that is the source of all others, (b) a
reconstructable archetype, or (c) a split tradition consisting of two or
more MSS or archetypes.  If (a) or (b), one proceeds directly to examinatio;
if (c), to selectio--choosing between competing variants--and then to
examinatio, the testing of the earliest recoverable stage of the tradition
for soundness.  If defects are detected in the earliest recoverable stage of
the tradition, then one proceeds to divinatio, i.e., emendation.  This last
stage--which on methodological grounds is an essential ppart of the
text-critical process--no longer involves what survives in ink on writing
material, but has to do with the thoughts and ideas of the author (once
again, literary criticism comes into play in the practice of TC).  E.g., to
give just a single example, take 1 Cor 6:5, "to judge between his brother"
(cf. Zuntz, Text of the Epistles, p. 15) Is there someone who wishes to
defend the view that Paul wrote/dictated precisely this, rather than "to
judge between a brother and his brother"?

        (I can almost hear the noise as the guns are being brought to bear
on the suggestion that emendation has role to play in NT TC.  Please, before
anyone starts blasting, please read the relevant parts of my essay, 347-349,
first?)

Mike Holmes

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 18:57:48 -0700

>anyone starts blasting, please read the relevant parts of my essay, 347-349,

Just a quick comment before I wander off....

I have no problem with the *idea* that the NT text may need conjectural
emendation. It stands to reason: Many of the extant documents derive
entirely from copies of the original. That is, the stemma is not

  autograph
      |
  ----------------
  |     |        |
Text   Text    Text
Type   Type    Type
 #1     #2      #3

but rather

  autograph
      |
first generation copy
      |
  ----------------
  |     |        |
Text   Text    Text
Type   Type    Type
 #1     #2      #3

This means that any errors which occur in the first generation
copy will be preserved forever unless corrected by scribes by
conjectural emendation.

The problem, to me, is not the idea that there are readings which
need emendation, but determining *which* readings they are. Given
that no one has agreed on that to this point, I don't see why
they should start now. :-)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A very rough draft of part of the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: [email-masked] (Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 19:10:16 +0100

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Mike Holmes wrote:

>decisions and judgments.

Generally I agree with this assessment. However, I do not think that we have too 
much lit critical kinds of decisions and judgments to opt for in reality. That 
is, when looking for possible candidates for X our "interpretative framework" 
has, first of all, to do justice to textual tradition otherwise it's not TC. By 
this I mean, we have to adjust our framework to the requirements of the realia, 
and not to literary critical guesswork either ignorant of or even (un)conciously 
violating realia. Of course, from a literary critical standpoint one can still 
maintain a late 2nd century date for the final redaction of GJohn, as, e.g., 
Walter Schmitthals who tries to downplay the evidence of P 52 by either 
questioning its date or assuming it representing an earlier draft of GJohn. Now 
to my mind one of the most powerful tools in science comes into play, Occam's 
razor: non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem. As far as I can see, 
the "necessitas" for TC is *not* to localize GJohn or some allegedly  
theologically or lit critically identified layers within the first two 
centuries. We have to identify and, if possible, localize the archetype of a 
textual transmission. [Now repeting what I recently stated:] When assessing the 
archetype of a textual transmission, we usually try to 
reverse the process of dissemination and corruption making our way back as far 
as possible. At a certain point we have to stop due to lack of further evidence. 
And precisely at that point we have to pause in order to outline, first of all, 
a theory of the archetype, again, not to be confused with the quest for the 
autograph. The whole matter, simple as it looks like in theory, is complicated 
by the fact that in Biblical studies we are dealing with collections of books 
subdivided into various subcollections. As far as I can see, within NT textual 
transmission we are lacking any substantial MS evidence prior to existing 
collections. Therefore, to my mind, the first thing we have to do is to work 
with one of the collections (e.g. the Corpus Paulinum) addressing the question: 
How far can we go back in identifying further subcollections that are either 
displayed by textual transmission or to be conjectured in order to make sense of 
it? 
The task of TC is to make sense of textual transmission. If it makes more sense 
to conjecture pre-GJohn, I am happy. But this should be handled as *ultima 
ratio* and not as starting point. We should not, somehow intimidated by or 
humbly devoted to any mainstream or *hot* literary theories, borrow our starting 
points elsewhere, but from the very heart of our discipline: the "necessitas" of 
textual transmission.
As Mike Holmes pointed out:

>the historical realia of surviving MSS. 

To finally add some more fuel to the fire: I would like to develop a literary 
theory that fits the requirements of textual transmission, but I fear we are 
subconciously marred with all sorts of literary theories alien to it. Otherwise, 
I suspect, we would have been able to trouble our fellow literary critics much 
more than the other way round.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

---

From: Jack Kilmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:01:57 -0600

Ulrich Schmid wrote:
> ratio* and not as starting point.

	This is exactly the type of information I had in mind when
my original post started this thread, essentially what role TC
plays in my interest in a "pre-archetypal proto-John."  In the
case of the GJohn, an underlying "hyper-archetype" working back
from the realia is much more difficult (given the redactional history)
than some of the Pauline Corpus which may have less distance between the
autograph and the archetype.

	This thread has been very useful to me in defining the parameters of TC
with the existing manuscripts vs the more
conjectural aspects (hopefully well reasoned) of literary criticism
in attempting to reconstruct the autograph.  The search for the
autograph is always enticing and TC offers a "starting point" at
the best rescension.  I realize, however, that earlier reconstruction
goes beyond the evidence into the gray erea of reasoned conjecture.

	I'll continue to work on my "proto-John," however, because
it's fun!  I thank all of you for your input.  I learned much from
it.

> more than the other way round.

	My impression is that such a "unified field" theory is going to
be very difficult but I sure will be interested when you get it
polished.

Jack Kilmon
[email-masked]