Subject: The most likely original reading

From: Timothy John Finney <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 12:00:58 +0800 (WST)

I have realised that point 2 of what I suggested as a probabilistic 
method for establishing the original text (i.e. what is most likely 
to have been written in the thing from which the mss we now have 
descended) was in error:

> Here it is: 1) If there is no variation of a word in any ms, then that is
> original. 2) If there is variation, then the certainty of any particular
> reading is inversely proportional to the extent to which it can be
> demonstrated to give rise to the others.

It should have read, 2) if there is variation, then the certainty of any
particular reading is directly proportional to the extent to which it can
be demonstrated to give rise to the others. 

The interesting thing is that Bob Waltz and Maurice Robinson both seem to
have known what I meant and replied accordingly, possibly without
realising that what was written was incorrect. 

Yesterday I had the embarrassing experience of laughing at a joke that a 
friend told me even though he told it wrong:

Why _didn't_ the bigamist cross the road? Because he didn't want to see 
the other side.

Another friend said that she didn't get it, so we told her to ask her
husband to explain it. Imagine how foolish I felt when the first friend
realised that it should have been Why didn't the bigot cross the road? 

Then my other friend asked me why I laughed the first time. Um ah...

Well, it was partly because he was a friend and partly because his jokes 
are usually funny. So my response was conditioned by what had gone 
before. There is something there for us who try to unravel what the 
scribes have consciously and unconsciously done to the text.

On art and science in textual criticism, I would just like to add this by 
Zuntz (_Text of the Epistles_, 13):

<quote>
The convergence of arguments drawn from the distribution of the evidence,
the dependence of one reading upon the other, the known habits and typical
faults of scribes, the characteristic proclivities of interpolators, the
development of the language, the stylistic peculiarities of the writer,
the context of the passage in question -- these, and still other, factors
combined can yield a certainty which is no whit inferior to that of the
conclusions drawn from a Euclidean axiom. 
</quote>

Best regards,

Tim Finney

[email-masked]
Baptist Theological College
and Murdoch University
Perth, W. Australia

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 13:46:31 -0500 (EST)

> realising that what was written was incorrect. 

That I did indeed. Obviously a case of scribal parablepsis and memtally
seeing the correct reading even in the presence of an incorrect one. :-) 

Just don't ask why the textual critic crossed the road.....

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 13:48:02 -0700

>seeing the correct reading even in the presence of an incorrect one. :-) 

Shows how deeply some of the canons of criticism are driven into our
heads. Since "That reading is best which best explains the others"
is the *only* internal criterion I accept, naturally I read that
into any statement about readings giving rise to other readings.

BTW -- before anyone says anything, I maintain that all other
internal criteria derive from the one rule. So I'm not saying the
others are false; they just aren't primary.

Now that I've actually thought about what Tim says, though, it gets
me thinking about whether one can actually define a mathematical
function for this. But don't worry; I won't inflict that on you. :-)

>Just don't ask why the textual critic crossed the road.....

Oh, that's obvious: To investigate an older manuscript. :-)

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

                            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: "Ronald L. Minton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:24:11 -0600 (CST)

How should we translate the Latin Qui at the 1Tim.3:16 variant?
that thing that (Wycliffe) or which (Rheims) or "he who"? 

Also, can not ms "D" be properly rendered "he who" or just "he"? 

Thanks ahead of time.
 --
Prof. Ron Minton: [email-masked]   W (417)268-6053  H 833-9581
Baptist Bible Graduate School 628 E. Kearney St. Springfield, MO 65803

---

From: Abigail Ann Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 09:11:46 -0500 (EST)

Well, it depends, as always, on what you think the antecedent is! That
is, any relative pron in Latin can be either a subordinating pron or a
connecting pron, depending on (as someone else observed) the context,
so either 'He who' or 'That which' is possible if we think it comes
at the beginning of a new sentence. But choosing between
those two is more a matter of syntax than context! 'qui' can refer
back to any masculine noun, not just a male person/being; what are the
grammatical possiblities here? (I don't have anything but a Vulg
without apparatus here in my office!)

A.

Dr Abigail Ann Young, Records of Early English Drama| young@chass.|
Victoria College, University of Toronto             | utoronto.ca |
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html |  REED's Home Page  |
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/stage.html|Our New Theatre Resource Page |