Subject: professional scribes

From: [email-masked] (Dr. E. Habas)
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 07:22:56 +0200

Dr. Schmid's revised statement as to scribes' practices is very
interesting. If indeed "...no scribe reproducing Greek
NT MSS..." has managed to produce a perfect (or close to it) manuscript
(and yet the chronological boundaries of this are not clear to me), than
either there is a marked difference in the professional level between these
scribes and those copying Hebrew OT texts for use in Jewish communities,
which would seem odd, or one could suggest a marked difference in the
*attitude* of the former and the latter scribes to the texts that they were
copying. Could that be the case? I wonder... Maybe a different solution has
escaped me - I don't know enough about Greek NT scribes.

Effie Habas

> In fact, I had a closer look at
>one scroll of Genesis, but experts confirmed that this piece of writing
>from   >the
>13th century doesn't meet professional standards.)

Again, you gave no details, but normally any OT text which is not perfect
(namely, contains a mistake) would be put aside and never used, though such
texts would not be thrown away in the usual manner (luckily for anyone
using material from the Cairo Geniza). So we *do* have many examples of
imperfect texts, but we know they were not used.

sincerely,

Effie Habas

---

From: Andrew Kulikovsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 15:52:31 +0900

> imperfect texts, but we know they were not used.

I believe there were a lot of differences between NT scribes and OT
scribes.
Initially they were copied in scriptoriums by paid scribes and many
manuscripts
were most probably copied in a hurry to get them circulating.

Anyway I suggest Metzger's book, "The Text of the NT" which has a
chapter on such
considerations.
 
cheers,
Andrew

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---

From: [email-masked] (Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 97 16:21:51 +0100

>escaped me - I don't know enough about Greek NT scribes.

It might be interesting to discuss the meaning of the term "to produce a perfect 
(or close to it) manuscript". If we rerfer to the standards put forth by the 
masoretics, most likely no scribe reproducing Greek NT MSS can compete. Maybe 
"professional levels" were different, maybe "a marked difference in the 
*attitude*" is detectable. However, I suspect most of the differences are due to 
features transcendending the attitudes or professional levels of individuals 
(scribes).
As far as I know the masoretic standards include counting letters and various 
systems of punctuation which help counting and prevent from *correcting* 
sensless words or word forms (e.g., ketif/qere). This type of standardisation 
has been adopted and became part of professional skills all over the *world* for 
this body of literature. As far as I can see no such strict rules existed in 
Greek or Latin writing transcendending regional and/or chronological boundaries 
(for whatever body of literature?). 
At some point in time Biblical Hebrew became some kind of *artificial* 
liturgical language separated from the influence of linguistic changes through 
everyday use of a *living* language. As far as I can see for a considerable span 
of time the transmission of Greek and Latin texts has been embedded in *living* 
linguistic surroundings with various points of contact and change (at least 
within the realms of orthography). BTW --- From the Qumran scrolls we know 
analogous phenomena for Hebrew OT texts.

[quoting Schmid:]

>imperfect texts, but we know they were not used.

A rabbi looking at the mentioned scroll judged it to be put aside because of 
irregularities within the *lay-out* (line lenght) and because of some wiping and 
reparing. The latter may or may not indicate *incorrect* correction of faults. 
>From the rabbi we learned that here in Germany a newly written OT scroll 
containing more than three faults had to be sent to a kind of approving 
committee in Cologne that makes a final decision.
I would be interested in hearing more about this type of *technical* features 
that seem to guarantee a maximum of *correct* textual transmission. 

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 11:28:49 -0700

>features transcendending the attitudes or professional levels of individuals 

I think this is a good question. What is a "perfect" copy? One which exactly
reproduces its exemplar, or one which exactly reproduces the original text?
Or, perhaps, one which perfectly reproduces an intermediate copy (for example,
the ancestor of family 1).

Unless we are prepared to give an answer to that question, we cannot very
well say what we expect of scribes!

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

                            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)