Subject: Re: Rev 12:18

From: "Carlton L. Winbery" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:00:44 -0600

Maurice Robinson wrote;
>I would wager that, were the respective evidence supporting "estaqhn"
>and "estaqh" reversed, the eclectic defense would be carefully adjusted
>on supposed internal grounds to support the _opposite_ reading now
>currently deprecated merely because it is "Byzantine".

I have very little regard for this kind of argumentation.

>Regarding the external evidence, one important item for consideration
>is the fact that in the Revelation there is no single "Byzantine" or
>"majority" text, but _two_ competing Byzantine sub-types, the so-called
>"Andreas" (NA27's Gothic "MA") and the "Q" (NA27's Gothic "MK").  These
>two subtypes are more often than not quite disparate, and their very
>divergence greatly complicates the establishment of a generally
>representative Byzantine Text in the Revelation.
>
>Regardless of one's view of the Byzantine Textform, it is without
>question that the "MA" and "MK" groups deviated early from whatever
>text they may once have had in common, if there ever had been a common
>text for them beyond the autograph itself.

The argument that because there are two distinct traditions in the Byzantine
in Revelation they both must have gone back to a very early exemplar or the
original seems to me to be simplistic in the extreme and wont't hold watet.
The addition of the nu is something that happens frequently in minuscule Mss.

>It is also exceedingly difficult to imagine how such independent
>correction within two separate Byzantine sub-streams would ever have
>_identically_ created what Metzger (_Textual Commentary_ in loc.)
>suggested had to have occurred, assuming the "estaqh" reading to have
>been original:

It happened before the two traditions were fully developed.

>The problem with this view is that the 3rd person singular reading "he
>stood", if original, appears sensible, and _could_ fit the context and
>flow of the narrative. It thus would _not_ be a likely subject of
>alteration if original; and it certainly would _not_ have been likely
>to have been altered merely to accommodate to the 1st person singular
>ostensibly because a verb in the following clause was also in the first
>person -- at least not as long as the passage with "esthqh" "made
>sense" in some fashion without the need for any alteration.

This kind of change tended to happen in minuscules with very little reason.
I find Metzgers proposal plausible.  

>Had this been the case, then one would expect to find this same
>phenomenon of altering the persons or even tenses of verbs repeated
>continually in the Revelation -- especially among those dreaded
>Byzantine-era minuscule scribes -- but such alteration as Metzger
>alleges here simply did _not_ occur elsewhere in the book in that
>wholesale manner.

But it did accur to some degree.
>
>Certainly, at all times _some_ scribes may have accommodated a person or
>tense to a preceding or following verb (and more often to a _preceding_
>verb, simply due to the sequential nature of copying); but what _some_
>scribes may have done at _some_ times is clearly _not_ automatically
>endemic to what would be nearly _all_ scribes from two divergent
>textual sub-types acting in concert to make the identical alteration;
>Colwell's "Scribal Habits" article makes this clear even among a mere
>three early papyri, which rarely shared the same scribal proclivities.

>On the other hand, if the 1st person "estaqhn" were original, it would
>not be difficult to assume the _accidental_ dropping of a nu --
>especially if it were represented by a suspension bar at the end of a
>line -- in a _small_ number of early MSS, the uncials of which quite
>likely reflect a common Egyptian localized-text origin.

I would think that the chance of the addition of a nu especially between two
vowels a more likely chance in the minuscules.

>Further, when one considers internal evidence, the case becomes stronger
>in support of "estaqhn" as original.  Carlton's overly-simplistic answer
>to the contrary, I hardly think that John was intending the dragon
>standing on the sand of the sea to somehow be a parallel to ch.14 where
>one finds the Lamb standing on Mt.Zion. Both the dragon and the Lamb might
>be "standing", but the parallels end there, since there is no "sea" or
>"sand" present in ch 14 (though there _is_ the heavenly "sea of glass" in
>15:2, but I doubt one would want to press the connection that far). 

First the word "parallel" is Maurice's term.  I used the word contrast and
the Revelation is full of such contrast, i.e., the two women contrast with
each other, the dragon standing on the sand contrast with the lamb on Mt.
Zion, the seven trumpets with the partial destruction contrast with the
total destruction of the seven bowls of wrath, etc.

>In my opinion, the problem with modern eclecticism continually seems to be
>its bias in favor of the supposed "best MSS", with no honest intent of
>taking _all_ possible external, transmissional, and internal aspects of
>the textual process into full consideration when evaluating variant units. 
>As Colwell said regarding the impact of Hort's genealogical method (which
>Colwell was critiquing): "Hort has put blinders on our [the modern
>eclectics] eyes." I trust that the above discussion will at least
>demonstrate that there is _another_ methodological option which may well
>be superior to that currently practiced by the modern eclectic schools. 
>
I consider Metzger and many others with whom I sometimes disagree to be
honest and honorable scholars who fairly evaluate the evidence.  Can any one
of them produce the perfect text, probably not.

Carlton L. Winbery
E-mail [email-masked]
[email-masked]
114 Beall St. Pineville, LA 71360

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 01:12:55 -0500 (EST)

> I have very little regard for this kind of argumentation.

This is somewhat ambiguous: of whose line of argumentation are you
speaking?  That of the eclectics who shift the method of internal argument
according to where the externally favored MSS happen to fall?  Or merely
my comment that such is the case? 

It can easily be demonstrated in numerous places in Metzger's _Textual
Commentary_ that precisely this type of situation occurs, with the type of
approach and the manner of internal argument clearly shifting in accord
with whatever reading the preferred MSS happen to possess at any given
variant unit, especially when such MSS are in opposition to the reading of
the Byzantine Textform. Others on this list previously have mentioned that
situation in Metzger as reflecting a certain textual bias (and I said
nothing one way or the other at that time). Are you suggesting that such
argumental shifts do _not_ occur in that work? 

> original seems to me to be simplistic in the extreme and wont't hold 
> water.

Carlton, why are you so negativistic on this point?  Merely because it is
the two sub-Byzantine traditions being discussed?  Is not a similar line
of argument used from the eclectic standpoint when two divergent textual
traditions such as the Western and Alexandrian happen to concur in a
reading? 

You don't intend to suggest that the two competing "Byzantine" traditions
in the Revelation reflect but _one_ texttype, do you?  If so, you would be
quite wrong, since the "MA" and "MK" traditions are often in divergence,
and the readings where they diverge are not merely slight variations, but
are often quite significant, clearly indicating two quite different
streams of transmission which must have divided at a very early date;
where those two streams happen to unite, the consensus reading among the
two must be considered more ancient than either stream. This is only
logical.

Further, the support of the P47/Aleph and the A/C groups generally tends
to fluctuate _among_ the "MA"  and "MK"  traditions, though each of those
two uncial groups possesses some unique readings of its own. Such
fluctuation when it occurs quite easily reflects the primitive nature of
the text belonging to both the "MA"  and "MK" groups, even in those
readings where support from P47/Aleph and A/C is not present. Basically,
if the union of "MA" and "MK" in the Revelation does not go back to the
autograph, it at the very least would go back to an ancient archetype
predating or of equal date with the P47/Aleph and A/C groups.

> The addition of the nu is something that happens frequently in minuscule Mss.

Assuming you are speaking of movable nu, which does not change the meaning
of a word, this of course is correct to a certain degree; however, the
final -n in "estaqhn" is _not_ a movable nu, but an alteration which
changes the person of the verb, and the "frequent" practice of the
minuscule scribes thus does _not_ apply in this case, since it cannot be
demonstrated that they ever "frequently" changed tenses in a wholesale
manner by altering from 3rd to 1st person (or vice versa) in a narrative
situation.

Even in regard to the movable nu, however, among the minuscule MSS the
general tendency is more strictly to follow the "rule" of including the
movable nu when the next word is followed by a vowel and to omit it when
followed in the next word by a consonant. Most scribes of minuscule MSS
were generally fairly precise in their application of this rule, though of
course there are exceptions (early uncial scribes generally included the
movable nu at all times). In most cases, the minuscule scribes generally
followed the "rule" and did not add or omit the movable nu willy-nilly. 

> It happened before the two traditions were fully developed.

I of course maintain that the "estaqhn" reading does predate the division
into the "MA" and "MK" traditions, but I do _not_ concur that the
predating archetype was the MS which made a deliberate change in the
tradition preserved in its exemplar as Metzger posits.  Accidental error
is always a more likely possibility than deliberate alteration, unless
significant theological, grammatical, or stylistic concerns enter in (e.g.
Ehrman on Orthodox Corruption; Kilpatrick on Atticism, etc.).

I do not find Metzger's suggestion to be likely; rather, "estaqhn", on
both external, transmissional, and transcriptional grounds, as well as on
internal contextual grounds, is far better suited to claim autograph
originality than the "estaqh" reading which appears secondary both in
terms of external and internal criteria. 
 
> >[The reading "estaqh"] certainly would _not_ have been likely

Will you please demonstrate this claim, Carlton, especially in regard to
other variant readings in the Revelation?  I will concur that such changes
may have occurred, but these were rare and infrequent, and even when they
did occur, they were limited only to a small number of MSS -- _without_
the remaining mass of MSS (in any texttype) blindly following along with
such an alteration. 

Obviously, I cannot easily demonstrate an event which rarely occurs; but
if this type of change is truly common and frequent, especially with the
mass of MSS concurring in such a change, I would be quite interested to
see where else in the Apocalypse the same scribes fell into the same
practice (I would equally be interested in seeing where else in the NT
such a practice so frequently occurred, but I would prefer to confine
matters to the Revelation, where many people can and do have access to
Hoskier's full collation data of most MSS of that book as of 1929). 

> But it did accur to some degree.

To a small and infrequent degree is one thing, and I admit that any given
scribe at any given time might have made such an alteration. I also
maintain that such types of scribal change _would_ not and _could_ not
grow so as to overwhelm the entire manuscript tradition, so long as the
original reading made sense and was not theologically suspect in any way.

Readers and correctors of MSS _did_ exist, and they generally _did_ do
their proper job of keeping strange and isolated scribal corrections from
_ever_ growing to any level of dominance.  I still would like to see other
alleged cases of this very practice among the _same_ scribes of the _same_
MSS in the Apocalypse -- these are the very ones who should be most likely
to repeat the same scribal habit, if such indeed exists. 

> vowels a more likely chance in the minuscules.

Assuming the final vowel of the word to which the nu is attached is an
_epsilon_, and especially if the word _could_ take a movable nu, this is
totally granted.  

Show me other places in the Apocalypse where a final _eta_ has had a nu
added (which changes the person of the verb from 1st to 3rd), and we can
then discuss the "chances" and frequency of occurrence on a more solid
statistical basis. I would contend that such _rarely_ occurs, and when it
does, it is quickly corrected and does _not_ perpetuate itself among many
MSS, let alone the 90% mass of all MSS. 

This reflects one major failing (in my opinion) of modern eclecticism: 
certain "scribal habits" are postulated, which certainly _some_ scribes at
_some_ times did fall into or even regularly practice; however, from the
limited evidence of what "some" scribes did at some times, the concept is
promulgated that "most scribes" would do the same thing at all times. This
is totally unwarranted, but underlies a good deal of the anti-Byzantine
bias in text-critical explanations of variant readings.

Compare Metzger in his _Text of the NT_, p.200, when talking about
conflation: he says that when confronted with two conflicting readings,
"most scribes" would combine the two readings for fear of losing the true
reading if one or the other were omitted. 

Yet later in the same volume, when discussing Ac.6:8, where the readings
describing Stephen as either "full of faith" or "full of grace" exist,
Metzger does a total about face and merely _mentions_ that the conflated
reading which says Stephen was full of "grace and faith" is found ONLY in
MS E -- which Metzger still points out is normally a "typical" Byzantine
type of MS. 

So _where_ are "most scribes" in that situation, and especially "most
scribes" of the "typical" Byzantine tradition? Were they busy conflating
the two readings in Ac.6:8?  Not at all; MS E stands quite alone -- in
fact, it is the reading "full of faith" which is supported by the
overwhelming majority of the MSS and the Byzantine Textform in particular.

Why did not "most scribes" conflate in Ac.6:8 like Metzger said they
"would" do?  The simple answer is that Metzger's original generalization
on p.200 was simply wrong from the start, and that _most_ conflations that
did occur were in fact relatively _isolated_ occurrences which were _not_
perpetuated by many MSS at _any_ time, let alone by the mass of nearly all
MSS at all times.

The same principle applies, mutatis mutandis, in regard to the claim that
in Rev.12:18 the majority of scribes simply would prefer _deliberately_ to
alter the person of the verb into what they deemed a more suitable
context, totally disregarding earlier tradition at some stage in the
process and maintaining that same disregard throughout the period of
transmission, even once the the Byzantine division into two sub-types in
the Revelation had occurred, with significant textual divergences
otherwise which fluctuated between the P47/Aleph and A/C types of reading
-- for whatever reason, _neither_ sub-Byzantine type chose to adopt the
early uncial reading in this case, even though (from the eclectic view of
transmissional history), nearly everywhere else at least one of those two
sub-Byzantine types _did_ choose one or the other of the early uncial
readings.

There are strong implications from the union of those two divergent
Byzantine sub-types within a transmissional historical approach which are
simply neglected under modern eclectic transmissional theory.

> the Revelation is full of such contrast

If "contrasting parallel analogy" will be acceptable, I would be happy to
use that term, since there similarly is not a real "contrast" being
discussed here either, assuming the normal meaning of that term. I still
fail to see much semantic difference which would cause misunderstanding in
what I wrote as it was colloquially worded. Certainly I was not trying to
say the passages are harmonistically parallel as with the Synoptic
Gospels, and I don't think anyone misunderstood me on that point. 

> i.e., the two women contrast with

Even granting certain "contrasts" to exist, and certainly some such in
regard to the seven seal/trumpet/bowl judgments, I still do not see any
need to demand an authorially-intended contrast or parallel analogy
between the dragon standing on the sand of the seashore and the Lamb
standing on Mt. Zion, especially when only a mere 10% of the MS tradition
could possibly support such a contrast, and then when the contrast may
well derive ultimately from a simple transcriptional error. I certainly
would not use this passage to support any contrasts found in Revelation,
save in a footnote with a careful caution.

> of them produce the perfect text, probably not.

Honest intent, total integrity, and absolute honorableness will still not
eliminate the problem of text-critical bias created by the "blinders" 
which prejudice the judgements of honest and honorable persons as they
seek to evaluate variant readings. My use of "honest" was not meant to
impugn the character of those scholars; "fair and unbiased intent" might
have been a more preferable term.  Either way, the blinders produce bias
which controls and affects the judgment and leads to a certain disregard
(accidental or deliberate) for the fair consideration of _all_ pertinent
data regarding _all_ sources of evidence.

Note that I am perfectly willing to acknowledge my present bias in favor
of the Byzantine Textform, and I also trust that I am regarded as a
somewhat honest and somewhat honorable scholar as well. It must be
remembered that, beginning in the mid-1960s, my original training in
textual criticism came from Metzger's and Greenlee's books, and my
original text-critical position was totally within the modern eclectic
mould. 

It was only after reading Colwell and studying under K.W.Clark that my
text-critical opinions began to shift (I absolve James Brooks from having
any influence on the direction of my textual proclivities); since Colwell
and Clark, by having most of my conclusions confirmed by the critiques of
Epp and others regarding modern eclecticism, I find little reason ever to
don the blinders again. Yet I still do not think that I can produce the
perfect text either, though I probably hold a higher degree of certainty
regarding the primary reading within most variant units than might others.

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