Subject: Re: Mark 1:41

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 17:17:27 -0500 (EST)

At 04:16 PM 3/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Text Critics:
>
>I am a grad student working on the text variant, Mark 1:41.  The question
>is, in the healing of the leper, whether Jesus responds with "compassion"
>or "anger."  Does anyone know of any useful bibliography on this textual
>variant?  If so, please let me know.  In advance, thank you.
>
>- Wayne Kannaday

See the excellent discussion in Bruce Metzger's "Textual Commentary on the GNT".

(He decides on "compassion".

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West
Adjunct Professor of Bible
Quartz Hill School of Theology

[email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 16:47:01 -0700

On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Jim West <[email-masked]>

>(He decides on "compassion".

I always have trouble with those discussions in the UBS commentary,
though. It seems like they have these extended arguments and then
*always* decide on the Alexandrian reading.

It might be worth looking in Yoder's concordance to Bezae to see if
this particular change occurs elsewhere. The "Caesarean" and "Western"
texts do have a variant in John 11:33 which might spring from the
same attitudes toward Jesus. (Or might not. I'm just spinning off
ideas here.)

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

                            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)

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From: Felix Sung <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 14:38:22 -0500 (EST)

> *always* decide on the Alexandrian reading.

The reason they "always" decide on the Alexandrian reading is related
to the politics involved in ensuring that the readings of the UBS and
the NA agree.

My tc prof in seminary, Bob Lyon, was the recording secretary for the
translation committee in either '57 or '58 (I forget which), and he
says there was a blow-up over the fact that Kurt Aland didn't reveal
to the rest of the committee that he was about to release a new
edition of the NA until the UBS was in its final stages. (Actually, if
I remember correctly, Bob says that Black and Metzger found out via
the grapevine, rather than Aland telling the Committee.) Black and
Metzger confronted Aland and demanded that the NA text be identical
to the UBS text because they felt--quite rightly--that for Aland, a
member of the committee, to print a text that differed from that
agreed upon by the committee, was to impugn the competence of the
other members of the committee, or else they (and the rest of the
committee) would resign.

According to Bob, Aland agreed to print the text agreed upon by the
committee, but extracted a _quid pro quo_, _viz._, that when the
committee was deadlocked over a reading, his vote would determine
which reading was printed in the body of the text. Thus, phrases like,
"Although part of the Committee preferred ..., a majority ..." and "A
majority of the committee" likely signal places where Aland cast the
deciding vote. (BTW, I suspect BMM got in the last word on this
matter. There are a number of items flagged in the textual commentary
that aren't significant enough to rate a grade in the body of the text--Mk
2.41, _dia ton ochlon_, comes to mind--where he says "that "one member
considers." A veiled shot at Aland, perhaps?)

Felix Sung                                            Wycliffe College
[email-masked]                      Toronto School of Theology