Subject: Eph 5:9 Reply pt.1

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 21:34:21 -0500 (EST)

This one got bounced due to length, so I have split it into two parts.
Here is part 1....

On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

>I've even encountered someone (not a Christian) who thought "God
>fights on the side with the heaviest artillery" was Biblical.

They need to listen to Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" :-)

>>Neither NA26 nor Von Soden give any patristic writers on either side in
>>the case of Eph.5:9, so I suspect there are none of note. There is no
>>variant at Gal.5:22, so no data there either.

>But this is the fact we need: How often did people cite that passage?
>Only by knowing how familiar it is can we determine whether people
>would harmonize to it. I concede Robinson's argument (omitted) that
>it is hard to tell how well-known a passage is. But it is a crucial
>question here.

Yet for the most part in the NT we are at the same loss. Certainly
favorite liturgical passages such as the Lord's Prayer or the
Magnificat would be well known in the early church, but would the
various catalogs of virtues all be linked together and called the
"fruit of the spirit" by the average person? I think this unlikely.
Similarly, while today's evangelical church majors on John 3:16 (as can
be seen from almost any sporting event), I suspect this key salvational
verse played a very small part in the early liturgical church. The key
to familiarity in the early era is more probably liturgy than anything
else, and thus the lectionaries and early liturgies are our best source
for determining popularity of various verses or phrases, "world without
end"....

>>If (under a Byzantine-priority hypothesis) the Byzantine Textform = the
>>autograph, it then also = whatever "harmonized" common text might appear
>>in those autographs, just as in places where no units of variation exist.
>>Merely because in such situations the Byzantine Textform happens to read
>>identically between, say, Matthew and Mark where the Alexandrian may
>>happen to vary, does _not_ allow an automatic presumption of deliberate
>>harmonization by the scribes of the Byzantine MSS.

>Agreed again, but it's *still* assuming the solution. The matter cannot
>be investigated from that standpoint.

Certainly it can. Any hypothesis _must_ be tested by first assuming the
truth of the hypothesis under consideration and then evaluating its
claims and attempting to disprove such. If there is an initial refusal
to consider the hypothesis from within its own theoretical framework,
then the conclusion is predetermined and such a hypothesis cannot be
fairly evaluated.  Such a method in no way precludes testing the
component parts of the hypothesis by evaluating the data piece by
piece.

Were I to test the validity of the modern eclectic viewpoint, I would
have to allow as an initial working hypothesis their view of
transmissional history, the development of variants, and the secondary
nature of the Byzantine Textform. I then could test the hypothesis and
see whether the modern eclectic theory is self-consistent within its
own parameters by making a detailed examination of its presuppositions
and testing for a regular and fair application of its own internal and
external principles.  After such a theory has been tested from within
its own parameters, with weaknesses or inconsistencies noted, one can
then propose or move on to alternative hypotheses for similar
evaluation.  Following the scientific method, the hypothesis with the
_fewest_ perceived weaknesses should be given the preference (I think
this is the scientific method's equivalent to "God fights on the side
with the heaviest artillery").

>>_All_ theories have to function properly
>>within their own parameters, else they would already be invalid. Were I to
>>maintain that the Byzantine Text as established by a Byzantine-priority
>>method indeed _does_ have harmonizations within it, then I would be
>>admitting that my theory is no theory at all. I hope you see the point.

>I see what you are saying. And I do not argue that we must always
>accept the least harmonious reading. I am simply saying (and this
>criticism applies just as much to blind followers of Hort as to
>followers of the Byzantine text) that *wherever* there is a variant
>involving one or more harmonized readings, and one or more disharmonized
>readings, we must initially evaluate the readings without examining
>the text-types they belong to.

I agree that any and all harmonizations, whether real or alleged, must
be investigated; however, following the method you just described
(which disregards the working hypotheses under consideration), I see no
way that you can come to any conclusion regarding _any_ alleged
harmonization without declaring it to be a true harmonization and
therefore secondary. Q.E.D., your suggestion _does_ advocate a
principle that "we must always accept the least harmonious reading", so
long as you approach the variant units with no theoretical concept from
any perspective concerning the nature of transmissional history
presupposed by the respective theorists.

>Note that I am working at the very lowest level here. I am *not*
>trying to determine the original text. I am trying to determine the
>age and value of the Byzantine text (and the other text-types).
>Only once that investigation is completed can we start on the
>original text.

I suspect that if that question were totally settled, we would not be
having any discussion. Were I convinced that the Byzantine Textform and
the transmissional theory which underlies a preference for it were
false or unsound, I would be the first to return to either modern
eclectic praxis or even to the Westcott-Hort theory.

Since, however, the determination of the age and value of the Byzantine
Textform as well as that of the other texttypes is bound up part and
parcel with the underlying presuppositions and various hypotheses, I
suspect no resolution of this problem will come quickly (although
apparently many from the opposing side thought the Byzantine Text
defense was long ago dead and buried, and liked the thought of keeping
it that way).

This is why I have maintained (with H.H.Oliver and others) that 
"textual criticism without a history of the text is impossible." Modern 
eclecticism proceeds without a real history of the text, and prefers to 
deal with the history of variants alone, taken from within the 
isolation of the respective variant units (whether one calls it the 
"local-genealogical method" or whatever).  The net result of such a 
practice leads (as has been critiqued by Colwell, Clark, Epp, and 
others from within the eclectic school) to a resultant printed text 
which has _no_ transmissional heritage nor existence in any known MS, 
version or texttype. Suffice it to say that a Byzantine-priority method 
does not share those particular weaknesses, nor do transmissionally- 
based pro-Alexandrian theories such as that of Westcott and Hort (who 
would have had a nearly pure Alexandrian text had they not gotten 
imbued with the "Western non-interpolations" issue); the problem noted
is endemic to modern eclecticism in particular.

>To put it another way, Robinson and I are operating at different levels.

Perhaps an understatement..... :-)

>He has reached a conclusion about the original text type. I had reached
>a different conclusion about that text-type. I am now offering to go
>back one level, and assume *ignorance* about the text-types. I am
>not willing to go back and then blindly come over to his side.

This of course is not expected nor demanded. It must be remembered that 
my own movement to a pro-Byzantine position was the result _only_ of 
first analyzing and critiquing the modern eclectic position, as well as
those of its predecessors, and only after did I seek a more reasonable
explanation to account for the data. Blame Kenneth W. Clark for setting
me on the road I have taken; it was his suggestion from the start.

>I said *primarily* conservative. They did not set out to create variants.
>That doesn't mean they *never* did so. We all know that no copyist is
>perfect.

Fully agreed. And no two MSS of _any_ texttype agree 100%, so far as I
know; but this does not affect texttype-specific readings, which are 
the primary data to be conservatively preserved in most MSS of any 
given texttype.

Regarding the creation of variants, however, I have suggested that
"new" sensible readings, whether accidentally or deliberately created
by scribes or revisers at any point subsequent to the autograph, would
always be unlikely to gain more than a small foothold within the
"primarily conservative" transmissional process, except among small
"local text" regions.

Most sensible readings so created were weeded out by cross-comparison
and correction from other exemplars within a few copying generations;
were this not the case, the NT MSS would have degenerated into
near-utter chaos among themselves, such as was the case with the Old
Latin, and we would not be talking of four major texttypes, but dozens
of competing minor texttypes at the very least.

The history of NT Greek MS transmission moves toward a final text
preserved in the mass of documents which has relatively very few
sub-variants among its member MSS. Order coming out of what should have
been chaos is a very problematic concept, and it is this very fact
which provoked either the Hortian "Syrian Recension" theory or the
Colwellian "process" theory to account for the rise and dominance of
the basically unified Byzantine Textform. Yet both the recensional and
process alternative hypotheses are beset by serious weaknesses, as
previously mentioned.

>Also, when I refer to the Byzantine copyists as "conservative," I refer
>to them during the periods during which their actions are visible
>(which starts in the fourth/fifth century for the gospels, and later in
>the rest of the NT).

Still fully granted. If they essentially reproduced without change that
which had been bequeathed to them by scribes of each earlier
generation, I would not be surprised to find an essentially unified
Textform being preserved from the fourth or fifth century onward in 
the majority of MSS.

I also am willing to grant the relative non-conservative sloppiness of 
Egyptian scribes from the pre-4th century era in regard to most of the 
MSS which have been preserved to us from that region. I also grant the 
concept of the "uncontrolled popular text" existing before AD 200 which 
likely accounts for most known variant readings and especially the 
so-called "western" corruptions. 

My only additional assumption is that not all scribes nor even most 
scribes were necessarily like those we find in the papyri preserved 
from Egypt, and that it is a likely extrapolation from those known 
"conservative" Byzantine-type scribes from the 4th and 5th centuries 
and onward that similar earlier scribal conservatism also did prevail 
in the regions of the Empire where Greek had been the primary tongue 
(Southern Italy through modern Turkey) in the earlier centuries.  If 
this assumption is correct, then the groundwork for a Byzantine- 
priority theory has a legitimate basis.  Since such an assumption
cannot be proved one way or the other in view of current data, well,
that is why other hypotheses exist, equally unproven.

>We do not know the shape of the materials they
>worked with prior to that time. Of course, the same statement applies,
>with differences in date, to all text-types.

Also agreed.

....continued in pt. 2
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 97 12:28:31 +0100

>They need to listen to Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" :-)

Apropos *Bob Dylan*. Some weeks ago I heard the rumor that Kurt Aland owned some 
Bob Dylan records appreciating his music. I should have checked it out before 
publicly mentioning it, but this week virtually noone is here at the institute, 
and next week I will be away...
But given this rumor, isn't that fine, Maurice? Eclectics could have been fans 
of Bob Dylan...

Just as an aside...

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:49:06 -0500 (EST)

> But given this rumor, isn't that fine, Maurice? Eclectics could have been fans 

If this is true, Ulrich, then Kurt Aland and I may be closer
text-critically than you might think.....The question now is whether
Barbara Aland or anyone else at the Institute is a fan of Dylan.....

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From: Nichael Cramer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 13:51:46 -0500 (EST)

Maurice Robinson wrote:
> [email-masked] wrote:

Although it might not seems so at first glance, this may not be as
unreasonable as one might think.  It would appear that Mr Dylan is in
possession of manuscripts that contain many interesting variant readings. 
For example, one of his early publication contained the following variant
from Genesis: 

   "God said to Abraham 'Kill me a son',
      Abe said 'Man, you gotta be putting me on!'
    God, he said, 'No'
          Abe he said 'What?!?'
    God said 'Listen you can do what you want.
       But next you seem comin' you'd better run...'
   Abe said 'Where you want this killing done?'
       God said 'Out on Highway 61!'

--
Nichael Cramer
work: [email-masked]
home: [email-masked]
http://www.sover.net/~nichael/

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 01:11:30 -0500 (EST)

>        God said 'Out on Highway 61!'

I believe this expanded reading is found in the Dylanxenian Pentateuch
scrolls, found in Cave 7 alongside Highway 61....