Subject: Re: Antiquity

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 13:02:44 -0500 (EST)

At 09:05 PM 4/5/97 +0400, you wrote:
>Perhaps it would be better for Jim to talk of specific places where the
>reading of the oldest Greek ms containing a verse is wrong.

Yes, it would.  Though to say that a ms contains a "wrong" reading is a
little ahead of the game, since it seems a bit premature at the beginning of
a post rather than at the end.

>
>What would you say to Romans 8:28. 
> P46, clearly the oldest Greek ms but
>not the oldest evidence (Clement, the Greek text behind the old latin). 

Depending on when you date the Clement ms.  At any rate, the Greek ms
tradition takes precedence over the Patrisitic and Versional evidence.

>The reading of P46 clearly is wrong even tho witnessed to by P46, A, B, &
>81 because there is little likelihood that scribes would have omitted the
>name of God. 

Yes, if a scribe felt it redundant, he could omit it; or it may have been
omitted due to parablepsis;  there seem to be any number of possibilities.

It is certainly the more difficult reading (in terms of sense)
It is the reading which best explains the others.
It is not the shorter reading (so here, in terms of the general rules, it fails)
It is the oldest reading.

> The reading also fits what Paul was saying, i.e., having
>mentioned God in the hOTI clause he assumed him as the subject of the verb
>SUNERGEI. 

This is absolutely correct- which is why a scribe would delete the second
reference to God; and why a scribe would not add it in- as the verse is
already clear without it.

> So the wording of the verse as Paul wrote it gave rise to the
>variation preserved in the earliest ms of Romans that we possess at the
>moment.
>

Or- the wording Paul used gave place in some mss to a scribal smoothing.

>Would you agree, Jim.

Yes- in terms of what I have clarified above.

>Carlton L. Winbery

Now, I said I would shut up for a while- but as Carlton did me the kindness
of positing an actual case I felt compelled to respond.

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology
[email-masked]