Subject: Qualifications, Classifications, and Progress

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 09:34:18 -0400 (EDT)

I too don't think contributors should be maligned for not having
seminary degrees or for not having published anything (I haven't been
reading the list consistently, and so didn't know that anyone had leveled
these accusations against R. Waltz).  My point though is that if Mr. Waltz
wants to make a public statement that the study of the NT text hasn't gone
anywhere for decades, I'd like to see his qualifications for saying so. It
certainly doesn't need to be in the form of degrees or publications; I'd
settle for some evidence of knowing the field well enough to pass judgment
on it. 

   How, for example, can anyone who hasn't read the seminal pieces and
kept up on recent developments -- e.g., in group profile methods? -- say
that nothing of significance has happened in the field?  And how can
someone write an encyclopedia article on just this topic for broad
circulation?  Am I to understand that this encyclopedia article overlooks
the major contributions of the past 30 years?  I apologize for the
bluntness of these questions, but it seems to me that anyone who makes a
sweeping judgment on a field is not asking to be treated with kid gloves.

   In fact, if major "breakthroughs" are the important criterion to
consider for the field going somewhere, I should think that manuscript
classification (especially in the matter recently raised, of getting away
from the use of non-Byzantine readings to establish consanquinity) would
be one area to consider seriously.  A decade-old piece that may serve as a
starting point is my "where we are now" sketch:  "Methodological
Developments in the Analysis and Classification of NT Documentary
Evidence," _NovT_ 29 (1987) 22-45. Gordon Fee's article is a key
development here; the full reference is "The Text of John and Mark in the
Writings of Chrysostom,"  _NTS_ 26 (1979-80)  525-47.  My other article
that I mentioned earlier is "The Use of Group Profiles for the
Classification of NT Documentary Evidence," _JBL_ 106 (1987) 465-86; the
Didymus book whence the data come is Scholars Press, 1986. 

   Again, any substantive suggestions by people who *have* read and/or
used the method are extremely welcome. 

   In terms of substantive developments in other subfields, I would
suggest that the increasingly widespread recognition of the importance of
theological and other ideological disputes in early Christianity for the
NT text is a major breakthrough.  And the significant advances in
patristic analyses (with competent studies now available, for the first
time, of the NT texts of Didymus, Gregory of Nyssa, chunks of Origen,
Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and others, including Cyril of Alexandria
soon forthcoming) are highly significant.  Very very soon we will be
equipped to write a competent history of the text of Alexandria, for
example, on the basis of some of these sundry (and related) studies.  Any
takers?  It needs to be someone thoroughly conversant with all the data
that are increasingly becoming available.

-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 11:17:05 -0700

>settle for some evidence of knowing the field well enough to pass judgment

Let me again try to make my statement clear: I was saying that the
textual *theory* of NTTC has not changed much in the last few decades.
At least, I haven't seen any changes in the manuals.

It is obviously true that a massive amount of work has been put into
classifying manuscripts. The amount of *information* available is
much greater than it was fifty or even twenty years ago. This should
facilitate the development of better theory. On the other hand, if
one of the most widely used techniques -- the Claremont Profile Method --
can't tell the B text from the D text, it's clear we still have
problems. :-)

I will admit that I haven't seen Ehrman's own work. Based on Vincent
Broman's comments, it does sound like it is the first widely-used
classification system to use classified agreements -- which I consider
absolutely vital. Obviously Ehrman beat me to the punch on this
(I will have to look up the article to see which method works best).

I would point out that I *am* a trained mathematician. I can say without
hesitation that the level of mathematical sophistication displayed in
many of the publications in the field is abysmal. (Though the worst
crimes have been committed by people, such as Richards,  not on this list.)
I would appeal for those who use mathematical methods to consult with
a mathematician (preferably a statistician -- something which I am
not) before making too much of their results.

And since I don't want to escalate this debate, I will not respond
further.

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

                            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: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 97 18:24:25 +0100

Since the first mail seems to have been bounced, I'll try it again.

On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):

>NT text is a major breakthrough. 

Bart, could you please add some examples of "the increasingly widespread 
recognition of the importance of theological and other ideological disputes in 
early Christianity for the NT text" apart from your own book, of course.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:03:52 -0400 (EDT)

Ulrich,

   Yeah, actually this particular point (as opposed to the other two, I
think) *may* be more of a matter of my simply seeing things from where I
sit, since this is in fact the area that I happen to be most interested
in. But there *have* been some important and interesting studies. I'd say
that Eldon Epp's study of Theological Tendencies was groundbreaking and
got things rolling (though he had significant predecessors, of course); 
about the time I was writing there appeared important articles by Peter
Head and Mikeal Parsons (whose book on the ascension tradition in
Luke-Acts dealt with related issues as well) and even Bruce Metzger's
little piece on MSS of the Fourth Gospel with Hermeneia.  More recently
(just now, in fact) there have been two very interesting dissertations
that I'm aware of, Kim Haines-Eitzen's study of the social location of
early Christian scribes (not completed yet, but includes, e.g., a chapter
on women scribes in the Greco-Roman world) and John Brogan's study of
Athanasius, which argues for specific instances of the trinitarian
controversies affecting his text, and further for some instances in which
Athanasius's theologically related modifications entered into the MS
tradition, specifically with some of the corrections in Codex Sinaiticus
(both Kim and John, I think, are on this list). 

   I have to admit, though, that my statement was to some extent driven by
reviews of my book, which seem to have seen it as an interesting and
significant development in the field (wish I could claim to have come up
with the idea of theological alterations of the text myself), and off the
cuff comments in other forums (e.g., by Mike Holmes in his essay on
Reasoned Eclecticism for The NT in Contemporary Research), as well as lots
of conversations with lots of young scholars interested now in the field
(can't quantify these of course, and as I said, maybe it's just a matter
of where I sit).  (But I *don't* think we're going to be hearing too many
people now repeat Hort's famous and much quoted dictum about there being,
apart from Marcion, no theological modifications of the text.) 

   Another gauge from the American scene is a comparison of the papers
read at the national SBL meetings now with the ones read, say, ten or
fifteen years ago; there is a *lot* more attention being paid to issues
intrinsic to the history of transmission (i.e., in its own right) rather
than simply to the question of the "original" text, and correspondingly a
greater interest shown in the section by scholars who *never* would have
been (or were) seen there before.  I should also say, though, that I
haven't noticed a move in this direction among colleagues in Germany or
France (although, e.g., both Amphoux and Boismard have privately expressed
some enthusiasm; Amphoux, though, has told me that he is not going
to pursue it himself, because he's not personally interested in the
relationship of social history to the changes of the text). 
  
   I'd be interested in other feedback, though, from others on the list,
i.e., whether this is seen (outside my office) as a fruitful avenue of
research that hasn't been fully explored heretofore and that is coming to
be an area of broader interest.

-- Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

On Wed, 16 Apr 1997 [email-masked] wrote:

> Since the first mail seems to have been bounced, I'll try it again.  > >
On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):  > > > In terms of
substantive developments in other subfields, I would > >suggest that the
increasingly widespread recognition of the importance of > >theological
and other ideological disputes in early Christianity for the > >NT text is
a major breakthrough.  > > Bart, could you please add some examples of
"the increasingly widespread > recognition of the importance of
theological and other ideological disputes in > early Christianity for the
NT text" apart from your own book, of course.  > > Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 97 17:53:44 +0100

Thanks to Bart Ehrman for providing us with some interesting new projects on 
Theological/Sociological backgrounds of scribes.

To be sure, there are deliberate changes within NT MSS, some of them even 
emphasizing certain theological/christological options. However, exploring 
Theological Tendencies out of variant readings seems to be a difficult task, as 
far as I can see. Two serious obstacles tend to obscure most of the results of 
studies I am aware of:

1. Some studies only choose few readings of a MS in order to portrait a certain 
tentency, while at the same time hardly accounting for the rest of the MS's text 
(readings). This, in my mind, is especially true with Epp's famous study on the 
Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae in Acts.
2. Studies of Theological Tendencies always have to assume a _possible 
interpretation_ of a given variant reading to be it's _one and only source_. But 
in a lot of cases this is open to dispute. For example, arguing for Theological 
Tendencies on the basis of omissions simply seems hazardous to me, for omissions 
of all sorts are found in each and every MS as far as I am acquainted with the 
data. Since the vast majority of variant readings within our MSS are due to 
accidental scribal plunder so to speak (misreading, misspelling, haplography, 
dittography, homoioteleuton, line skips, confusion of letters, words, etc.), 
and, since sometimes even plunder makes sense (e.g. line skips, confusion of 
letters to some extend), I simply don't know how to ascertain a deliberate 
scribal effort to be the source of some of the alleged whether "Orthodox" or 
"Heterodox (e.g., some marcionite readings) Corruptions".

Note, my contention is not whether "Orthodox" or "Heterodox Corruptions" existed 
or not, but how to verify them beyond a reasonable doubt. At least in my view we 
need to develop solid methods in order to exclude other possible sources for an 
alleged theologically motivated reading. Anecdotal lists of readings or some 
ingenious, even _possible_ interpretations will not convince me, as long as 
there are other _possible_ interpretations. 
BTW-- The reason why I got increasingly sceptical with respect to _demonstrable_ 
Theological Tendencies is that I had a hard time to even figure out the shape of 
Marcion's Theological Tendencies out of the remainders of his NT text. 
Therfore, I am curious to know how others deal with the problems outlined above. 

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 10:58:03 +000

Having just returned from the Birmingham (First) Internatl. 
Coolloguium  on NT Textual Criticism where I gave an invited paper in 
which I tried out a list of things indicative of current and future 
NT TC work, I'd like to respond to Bart Ehrman's query about where 
others see the field at and going.  (The paper is titled "Beyond the 
Interlude?  Developments and Directions in New Testament Textual 
criticism" and is committed to a planned colloquium volume to be 
edited by David Parker).
1.  I mentioned briefly a number of things that indicate renewed 
interest & activity:  the re-birth of Studies & Documents, the new 
SBL serieson the Greek Fathers, Amphoux's new series "Histoire due 
texte biblique", the IGNT vols., the new electronic journal TC, the 
modest growth in numbers of scholars since Epp's Interlude essay 
(even since his funereal Requiem essay), growth in attendance at the 
NTTC sessions at SBL, Pickering's New Testament Textual Research 
Update bulletin, a modest incrrease in places to do a PhD with 
someone published & interested in NTTC (viz. Bart at UNC, Parker in 
Birmingham, and yours truly in Edinburgh, in addition to Elliott at 
Leeds),.
2. I discussed works that amount to significant contributions and 
that point the way toward more of the same:
--More thorough examination of important witneses, as demonstrated 
esp. by Parker's study of D, and studies in the SBLNTGF series, and 
Petersen's Diatessaron volume.
--Better knowledge of scribal habits, as advanced in Parker's volume 
on D, Peter Head & James Royse on papyri.
--The Second Century:  Epp's arguments about relevance and 
representativeness of early papyri for complexions of NT in 2nd cent 
(cf. Koester's radical challenge to text critics in the Petersen 
volume on textual traditions in the 2nd cent.).
--Wider Historical Inquiry:  Ehrman's volume on theol. motivations of 
some variants (few NT text critics should find his data new, but he 
does seem to have begun to alert studens & non-text critics to the 
possible "sexiness" of the field!), Gamble's recent vol. on books & 
readers.
--Computerization:  continuing efforts of the IGNP for collation 
software, the Electronic NT MSS project.

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  [email-masked]