Subject: Re: Theological Tendencies (was: Qualifications, Classifications, and Progress)

From: Curt Niccum <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 07:37:51 -0500

Jeff Childers and I have attempted to introduce some methodological controls
into this particular problem. Although we both would probably want to nuance
what was published, you might want to consult our "'Anti-feminist' Tendency
in the 'Western' Text of Acts?" in Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity,
Vol. 1, ed. Carroll D. Osburn (Joplin: College Press, 1993) 469-92.

Curt Niccum

At 05:53 PM 4/17/97 +0100, you wrote:
>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