Subject: Re: Antiquity

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 09:45:13 -0500 (EST)

At 04:11 PM 4/5/97 +0200, you wrote:

>Jim, you reason as if patristical quotations simply didn't exist. What's 
>too simple...
>
>Jean V.
>

Not at all.  If a Father contains a quotation of the Biblical text, it must
be taken into account.  Yet the same problem arises in the Patristic
evidence (somehting I know little to nothing about).  I.e., what is the
earliest manuscript of the Father?  If Tertullian quotes John, for instance;
well and good.  But what is the date of the Tertullian manuscript?  12th,
16th, 19th century?  Simply to say that Father x quotes Mark and therefore
the text of Mark can be estalished by that quote simply does not work.  What
is the date of Father x's ms?

The same criterian apply to the OT text.  The DSS are 1000 years older than
the Leningrad text.  They are therefore far more significant than Lenigrad.

Jim

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

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