Subject: Re: Hort

From: Michael Holmes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 09:29:54 -0500 (CDT)

At 10:00 PM 5/8/97 -0500, Jim West wrote:

>Is it not the case that Hort NEVER collated a ms himself but only depended
>on the editions available to him?  If so- then anyone who has collated as
>few as two mss has more actual experience in TC than Hort!
>
>Hort was brilliant in the theory of TC- but in practice he was not a
practioner.
>
>This means that if Helge has taken the time to assemble two ms and compared
>them that he has already far outstripped Hort in actual text critical work.

1) If I have read them correctly, the above comments equate "actual
experience in TC" and "actual text critical work" with the collation of
MSS--and nothing else, apparently.  The definition of TC implied by these
comments strikes me as extraordinarily narrow in scope.

2) Hort (together with Westcott, of course) edited a critical edition of the
entire NT.  They worked their way through every verse of the NT, making
judgments variant by variant.  To their text they added 142 pages of "Notes
on Select Readings," in which they discussed the evidence and reasons for
their judgments.  The claim that anyone who "has taken the time to assemble
two ms and compared them ... has already far outstripped Hort in actual text
critical work" is absurd.

Mike Holmes
Bethel College