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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 02:30:02 -0400
To: tc-list-digest@shemesh
Subject:   tc-list-digest V2 #133
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Subjects of Messages in this Digest:

Subject: Re: Fathers (fwd)
Subject: The NT in the Greek Fathers  (was Fathers [fwd])
Subject: Re: The NT in the Greek Fathers  (was Fathers [fwd])
Subject: new article

tc-list-digest              Monday, 28 July 1997        Volume 02 : Number 133

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 07:40:10 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Fathers (fwd)

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]> wrote, in part:

[ ... ]
 
>> >	(3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
>> >sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
>> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
>> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
>> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
>> >Petersen).  Two issues:
>> [snip]
>> While this is an important series to mention, I don't see that its
>> existence affects the Encyclopedia, or similar works, at all.
>> Obviously people who have those volumes should consult them, rather
>> than the Encyclopedia, for full details. On the other hand, how many
>> of you have the entire set on your desks?
>
>One way in which its existence affects the Encyclopedia is that you could
>compare your judgement concerning what information about the Fathers is
>relevant to TC with the selection of information about the Fathers
>actually used in the monographs. 

Oh, agreed. I was just pointing out that the series is not a
substitute for the Encyclopedia, or vice versa.

>Now one difference this whole thread illustrates between the Web and a
>peer-reviewed forum is that sometimes the best way to get feedback
>comparable to peer-review is to put something out there and filter through
>the resulting criticism to decide which is useful correction and which is
>not.  I hope you will find my comments useful.  My first comment after
>finally being able to connect is that I wish you had an indication of for
>which of these Fathers a critical edition is available. This would
>certainly be of great relevance to TC. 

Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't have enough information at my disposal
to do this well. If someone else does, again, I will include it.

>The next omission I notice is that you seem to discuss the various Fathers
>works only from the standpoint of _New_ Testament criticism, even when his
>works are potentially useful for Old Testament (Old Latin & Vulgate)
>criticism, such as Cassiodorus, who wrote a very complete commentary on
>the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC. 

Again I plead lack of knowledge and information.

I'd also ask a question. This is not an argument, I'm simply curious:
What is the significance of Cassiodorus's commentary on Psalms for
NT criticism? (Apart, of course, from any NT passages it cites.) Not
having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.

>Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
>commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
>of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
>Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
>frequent reference to him as well. 

Er -- that turns out not to be the case. If you look on pp. 74*-76* in
the NA27 introduction, you'll see an (allegedly) complete list of fathers
cited. (I say "allegedly" because it contains a couple of minor errors --
e.g. it does not list the Pseudo Dionysus, who is quoted, I think, twice).
Theophylact does not appear in the list.

The list of fathers for whom I provided entries was chosen according to
a very simple principle: If the author is cited in NA27 or Merk, I
included him. Otherwise, no. I know there are some important sources
omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.
And I decided that the lists in UBS4 and (even more so) Souter were
too much work. If enough people want me to add the fathers cited in
UBS4, I guess I'll try -- but the results won't be as good. (I refuse
even to consider trying to add everyone in Souter. Some of those I
can't even figure out the official English name for. :-)

Incidentally -- it turns out that Merk's list of Fathers cited
is very inaccurate. I haven't finished going through the gospels
yet, but I've already found three (I think it was) authors he
cites who do not appear in his list, and several more whom he
cites under the wrong abbreviation. So that's one more thing to
be added to the article.... :-)

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 97 15:57:56 +0100
Subject: The NT in the Greek Fathers  (was Fathers [fwd])

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):

> No one has referred,
>though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
>in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
>edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
>Petersen).  Two issues:

>	(a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
>for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
>comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)

>From my own experience with the series as well as with patristic testimonies in 
general I would like to add three suggestions for (IMHO) improving the series:

1) It is absolutely vital for readers of the series to have exact information on 
which readings are judged to be part of the body of readings subjected to 
quantitative analysis. When working, e.g., with Bart Ehrman's *Didymus the 
Blind* it takes a lot of stupid, even confusing work to make your way through 
the aparatus in order to figure out the units of variation judged to be 
genetically significant. I do not claim that this is impossible, but it's 
boaring and prone to error. Just as a service for the reader, why not 
highlightening the units of variation judged to be significant within the 
aparatus itself or adding lists?

2) Quantitative analysis requires _complete_ collation of all witnesses included 
in the pool. To perform this task is relatively easy, though not without 
occasional problems, as long as we are solely dealing with MSS. As soon as 
Church Father testimonies are involved we face the problem of insecure 
ascriptions of readings due to loose citation or allusion. In case of exploiting 
allusions, which no doubt is a tricky business, one would like to know why out 
of a possible range of variant units only one or two are accepted while others 
are rejected. For example, in *Didymus the Blind* (p. 88) out of an allusion 
judged to refer to Mark 4:10 only the variation unit TAS PARABOLAS was accepted 
while the possible unit ERWTWSIN has been passed with silence. I have no doubts 
that Bart Ehrman had his reasons for this judgement. However, I simply wished he 
would have told us, for, in order to arrive at the conclusion presented, a set 
of highly complex individual decisions had to be made. The more difficult 
judgements are involved the more transparency is appreciated.

3) Somehow related to point 2) is the quest for how to assess what is judged to 
be a "genetically significant" unit of variation. G.D. Fee (in a review, 
published in CBQ 53 [1991] 320f) made the important point that what might be 
considered genetically significant when dealing with MSS, must not be 
automatically considered genetically significant when Church Father testimonies 
are involved. Fee suggests that within patristic testimonies (especially 
allusions) addition/omission of particles, articles, exchange of tempora, 
singular/plural, synonymic prepositions/conjunctions are suspect to be "textual 
trivia" (Fee's expression), displaying no genealogical relationship. Granted 
this point has at least some merit, it seems vital to address this issue within 
a broader scope, thus giving it a more prominent role in future studies on 
Church Fathers' texts. It may well turn out that the Fathers can not be treated 
all the same, for some, e.g., may well prefer to adjust their own argument to 
the biblical text over the opposite attitude for which we have plenty of 
evidence. Some may even change their attitude towards the biblical text when 
writing in different genres or addressing different audiences (c.f. Clement of 
Alexandria's Protreptikos vs. Paidagogos + Stromateis). However, this has to be 
assessed, documented, and applied to the evaluation of the evidence.

To sum up: In my mind, increasing transparency on various levels is appreciated 
to improve the series. A lot has already been done. Nevertheless, still more 
could be achieved.

Ulrich Schmid (Muenster)

------------------------------

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 21:56:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: The NT in the Greek Fathers  (was Fathers [fwd])

   These are excellent points by Ulrich Schmidt, and my sense is that
subsequent studies in the series (including a couple that are now in the
pipeline) have done a better job at explaining the logic behind the
necessary decisions than I did as I sloshed through the Didymus material. 
When I was doing this study (it was my dissertation), by the way, I was
struck by at how even in this sub-discipline (i.e., t-c) which is commonly
touted as the most "objective" of all NT studies, *decisions* have to be
made at every step along the way, human fallible decisions that totally
belie the idea even that grouping witnesses is a non-subjective
enterprise.  Oddly enough (too oddly, some might think), it started me
down the slippery slopes to become the postmodernist you see before you
pecking at his keyboard today! 

   With respect to Mark 4:10, all I can do at this stage is try to
reconstruct my thinking back when I was grinding away at this in the early
80's.  I don't have all my data right here, but it looks to me like
Didymus's text clearly does support the plural _parabolas_, even in the
allusion; but I'm not sure how his present tense _erwtwsin_ *could* be
used to support either the imperfect or the aorist tense found, e.g., in
the TR and UBS.  (Recall, I provided an asterisk for allusions that could
be used for one variant or another, and then indicated *those* variants,
rather than give full collations at those points ((since what would be the
point of knowing that other witnesses vary at points for whom the father's
text is indeterminable?)); in this case, I decided that it could be used
for one variant in the tradition but not the other).  Ulrich, did I miss
something here?  (i.e., *is* there a variation among the MSS that I used
for which Didymus's text could be used to adjudicate by his _erwtwsin_)?

    The point about textual trivia is also important, though I must say
that Gordon Fee and I have argued about this for years, and I disagree
with him in discounting *everything* that he would want to discount. 
Sometimes the presence of articles, changes in tenses and word orders,
etc. *can* be counted on in a father's text.  It has to be decided on a
case-by-case basis (by Father and by variant), which, of course, calls
again into question the objective character of the enterprise.  (And, in
my judgment, as I've pointed out on this list before, there's nothing that
can be done about that, because this *is* a human venture, and decisions
have to be made -- even if one decides to try to set up a system in which
no decisions have to be made!) (i.e., that's a decision, and is not
self-evidently the best way to proceed -- so there's already a
value-judgment involved ; and the guidelines one chooses then for the
system are *still*, precisely, chosen!). 

   Gordon and I have had to come to terms with our
disagreement on this issue, since we've been doing the Origen project
together (with Mike Holmes and now Bruce Morrill) (not that one can notice
any significant progress being made, I might add...); Gordon has eased up
a bit on his hard line on this, and I've conceded some of his major
points, esp. dealing with variations at the outset of a quotation, where
things tend to get *really* loose. 

   But it would be a good idea, I agree, at least to indicate where
variation is thought to be significant and where not. 

   Thanks again for the suggestions.

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

On Sat, 26 Jul 1997 [email-masked] wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):
> 
> > No one has referred,
> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
> >Petersen).  Two issues:
> 
> >	(a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
> >for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
> >comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)
> 
> >From my own experience with the series as well as with patristic testimonies in 
> general I would like to add three suggestions for (IMHO) improving the series:
> 
> 1) It is absolutely vital for readers of the series to have exact information on 
> which readings are judged to be part of the body of readings subjected to 
> quantitative analysis. When working, e.g., with Bart Ehrman's *Didymus the 
> Blind* it takes a lot of stupid, even confusing work to make your way through 
> the aparatus in order to figure out the units of variation judged to be 
> genetically significant. I do not claim that this is impossible, but it's 
> boaring and prone to error. Just as a service for the reader, why not 
> highlightening the units of variation judged to be significant within the 
> aparatus itself or adding lists?
> 
> 2) Quantitative analysis requires _complete_ collation of all witnesses included 
> in the pool. To perform this task is relatively easy, though not without 
> occasional problems, as long as we are solely dealing with MSS. As soon as 
> Church Father testimonies are involved we face the problem of insecure 
> ascriptions of readings due to loose citation or allusion. In case of exploiting 
> allusions, which no doubt is a tricky business, one would like to know why out 
> of a possible range of variant units only one or two are accepted while others 
> are rejected. For example, in *Didymus the Blind* (p. 88) out of an allusion 
> judged to refer to Mark 4:10 only the variation unit TAS PARABOLAS was accepted 
> while the possible unit ERWTWSIN has been passed with silence. I have no doubts 
> that Bart Ehrman had his reasons for this judgement. However, I simply wished he 
> would have told us, for, in order to arrive at the conclusion presented, a set 
> of highly complex individual decisions had to be made. The more difficult 
> judgements are involved the more transparency is appreciated.
> 
> 3) Somehow related to point 2) is the quest for how to assess what is judged to 
> be a "genetically significant" unit of variation. G.D. Fee (in a review, 
> published in CBQ 53 [1991] 320f) made the important point that what might be 
> considered genetically significant when dealing with MSS, must not be 
> automatically considered genetically significant when Church Father testimonies 
> are involved. Fee suggests that within patristic testimonies (especially 
> allusions) addition/omission of particles, articles, exchange of tempora, 
> singular/plural, synonymic prepositions/conjunctions are suspect to be "textual 
> trivia" (Fee's expression), displaying no genealogical relationship. Granted 
> this point has at least some merit, it seems vital to address this issue within 
> a broader scope, thus giving it a more prominent role in future studies on 
> Church Fathers' texts. It may well turn out that the Fathers can not be treated 
> all the same, for some, e.g., may well prefer to adjust their own argument to 
> the biblical text over the opposite attitude for which we have plenty of 
> evidence. Some may even change their attitude towards the biblical text when 
> writing in different genres or addressing different audiences (c.f. Clement of 
> Alexandria's Protreptikos vs. Paidagogos + Stromateis). However, this has to be 
> assessed, documented, and applied to the evaluation of the evidence.
> 
> To sum up: In my mind, increasing transparency on various levels is appreciated 
> to improve the series. A lot has already been done. Nevertheless, still more 
> could be achieved.
> 
> Ulrich Schmid (Muenster)
> 

------------------------------

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:42:02 -0500 (EST)
Subject: new article

        Colleagues,
A new article is available in the Journal of Biblical Studies:

VOICI VENIR TON ROI:  L=92entr=E9e messianique et le roi pacifique dans la=
 Bible
et dans l=92Orient Ancien,
by Lucien-Jean BORD

Just go to the journal home page and follow the 'articles' link.

The Journal is found at

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

Let me again mention that the Journal and its editors are happy to review
articles for publication in the field of Biblical and related studies.

Jim
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology

[email-masked]

------------------------------

End of tc-list-digest V2 #133
*****************************