Subject: Re: Relevance of Westcott and Hort

From: Michael Holmes <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 09:49:30 -0500 (CDT)

At 10:51 PM 7/9/97 -0500, Mark Arvid Johnson asked:
>Do the works and theories of Westcott and Hort still matter, or are the
>only of historical value for textual criticism today? Of what importance
>are they today?

I think it is helpful to distinguish between Hort's discussion of
text-critical methodology, on the one hand, and his reconstruction of the
history of the transmission of the NT text, on the other.

Regarding the latter: as Robert Waltz pointed out in his reply to Johnson,
new discoveries since Hort's day have required substantial revisions in our
understanding of the history of the transmission of the NT text (though in
certain respects they confirmed some of Hort's hypotheses).  Thus in terms
of his historical reconstructions, Hort is a bit of a historical monument,
to phrase it in terms of Johnson's question.

Regarding the former: Hort's discussion of methodology remains the
fundamental starting point for all serious discussion of text-critical
methodology.  The comprehensiveness of his treatment stands in sharp
contrast to recent discussions of method (which, to be sure, are often
attenuated for reasons often related to purpose, intent, or limitations of
space; this comment is an observation rather than a criticism).  Lack of
attention (or ignorance of) to issues he discusses--such as the limitations
of a purely documentary approach, or the distinction between "absolute
originality" and "relative originality," or the ultimate importance of
intrinsic evidence--in much contemporary discussion of textual criticism is
a major contributing to much of our current confusion, etc.  No less a
critic than Zuntz (in his _Text of the Epistles_) basically affirmed the key
and critical points of Hort's approach to methodology. (See further my
comments in my essay in Ehrman & Holmes, _The Text of the NT in Contemporary
Research_, 347-348.)

If, as someone is reported to have said, Western philosophy is a series of
footnotes to Plato, then discussions of method in NT textual criticism since
1881 may be likened to a series of footnotes to Hort.  That's how
fundamentally important his work on method (in contrast to his historical
reconstructions) remains.

Mike Holmes
Bethel College