Subject: A question about the "cesarean text"

From: Jean VALENTIN <[email-masked]>
Date: Lun, 25 Ao� 97 22:43:18 +0200

A question to the specialists in Greek manuscripts. There have been 
instructing discussions about the so-called "cesarean text". As I'm 
working primarily on versions and my knowledge of Greek manuscripts is 
not as precise as yours, I would like to make sure that I understand 
correctly the questions about the manuscripts (and versions) usually 
known as "cesarean text".

The agreement of Theta, fam1, fam13, 565, 700, and several eastern 
versions has first been described (by Lake and others) as a text-type, 
named cesarean text. Working on versions, I can only remark that often, 
the Georgian, Armenian, Syropalestinian and several (not all) Arabic 
versions often have common variants, there being often also some members 
of this group that follow another text. Despite this, I remark that many 
specialists of the Greek manuscripts (and if I understand, Dr Hurtado, 
who participates to this list, is one of them) deny the existence of such 
a text-type or family of manuscripts. It seems also, as I read it some 
days ago, that "text-type" is not a good vocabulary to describe the 
phenomenon of the common variants of those eastern texts. I understand 
there's no reason to connect it to Cesarea in Palestine, though another 
Cesarea, in Cappadoce, has been pointed in a post not long ago as a 
possible origin for the Vorlage of the Armenian texts - BTW, if my memory 
is good, the same has been said as to the origins of the Armenian 
liturgy. But I may be mistaken once again by my memory...

If I understand also, there are some that argue for a connection between 
all those texts, but a looser one than what we find in "text-types" where 
the text would be more unified, like in the Alexandrian text. Do I 
understand correctly?

Please understand that I don't want to argue or to take position in the 
debate, as it simply is beyond my speciality! I am simply intrigued by 
this debate, that seems to have implications on the manner I will have to 
present the results of my own work to people working in Greek textual 
criticism. And I realize that in previous posts, I have used that 
vocabulary (wrongly?) to present some Arabic manuscripts. I just want to 
make sure I understand correctly what's going on, AND I would like to 
make sure I'm using the correct vocabulary when I describe the texts I'm 
working on for the use of Greek TC scholars. When I'm describing an 
Arabic version, for example, as following a "cesarean text", am I using a 
correct vocabulary or are there better concepts I should use ? Should I 
use more general statements like "it has many common variants with Theta 
and the Syropalestinian and Georgian versions" or the like ? Am I taking 
the risk of using a wrong or misleading vocabulary ? What about such 
appellations as "palestinian text", "mixed eastern texts", "Theta-text" ? 
Or is a whole collation the only way to say something accurrate (but not 
brief then :-)

Of course, I would be very thankful if some of you (Dr Hurtado for 
example, since from what I read on the list he's been working on the 
subject for so many years) could indicate me some book or article to 
read, in order to make my ideas clearer about this.

Thank you in advance,

Jean Valentin - Brussels

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:52:38 +000

A limited response (as requested) on some questions about the 
"Caesarean text" of the Gospels.
--First, my own work on the subject has (thus far) been limited to 
showing that the mss earlier thought to be primitive witnesses to a 
Caesarean text-type (the text-type otherwise identified esp. with 
Theta & 565) are not only any correct basis properly linked with 
Theta & 565.  P45, W and Fam 13 in fact do *not* agree comparatively 
more often with Theta and 565, as I showed in comparing agreements 
across the whole of Mark among P45, W, fam 13 and several control 
witnesses. P45 and W *do* seem to agee often enough and in such types 
of readings as to justify linking them with each other, and their 
comparative degree of agreement is distinguisably greater than with 
any control witness for any other identified early group.  So, one 
might refer to a P45-W type of text in the early centuries, but it is 
*not* "Caesarean", if by this term one means witnesses to the kind of 
text one has in Theta-565.
--Theta and 565 do seem likewise to agree with each other closely 
enough to link them.  And they do seem to represent something 
identifiable, but not so distinctive as the P45-W linkage.  Based on 
my limited study, I've suggested that Theta & 565 witness to a text 
drifting in the direction of what we call the "Byzantine" text-type.  
But the formation of the latter is a subject with which I am only 
somewhat competent to speak.
So, two points by way of advice:
1) In claiming agreement twixt mss or mss and versions, or Fathers, 
one really should be able to show sufficiently high levels of 
agreement across a body of text, and not merely a string of isolated 
readings shared by two or more witnesses.  An ad hoc anecdotal list 
of readings by itself is most certainly *not* to be taken as evidence 
of "text-type" relationship.  Individually significant readings *may* 
signal some kind of common influence or some kind of historical 
connection, or merely coincidence.  But even a handful of spectacular 
readings (e.g., the long ending of Mark or the pericope of the 
adulteress, or whtever), is not a text-type relationship.
 2) In referring to the "Caesarean" text, I respectfully suggest (in 
light of my own study, which has never been refuted, and has been 
endorsed as correct by quite a number of major NT text critics), that 
one is obliged to explain what one means first.  One might use the 
term to = Theta and 565.  If so, "Caesarean text-type" is quite a bit 
too grand a term.  Perhaps "Caesrean group" (*with the quote marks 
around "Caesarean" to indicate no necessary connection with anything 
else, just as we should put quote marks around "Western").  *If* one 
can demonstrate on some sound methodological basis a sufficiently 
high level of agreement of a version with Theta & 565, then one might 
do this.
As for bibliog. refs., perhaps the place to start is my 1981 book:
_Text-Critical Methodology and the Pre-Caesarean Text:  Codex W in 
the Gospel of Mark_ ("Studies & Documents" 43; Grand Rapids:  
Eerdmans, 1981).  See also, e.g., E. J. Epp, "The Twentieth-Century 
Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism," JBL 93(1974), 386-414, 
esp. 393-96.
On earliest witnesses & groupings of NT mss evidence, see now e. J. 
Epp, "The Significance of the Papyri for Determining the Nature of 
the NT Text in the Second Century:  A Dynamic View of Textual 
Transmission," in Epp & G. D. Fee _Studies in the Theory & Method of 
New Testament Textual Criticism_ ("Studies & Documents" 45; Grand 
Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1993), 274-98.
Check out also Epp's excellent survey article on "Textual Criticism 
(NT)" in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  [email-masked]

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 11:07:14 +000

Oops.  A potentially serious typo in my posting on the Caesarean text 
question:  In the opening sentence of my first point, for "not only 
any correct basis" read "not on any correct basis".

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 06:33:01 -0400 (EDT)

Dr. Hurtado's mention of the Caesarean text and the MSS involved prompts a
question which the resources available to me cannot answer:

MS 565 is cited in UBS 3/4 and Nestle 26/27 as omitting the Pericope
Adultera entirely.  

Metzger in his _Textual Commentary_ (either edition) says that MS 565
transposes the Pericope Adultera to the end of John, along with MS 1 of
Family 1.

I don't have access to the microfilm or collation of 565, so which
statement is correct? 

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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