Subject: tc-list Probability and Text Types

From: "Mark Johnson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 06:50:03 -0600

Has any statistical analysis been done to test the hypothesis that the
various text types comprise one statistical distribution as opposed to
several?

Have any statistical tests in general been performed on the Biblical MSS? 

Mark Johnson

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 07:59:47 -0600 (CST)

>Have any statistical tests in general been performed on the Biblical MSS? 

I think we need some clarification here. What do you mean by "statistical
distribution"? Measured by agreement with some particular manuscript? Or
do you want to compare all manuscripts against all manuscripts? (Or,
more realistically, some set against itself?)

There have been studies done which use statistics -- the obvious
examples being Colwell and Tune and Kurt Aland's Thousand Readings.
As far as sophisticated statistical analysis of the results --
there is nothing. We don't even have an adequate definition of
the methods needed. Naturally, I hope to cure that. :-) Overall,
however, there hasn't been much interest.

I realize this isn't much of an answer. If you'll try to state the
problem more precisely, I'll try to give a better response.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: Vincent Broman <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 Nov 1997 21:56:44 -0000

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> various text types comprise one statistical distribution as opposed to

Various metrics have been computed on samples for classification,
but no one has computed probability distributions for those statistics,
that I've heard of.

> Have any statistical tests in general been performed on the Biblical MSS? 

People have computed interesting statistical quantities from MSS,
but the tests performed seem to be always heuristic.

Vincent Broman                                       San Diego, California, USA
Email: broman at sd.znet.com (home)       or spawar.navy.mil or nosc.mil (work)
Phone: +1 619 284 3775                       Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W
=== PGP protected mail preferred.   For public key finger me at np.nosc.mil ===

---

From: lakr <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 08:23:33 -0800 (PST)

Dear TC-er's

I remember a discussion awhile back on the issues surrounding
1 John 5:7 on this list, but a search for that verse in
the archives came up with no matches.  Does anyone know
if that discussion is still active in the archive (the one
on www.reference.com only goes back to July 97.)

Thanks in advance,
Larry Kruper

---

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:19:57 -0500 (EST)

> on www.reference.com only goes back to July 97.)

The tc-list archives are now also available in a very usable format at
http://findmail.com/listsaver/tc-list.  The archive currently goes back to
December 1996, but I hope that earlier archives will soon be available
there as well.  In the meantime, remember that you can request specific
months from the majordomo archive by sending the message "get tc-list
tc-list.yymm" (where yymm is year and month, e.g., tc-list.9604) to
[email-masked].  For those who would like to download
and search the entire archive, I've made it available at
ftp://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu/pub/openhouse/tc-list (the archive is
complete through the end of October).  The files at this ftp site will be
updated monthly.  My search of the archives (searching for "John 5:7"  and
"Jn 5:7" then omitting references to the gospel [to account for 1 John
5:7, 1John 5:7, I John 5:7, etc.]) found the verse mentioned in
tc-list.9601, tc-list.9608, tc-list.9706, and tc-list.9709. 

Jimmy Adair, Listowner, TC-List
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
-------------> http://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu <--------------