Subject: tc-list History of transmission

From: "Huey Bahr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 19:23:08 -0600

In my humble view, there is more than one objective for Biblical Textual
Criticism. 
The primary one is to recover the earliest recoverable text.  Another is to
reconstruct 
the history of the transmission of the text.There is a lot to be learned
from the Byzantine 
Manuscripts, information that would be valuable to church historians, and
theologians.  
Though this text was the dominant text type for much of church history, it
continued to 
change.  Why? perhaps if we can gather and sort out the changes, and hazard
a guess as 
to when each change began to appear, we will have something of real value
to other disciplines.  
Every variation that is not purely accidental, bears witness to a
particular understanding
of the Biblical text.  Collation is important.  We have so much raw data.
If only we can 
manage to sort through and gather the information.

Huey Bahr ([email-masked])

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:55:07 -7000

> The primary one is to recover the earliest recoverable text.  

I would call this the ultimate objective, the one toward which the 
other objectives lead.

> Another is to reconstruct 
> the history of the transmission of the text.

As an end in itself, I sometimes wonder how much real value there is 
in this.  As a way to understand scribal habits and gain a better 
understanding of how to go about recovering the earliest possible 
text (the "original" however one conceives it), agreed.

> There is a lot to be learned from the Byzantine 

Not just to other disciplines, I suspect.  I do wonder how much the 
history of change within the Byz tradition can tell us about scribal 
habits, and how much we can extrapolate those habits back to the 
pre-Byz traditions.  I'm just raising questions here, I would hardly 
consider myself qualified to answer them.

> particular understanding of the Biblical text.  

Could you elaborate on this idea a little?

Dave Washburn
[email-masked]
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/
If you don't know where you're going, don't lead.

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From: "Jonathan D. Safren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:39:07 +0200

I find the exchange of viewpoints on the goals of tectual criticism to
be both enlightening and useful, and I'm going to make use of it in my
Intro to Bible course.
Thanks to both of you,
jonathan d. Safren
Dept. of Biblical studies
Beit Berl College

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:33:08 -0600

>I would call this the ultimate objective, the one toward which the 

Depends on what one's interests are. If one is a textual critic, this
is of course true. But a history of the Byzantine text might be more
interesting to one writing the history of the Orthodox church. :-)

>in this.

Again, it depends on one's interests. OTOH, I would argue that our
opinion of the history of the text is one of the most important
elements (in my case, *the* most important element) in determining
how we practice textual criticism. (This was pointed out by
Michael Holmes. It's amazing how a single chance comment can
affect one's viewpoint. :-)

[ ... ]

>consider myself qualified to answer them.

One might actually be surprised at the applications of this sort of
knowledge. For example, a biologist and I once discussed the relationship
between TC and biology. She understood it in terms of genetics, and
found deep similarities in the fields. I am not saying that the two
are directly analogous, and any suggestions from one discipline must
be tested in the other. But it is possible that they might offer
hypotheses to test.

Perhaps closer to home, there are analogies here to the transmission
of folklore and folk music, and any other traditional art forms
(pottery styles, perhaps, and hence to archaeology?).

Most things in the universe evolve in one way or another. Thus they
all show a certain sort of kinship with TC.

>Could you elaborate on this idea a little?

I'm not sure what the original author meant, but I concur with the
idea.

Put it this way: Scribes would naturally tend to make the text
conform with their prejudices -- which in turn reflect their
theology. An obvious example is John 7:8. The original text surely
quotes Jesus as saying that he "would not" go up to the feast.
But he *did* go to the feast. So scribes, who could not bear
the idea that Jesus would lie, change his mind, or be wrong,
corrected this to would not yet" go to the feast.

I'm not sure if there are enough variants of this type to reveal
anything about scribes' thought patterns -- but I suppose there
might be.

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

                        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)

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From: Jack Kilmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 09:44:15 -0600

> be tested in the other. But it is possible that they might offer

    As a biologist who dabbles in TC for fun, I have always seen
the same comparison.  The extant mss are our "fossils" which we
divide into phyla (Byzantine, Alexandrian, etc) and further into
"families such as 1739, 2138 and through "comparative anatomy"
into Genera.  P52 is "Lucy" at the present time (g).  Through form
criticism we can even speculate about the "primordial soup"
(Aramaic sources/NT) for which we, unfortunately, have no fossil
record but for a probable "relic species" (Syriac).  TC sure is
fun for a biologist! (g)

Jack

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon ([email-masked])

 http://scriptorium.accesscomm.net

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From: Carlton Winbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:04:59 +0400

>From the discussion of history of text;

>anything about scribes' thought patterns -- but I suppose there
One interesting development is the application of the rule, when to use the
"movable nu" (or I prefer the way Ward Powers says it - the omission of nu
in certain situations.

When 1346 was penned, the scribe seems not to know the rule and uses the nu
almost wherever he can (after SI, SE, etc) very much like it is in the
UBS/N-A.  A corrector (probably sometime after the 13th century) erases
most of the nu's before consonants (hundreds of erasures), making the use
conform to the rule as it generally does in the various editions of the TR.
I hope that collators will make a practice of taking note of such
variations (not many do).  They can help us see that the later Byzantine
scribes did update the texts at least in this area.  It is also interesting
to those of us who like to do a history of the language.

Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
Pineville, LA 71359
[email-masked]
[email-masked]