Subject: tc-list C. Hedrick and the Clement letter

From: Wieland Willker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 12:21:39 +0200

C. Hedrick told me:

> huh?  Someone is very confused.
> ...
> I have read the book "The Secret Gospel", but haven't seen the
> document (except as it is quoted in the book).

So, the rumour, that he saw the ms in Jerusalem seems to be not true.
:-(

Next year in Jerusalem?

Best wishes
    Wieland

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From: Yuri Kuchinsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:21:30 -0400 (EDT)

Dear Wieland,

Thank you very much for this correction. So it seems like Prof. Hedrick
did not see the ms after all. I will try to find more information about
this rumour (yes, it was only an unverified rumour, I suppose) that I've
reported here. Perhaps it was someone else who saw this ms recently, and
not Prof. Hedrick? I will report any new information I come across.

Best wishes,

Yuri.

p.s.
To the best of my knowledge, this ms is not currently in Jerusalem, but in
Istambul, where the headquarters of this religious order is located.

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From: "Nelson D. Roth" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 11:13:55 -0400

Recently I viewed a series of debates which dealt with, among other issues,
the degree of textual harmony that exists between the recognized text types.
One participant mentioned that it had been documented, by Dr. Daniel B.
Wallace, of Dallas Theological Seminary, that the textual harmony between the
Western, Byzantine, Alexandrian, etc. types was as high as 98%.
I've read various attempts to provide reasonable estimates of the harmony that
exists. This is my first exposure to a reference of textual harmony so high.
Can anyone provide additonal information regarding this figure.

Blessings,

Nelson Roth, Dayton, TN, USA

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 10:55:00 -0500

>Can anyone provide additonal information regarding this figure.

Oh, joy. I get to play the mathematical curmudgeon again. :-(

The problem here is almost certainly with definitions. What is
"textual harmony"?

I can see several ways of defining this term. One is to start with
texts of the three types, determined by some method, and compare
them word by word.

I'll give an example. Take Galatians 1:1-3. Let us arbitrarily
define "The Byzantine Text" as the reading of K, "The Western
Text" as the reading of D, "The Alexandrian Text" as the
reading of Aleph, and "The Proto-Alexandrian (P46/B) Text"
as the reading of B.

I'll use the Munster NT auf Papyrus volume for my evidence,
since I understand this to include all non-orthographic variants.

Galatians 1 contains 20 words. There are no variations.

Galatians 2 contains 10 words. There are no variations.

Galatians 3 contains 12 words. There is one variation:
Aleph has HMWN KAI KURIOU; B, D, and K have KAI KURIOI HMWN.

Thus we have 42 words. The proto-Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Western
texts agree on all of these, or 100% of the time.

The Alexandrian text agrees on 41 of 42 words, so it agrees
with the others 98% of the time (97.6%, to be exact).

Using this method, if one speaks only of text-TYPES, a 98%
agreement rate seems possible. Note that text-types, which
are composite, will present many fewer variants than the
manuscripts which compose those types. (BTW -- no, I did
*not* cook this example. It's just that I happened to have
the data from that particular page of the NT auf Papyrus
before me, so I used it - and lo and behold the numbers
worked out.)

Note that this is not to defend this method. But it is a method. :-)

Scholars who offer a lower figure for the agreement rate are probably
basing their results on *places at which variation actually occurs,*
or, better yet, on places where variations occur which are supported
by at least two significant manuscripts. This sort of calculation
can lead to much lower rates of agreement -- perhaps as low as 20-30%
agreement between the Alexandrian and "Western" texts.

To speak of "the degree of textual harmony" without defining the
term is meaningless. The number requires a context. (And, frankly,
this is an area where textual critics have been incredibly lax.)

Curmudgeon mode off.

At least till the next time someone uses an undefined term. :-)

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

                        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: Ronald Minton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 14:36:58 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)

> Western, Byzantine, Alexandrian, etc. types was as high as 98%.

To me, 98% agreement among text-types is reasonable for the entire NT
text, but I would guess 90% at most among places where there are actual
variants.
I have found such percentages hard to nail down since text-types are
difficult to identify in many passages because leading manuscripts
which we identify the family with are not in agreement.

Prof. Ron Minton
[email-masked]   (417)833-9581
5379 North Farm Road 179
Springfield, MO 65803