Subject: Re: tc-list Number of variants

From: "Roderic L. Mullen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 20:20:36 -0400

I agree, but it depends on what you include in the textual
tradition--allusions?  adaptations?.  Or only NT MSS?   Taking only the NT
MSS for starters, do we know how many words there are in the text of the
NA27 edition of the NT?  Multiply that by even 10% of the number of known
MSS (or by 7 if you want) and it gets to be a pretty big number.  I was once
questioned by Grant Wacker about this topic following a departmental
presentation, and I suggested that the number of potential variants was
infinite.  I now think that guess may on the high side by one or two.  
        My own experience (based as you know mainly on Cyril of J'lem) is
that each verse contains about 2 or 3 quantitatively significant points of
variation on average-- but of course that's an answer to a different
question.  I trust all is well --Rod        
   
At 04:36 PM 9/21/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Not a clue--but it would be enoumous (think of all the MSS and MSS of
>versions which have NOT yet been collated;  think of all the patristic
>citations in all the fathers which have not yet been examined....).  If you
>count each difference in spelling, etc. (as you specify), my UNinformed
>guess would be in the millions.
>
>--Petersen, Penn State University.
>
>
>At 12:09 PM 9/21/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>   Are there any informed guesses out there about how many variants there
>>are in the NT textual tradition (counting seven different ways of spelling
>>the same word as seven variants)? 
>>
>>-- Bart Ehrman
>>   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>> 
>

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 20:49:10 -0500

>infinite.  I now think that guess may on the high side by one or two.

First the prissy mathematical footnote: Infinity is NOT A NUMBER,
so it cannot be "one or two" greater than a finite number. A number
is finite or infinite, and cannot be compared.

I know the above was a joke, but it's a joke based on misinformation
(mutter, mumble). :-)

Now the real response: The number of potential variants is infinite,
because between any two words of the text you could insert any word
or words you want.

However, the number of actual variants is finite. So, in fact,
is the number of reasonable variants (a reasonable variant is
one that a scribe might actually, under some degree of provocation
or other, write). It's a very large number, but it's finite.

FWIW, I agree with Petersen's guess of millions in actual numbers.
But most of these are orthographic variants. Do differences in
accents and breathings count? If so, then nearly every word of the NT
has at least one variant (between manuscripts with variants and
manuscripts without). And how about spaces between words? The answers
to those questions will determine the exact magnitude of the answer.

Beyond that I won't speculate until I have more data as to what is
desired. I may not speculate then. :-)

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

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
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