Subject: tc-list Collations

From: Mike Bossingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 05:10:42 -0400

Hi,

L. W. Hurtado says

>I think we have to ask "collation of variation units for what
questions/purpose?".  
>I have collated & compared variation in mss for the pupose of trying to
find mss-
>relationships, toward the larger question of textual history.  For such
purposes, 
>itacisms, & minor spelling variations are not relevant, hence not
significant.  
>They tell us other interesting things (e.g., about how words were spelled
by this 
>or that scribe at this or that time in this or that place, about how much
variation 
>there was in such matters, about whether a given scribe was very trained &

>careful or not), but not about ms -relationships, for which we need to
examine 
>variants that are likely to have some sort of genetic relationship.

If our collations are to be entered into a data base (and I 
sincerely hope they will be) they then will be essential tools for 
scholars in the future whose areas of interest we do not yet know. 

Then I believe it is essential that we put into our collations and
apparatii as much detail as possible. This includes itacisms, 
minor spelling variations and sacred names.

It is very easy for a computer to filter out information that is
not required by the researcher, but if we do not put it there from the
beginning, then future textual critics may face serious problems.

Regards

Mike Bossingham
University of Birmingham.

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:02:46 -0500

>beginning, then future textual critics may face serious problems.

This is a good argument, but I wonder about its practicality. First
there is the problem of doing the collation. But there is another
problem: handling all the data involved. Keeping track of, say,
nu-movables will significantly increase the effort of entering
the collation into the computer -- and the resulting size of
the database.

This is not a trivial problem. I won't claim to have exact data
on this, but I recall that the Lakes' collation of 1739 typically
had about four chapters per page. Given the amount of white space
on the page, I'd estimate that as 100 words per page, or 25
words per chapter, or roughly 1/6 of a kilobyte per chapter per
manuscript. Admittedly 1739 has more than the usual number of
departures from the Textus Receptus -- but this is in Paul,
where variations are relatively few. Even Byzantine manuscripts,
I suspect, will have about that many deviations in the Gospels.

Assume the typical manuscript contains the equivalent of 100
chapters. That's 17KB per manuscript.

Now multiply by 5000 manuscripts. That's 85000K=85 megabytes.
*Big* database. And that's the raw data. Overhead, with
most programs, is double that. 170 MB.

While many databases can handle files that size, the thing
is going to be slow and difficult to handle. I don't think
we can afford to deal with all the extra data. Perhaps our
paper collations should include all the data. But at this
time we don't have the computing power to handle all the
trivial variants.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

"The one thing we learn from history --
   is that no one ever learns from history."

---

From: "Dave Washburn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 06:30:22 -0700

> time we don't have the computing power to handle all the

This may have been true once, but I don't think it is any more.  
There are already databases bigger than this around, and with the 
right query language and a strong database engine, they are easily 
manageable.  Some of the medical databases already on the Net are at 
least this size, and then of course there's the good ol' search 
engine AltaVista, which indexes God-knows-how-many-million-
by-now web pages, and is definitely not slow.  The databases in the 
Logos Library System software are at least as big as what you 
describe here, and they work great.  Fact is, 170 meg isn't that big 
any more, and anything above a P100 can run circles around it.
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
When in doubt, go for chocolate.  Life is too short
not to.

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 09:22:59 -0500

>any more, and anything above a P100 can run circles around it.

Not sure this is worth pursuing, but I'm going to make a brief
stab at clarifying.

The 170 MB is without the extraneous data of itacisms and nu-movables
and such. If Richards is right (and my memory of Richards is right :-),
variants of this sort are about three times as frequent as the
"meaningful" ones. So toss them in and we get something on the order
of 700 megabytes.

Now it's all very well to say that this, that, or the other machine
can handle a database that size. It's usually true on paper -- e.g.
I have one that can handle a 4 GB file.

But that generally refers to flat databases -- the name, address,
keyword type. A database of variants will *not* fit that model.
It won't be indexable, for instance. The only way to make it
indexable is to include complete text of all the manuscripts,
and that's not going to fit in any 170 MB -- or 4GB, either.

Until someone can come up with a clever database structure
(and I concede someone may have, but I haven't heard of it),
we need to keep the amount of data as small as possible.
So, no trivial variants.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (M A Robinson)
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 00:04:01 EDT

On Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:02:46 -0500 "Robert B. Waltz"
<[email-masked]> writes:

>there is another problem: handling all the data involved. 
>Keeping track of, say, nu-movables will significantly increase 
>the effort of entering the collation into the computer -- and the 
>resulting size of the database.

Actually, Bob, from my year's experience in dealing with extremely
complete collation data (including all itacisms, singular readings,
nomina sacra abbreviations, and nu-movables, as well as careful notation
even of line endings and beginnings, not to mention most cases of
inserted lection arche / telos indicators, marginal incipits, notes
regarding saints' days and other similar items, the nu-movable case is
probably a very minor part of the database and requires neither much time
nor any great degree of trouble to include in either a collation or
database.

If the collation base is the Oxford 1873 TR (as I and the IGNTP think it
properly should be), then the nu-movable problem is already greatly
solved, since that edition reflects nu-movables according to the normal
grammatical "rule", followed by most minuscule MSS which (if the
collation research is extensive) will likely represent the bulk of what
is being collated in any given situation. During my own collation work
among both uncials and minuscules I only noted a very few cases of
nu-movables or their absence which failed to follow the usual practice
reflected in the Oxford 1873 TR.

> I recall that the Lakes' collation of 1739 typically
>had about four chapters per page. ...
>Admittedly 1739 has more than the usual number of

I think that if you will compare the equivalent data for the gospels
among more typical Byzantine MSS (e.g., Scrivener's _Exact Collation_,
_Codex Augiensis_, and _Adversaria Critica Sacra_ volumes), you will find
that the number of significant variations within the more "typical"
Byzantine MSS are much fewer than you would find with a MS like 1739,
especially if irrelevant itacisms, singular nonsense readings, and other
insignificant trivia are excluded from the collation 
(I don't think they should be, but that's a different matter).

>I don't think

I would demur. We should include everything possible within our
collations, especially if such eventually will be incorporated within an
electronic database. Include all right at the point when it is easiest to
do so (i.e. during the initial collation process). Trying to add extra
information later (whether from subsequent collation or by adding
previously excluded data from the original collation), will simply
increase the overall time spent on the task. As already has been noted,
the computer can hold all the information and can easily be instructed to
ignore any portion of the data as instructed. Full collation data remains
the optimal solution.

Note that I concur with Prof. Hurtado that the nu-movables appear to have
no real text-critical value, and do not appear to assist in determining
MS genealogy or interrelationship. I would note, however,  that  the
careful recording of nomina sacra versus pleno forms of the same terms in
given cases may well indicate genealogical or stemmatic relationship.
During my collation research I noted specifically a limited number of MSS
which regularly abbreviated IHSOUS as IS, but which left KURIE written
pleno, and this while almost all other MSS followed the regular practice
of abbreviating both  IS and KE.  I strongly suspect (without having
further examined my collation data) that those MSS with the odd pleno
KURIE likely are interrelated and very likely will reflect a similar form
of text within any given pericope that might be examined, barring radical
cross-mixture involving use of a diffrerent exemplar for other portions
of text.. 

==============================================================
Maurice A. Robinson, Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina, USA
==============================================================

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---

From: Bruce Morrill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 02:51:14 -0500 (CDT)

When I first started computerizing the IGNTP John data in 1989, it was on
a large-for-that-time 60 mB hard disk.  While that disk would still easily
hold the data several times over today, if that computer still worked, now
I do the weekly backup of the data to a CD that holds 10 times that much.
Although no one would seriously make a case that we're going to get such
an onslaught of help in completing collations that our collection of data
will outpace advances in computing power and storage, the application of
relational database techniques to the process makes that a moot point.
We've already got a catalog of most of the variants, significant and
trivial, so don't need more space for that; from now on we merely store
the references to that catalog of variants for each manuscript, which
requires only minimal storage.  This also minimizes the processing power
required; today's PCs have far more processing power than needed for
anything from producing an apparatus to a full classification analysis.
These techniques also greatly minimize the collation time, since the
collator enters a single keystroke for each variant.  Those collators
who've gone through the initial learning curve for the collating software
report significantly reduced time in completing a collation. 

For the majority of our list, I'm supposing, who aren't much interested in
this computer debate, may I return the discussion to Jean-Francois'
original questions:  it *is* technically possible to fully collate
manuscripts, whether on paper or on computer; many of us are doing it.
Mike, Maurice, and others have already given several good reasons for
doing full collations, let me add another.  There are dozens of published
collations, representing thousands of hours of past scholars' work,
readily available to us.  Why aren't we making good use of these
collations for current research?  Among other reasons (quality, etc),
because they weren't full collations.  Most of them note that
"insignificant" variants were not included without fully specifying what
types of variants those were, leaving us to guess.  With the technology
available to us which minimizes this inconvenience, there's no excuse for
us leaving the same legacy.  But maybe we won't learn from history. 

Now for my quarterly appeal:  the IGNTP is committed to making our full
data available to everyone.  However, we first need collators; please
contact me if interested.  Competent collators only, of course.

Bruce Morrill   [email-masked]

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 08:27:54 -0500

I promised to stay out of this debate, and I'm not going to start
it up again (since I'm obviously outvoted anyway :-), but I do want
to put in a couple of corrections/questions. :-)

>(I don't think they should be, but that's a different matter).

I just did a (vary small-scale) study on this, based on collations
in my immediate possession. I checked a mere two chapters (Galatians
5 and 6) for six manuscripts (collations from Lake, Davies, Clark).

In those chapters, I found the following as the number of variants
in six manuscripts:

61   -- 44 variants
81   -- 35 variants
223  -- 13 variants
330  -- 46 variants
1739 -- 35 variants
2412 -- 16 variants

Now three of these manuscripts -- 61, 223, 2412 -- are mostly Byzantine
(223, in particular, is a member of Soden's Kc group). 330 is mixed,
about 75-80% Byzantine. 81 is Alexandrian but with Byzantine mixture.
1739, whatever its type, is definitely not Byzantine. But now let's
sort these in order of the number of variants:

223  -- 13 variants
2412 -- 16 variants
81   -- 35 variants
1739 -- 35 variants
61   -- 44 variants
330  -- 46 variants

In other words, while the manuscripts with the fewest variants are
Byzantine, the two least Byzantine manuscripts (81 and 1739) are
in the middle of the list. The most extreme manuscripts are more
Byzantine than anything else.

Now the variants in 61 and 330 are, for the most part, trivial --
spelling variations and the like. Whereas the variants in 81 and
1739 are usually "significant." But this demonstrates that a
manuscript can be Byzantine and still have many variations from
the TR. A great deal depends on the particular scribe. So I don't
think we can just say that "that the number of significant variations
within the more 'typical' Byzantine MSS are much fewer than you would
find with a MS like 1739." If we ignore "trivial" variations, you
are probably right. But the whole argument is that we should not
ignore the trivial. :-)

Also, this is in Paul. I don't know about the Gospels -- but given
that they have many, many more variations, I would expect the
variations, even within the Byzantine text, would be as numerous
as those of 1739 in Paul (which is, I believe, the most stable
of corpus of the NT).

[ ... ]

>increase the overall time spent on the task.

Well -- there has to be a limit. Do we also include, say, the
Eusebian apparatus? That's probably copied from the exemplar,
too. How about marginal glosses? Locations of decorations?
How do we put those in the computer? If we're getting really picky,
shouldn't we include the lineation? In the case of 892, that
gave us information about the ancestor.

I'm not being silly here. *All* information is useful. I do not
deny that. But there has to be a limit, and it has to be defined.

I would maintain that there are two sorts of kinship one might
discover from the "trivial" details. One is a textual kinship.
But this, I submit, will also be evident from the significant
varia. The others may be the province of the scribe (e.g. one
particular monk might, for some strange reason, write "Peter"
as "Petrous"). If our sole goal is to determine textual
kinship -- and I admit that it may not be -- then we are
better off with meaningful variants. If we're trying to do something
else -- well, where do we stop?

I leave these as open questions. I'm going to try really hard
not to post to this thread again. :-)

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]