Subject: tc-list SBL meeting

From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 10:35:48 +000

IN the two sessions of the 1998 SBL NT textual criticism section 
there were some very interesting presentations.  My own list of 
highlights follows.  Maybe someone in OT TC could do the same 
for us?
--Gordon Fee did another devastatingly persuasive job demolishing 
the psuedo-arguments of C. Thiede for Qumran 7Q5 as a fragment 
of Mark.  (When will Thiede turn to real scholarship instead of 
sensationalism?)
--Wm. Warren (New Orleas Bapt. Theol. Sem.) gave striking 
evidence that P4 (which is now identified as a portion of the same 
ms as P64 & P67) shows an overwhelmingly "B"-type text of Luke. 
 Another early witness (along with P75) for a relatively strong B-text 
by the late 2nd cent at latest.
--In the second session E. J. Epp & Wm. Petersen gave papers 
showing the complexity of "original text", even suggesting that the 
term may be of questionable value.  Yours truly gave an invited 
response to Epp, and David Parker to Petersen.  We both basically 
argued that "original text" though not empirically verifiable was a 
useful theoretical entity that gave shape to the effort to trace the 
history of the NT text.  There was very vigourous discussion 
involving others such as Bart Ehrman, Gordon Fee, et alia.  A very 
good time for conceptual clarification.

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  [email-masked]