Subject: Re: tc-list Comfort's new book

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 07:45:41 -0400

At 09:30 AM 5/20/99 +0200, you wrote:

>
>could you, please, comment on Maurice' detailed analysis arriving at the 
>opposite conclusion with respect to the quality of Comfort/Barrett's 
>transcriptions.

The ms I examined were different than those looked at by Maurice.  My main
interest is the "major papyri".  When I looked at those I did not discover
the egregious errors pointed out by Maurice.  I still suggest that Comfort's
book is a very useful tool- but Maurice is correct in his notion that the
"minor" papyri need a more thorough look.

Perhaps C/B were more focused on the more interesting papyri while spending
less time on the others.  Who knows but them.

In any event, I do think that Maurice is being a little hard on them.
Percentage wise the C/B book contains less scribal errors than most of the
Byzantine mss---- and yet Maurice seems to have no problem with them.  For
example- the C/B book contains much more accurate transcriptions than it
does inaccurate- but Maurice doe not bother to point these out.  In fact,
the bulk, the vast majority of the book is quite accurate. So perhaps
something else is afoot here in Maurice's comments?  It is well known that
Comfort and Robinson do not see eye to eye...   I do not think that the few
errors (and they really are a VERY small number of errors in respect to
percent) make this book less useful- though it must be used with care- as
must any ms of the biblical text.  Certainly it is no dishonor to make
errors.  Most of us do.

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- [email-masked]
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

---

From: Bruce Morrill <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 07:55:43 -0500 (CDT)

> "minor" papyri need a more thorough look.

Maurice has been most helpful in detailing the problems he found.  Can you
specify which of the major papyri you have found worthy of our trust, so
that the rest of us can similarly benefit from your time?

Bruce Morrill   [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Dr. Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 18:05:25 +0200

Jim West wrote:
> the bulk, the vast majority of the book is quite accurate. 

I'm quite confused about your reply, Jim. 

A) On the one side you confess that you only looked at the "major papyri" 
(without specification!) and on the other side you make confident claims ("the 
vast majority of the book is quite accurate"), as if you have checked all the 
transcriptions throughout the C/B book. What do I have to make out of this? 

B) I'm delighted to learn that - for the sake of comparison - you studied ALL of 
"the Byzantine mss", for, according to you, "the C/B book contains less scribal 
errors than most of" them. Even more amazing: You identified the direct 
"Vorlage" of every single Byzantine manuscript in order to exactly ascribe every 
single reading in every single Byzantine manuscript to either it's "Vorlage" (or 
"Vorlagen" respectively) or it's scribe, having committed THE "scribal error".
(Sorry, I couldn't resist. Your point here is utterly unsound.)  
 
>So perhaps
> Comfort and Robinson do not see eye to eye...   

I think it's fair to ask you not to use ad hominem arguments. They usually don't 
compensate lack of real argument, and certainly not lack of hard evidence. 

>I do not think that the few

Probably all of us do make errors. The point is: How many errors in what type of 
publication? If we are dealing with a reference tool, the amount of errors 
certainly plays a vital role. What is the C/F book intended to be?

Here is a real life example (food for thought):

A Latin manuscript C from the 9th century was edited in the 19th century, in 
other words: It was transcribed by a scholar of modern times with modern times 
standards of even reporting corrections, different hands, etc.
The body of text consists of about 40.000 words.
I performed a spot-check on the edition with a microfilm of the pertinent 
manuscript. 
The spot-check covered aproximately 10 percent of the text. 
The result was that on an average 2.8 errors per page in the edition occured, 
adding up to a total of about 380 errors for the whole body of text. 
That's not much. 
It's less than 1 percent.

However, another scholar using the 19th century edition performed a comparison 
of this (edition of the) 9th century witness (C) with a 6th century witness (F) 
of the same text. 
On the basis of a list of deviating readings he concluded that C could not have 
been a direct copy of F. 
Whether he was right or wrong doesn't matter for the moment, the sad truth is 
that more than 50 percent of the readings in his list hit on errors in the 
edition of witness C. 
In every single case the two witnesses do NOT deviate, only their modern 
transcriptions.

That's disturbing, isnt it. 

------------------------------------------
Dr. Ulrich Schmid
[email-masked]

---

From: M A Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 23:30:08 EDT

>The ms I examined were different than those looked at by Maurice.  My 
>main interest is the "major papyri".  When I looked at those I did not 
>discover the egregious errors pointed out by Maurice. 

I would consider P66 and P75 "major papyri," and I did point out C/B
errors 
in regard to those MSS as well. There are other errors which still could
be listed, though I deliberately kept the list to a minimum. Add to the
list if you like a few more examples from "major papyri":

P66 - Jn. 3:2 (leaf 6 verso, line 5): C/B read hO QU [sic!], but the
photo clearly shows the normal hO QS.

P66 - Jn 7:41 regarding ELEGON, 2nd occurrence: note in C/B mentions
first corrector adding ELE supra linea, but fail to notice that 2nd
corrector erased the ELE in that position and inserted it into the main
line of text\ when changing the ALLOI {ELE}GON into OI DE ELEGON.

P66 - Jn 13:23, hO IS -- C/B fail to note that hO is supplied by a
corrector who squeezed it in tightly between HGAPA and IS.

P66 - Jn 13:30 - C/B EXHLQEN in photo appears to be EXELQEIN (sic).

P66 - Jn 13:34, C/B read INA KAI, while photo shows clearly INA K/  (K
with slash as abbreviation for KAI, which C/B normally note with a
specific character).

P46 - Col. 2:1 C/B have EORAKAN TO PROSWPON MOU, while the photo clearly
has EORAKAN MOU TO PROSWPON MOU.

P90 - Jn 19:3 (verso, line 5) C/B have HR]X[ONTO PROS AU, while it should
be HR]X[ON]TO PROS AU, since the photo clearly shows TO PROS AU present. 

How many more examples of error in the C/B volume are necessary to
establish the point?

>Perhaps C/B were more focused on the more interesting papyri while 
>spending less time on the others.  Who knows but them.

Even were this the case (and it isn't, since in line with their theories,
C/B consider all pre-4th century papyri as important and thus
"interesting"), there is no excuse for errors in a book which purports by
its very nature to give an exact transcript of the text of the earliest
MSS of the NT.

>In any event, I do think that Maurice is being a little hard on them.

Hard? I would prefer the terms "fair" and "precise".

>Percentage wise the C/B book contains less scribal errors than most of 
>the Byzantine mss---- and yet Maurice seems to have no problem with
them.  

Apples and oranges; irrelevant and non-sequitur. The nature of the
aggregate Byzantine Textform has no relation to this point. Were I
intending to produce an exact and accurate transcript of any single
Byzantine MS, it had better be _exact_ or my transcription would lose all
credibility.  I would have had precisely the same criticism had C/B
produced a book containing erroneous transcriptions of several
12th-century Byzantine MSS.

>For example- the C/B book contains much more accurate transcriptions
than 
>it does inaccurate- but Maurice doe not bother to point these out.  In 
>fact, the bulk, the vast majority of the book is quite accurate. 

I noted that at least 98% of the book was exactly correct. The problem is
that _you_, the reader, has to guess which parts belong to that 98% and
which do not. Without comparison against the photographs or _editio
princeps_,  I can not discern which parts are accurate. I do know that
unless I compare every line against some other source, I cannot be
certain at any given point that C/B have reproduced accurately the
precise text of any given MS.

>So perhaps something else is afoot here in Maurice's comments?  It is
well known 
>that Comfort and Robinson do not see eye to eye...  

Unless you have stopped beating your wife, Jim, I would avoid _ad
hominem_ imputation of motives. Most modern eclectics (reasoned and
rigorous) would differ sharply from Comfort's theory, methodology, and
text-critical preferences (which he has espoused strongly  in several
previous publications); but all this is irrelevant to the point at issue.

Had this book been _accurate_ (as I had hoped it would from all the
pre-publication blurbs) in those places where I did my initial spot
checks, I would have praised it as strongly as you did initially, and it
would have been a welcome resource for the textual critic of whatever
persuasion. The book instead had egregious errors scattered throughout as
I reported (as well as others such as those listed above which were not
mentioned in my brief comments).

>Certainly it is no dishonor to make errors.  Most of us do.

Sorry to differ, but in a work which purports to present an exact
transcript of specific MSS, the errors _do_ matter. The Westcott-Hort
text cannot be used as an exact transcript of Codex Vaticanus, even
though there may only be a few hundred differences between the two,
probably less than 2%..

You wrote to Ulrich,

>My point has been missed.  My point is this- the Byzantine family of mss
is,
>on the whole, less reliable than the Alexandrian- just as the majority
of
>Comfort's book is reliable, in spite of the few errors.

> My point in intentionally stating something so clearly inaccurate was
to 
> evoke a mental image: if the Byz mss should not all be lumped together
and
> considered inaccurate for a few readings, why should Comfort's book?

Following your analogy, since the Byzantine Textform and the Alexandrian
MSS tend to agree on approximately 90% of their text, you would have no
problem using the Byzantine Textform exclusively for all your research
and study, since for the vast majority of the text we both agree that
100% agreement with the original exists, and a small amount of
"inaccuracy" really doesn't matter, correct? Of course not.

I stand by my initial comments.

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

---

From: Carlton Winbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 15:56:18 -0500

Maurice replied to this bit of tripe;
>previous publications); but all this is irrelevant to the point at issue.
What we have gotten from Maurice is an informative look at the problems
that make a purported "exact transcription" of some important mss useless
if used by itself in an effort to establish the text. He, as always, cites
exact evidence and has drawn a clear conclusion from it that cannot be
ignored. As far as making a list of errata to make the book useful in all
phases of TC, why should anyone do that? It falls to the authors and
publishers to furnish such a list if they want us to use their book. If
anyone were to go to that much trouble, they could more easily publish
their own book without the weight of the problems in this one.

Thanks again to Maurice for using his capabilities to inform us all.

Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
[email-masked]
[email-masked]
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off