Subject: Re: tc-list "Western Text" - a correct denomination?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:23:30 -0400

Ulrich wrote: 
 
> 2. Any designation of textual complexions should be primarily related to the 
> documents AND the NT books under consideration. E.g., there seems to be hardly a 
> "Western text" but there is a Latin-Greek bilingual text of Paul and more than 
> one Latin- Greek bilingual text of the Gospels.   

I absolutely agree with the second part - the textual history of the 
different parts and books are all different.  Moreover, we know that 
just because a MS is Alexandrian in the Gospels, it needn't be 
somewhere else.  It will follow from this that, if we take the 
Gospels as our starting-point, and define a certain text-type as 
Alexandrian, we may well have no way of knowing what the Alexandrian 
text of other parts of the NT actually is, even if it exists.  One 
might be able to make a case if there were consistent recensional 
traits and lack of them (see Zuntz on Paul).  But otherwise, since no 
MS has a label saying 'I'm Alex', the Alexandrian text of Paul or 
whatever might be in any of the text-types.

I'm not so sure that the first part helps me (>Any designation of 
textual complexions should be primarily related to the documents>).  
The point about finding textual complexions is that one is trying to 
reconstruct forms of the text behind the MSS.  So the B-Aleph text is 
not represented by either of them, and you have to eliminate quite a 
lot of individual error before you get there.  So maybe there's a 
risk that calling it the B-Aleph texts links it too closely to the 
MSS.

I think that I operate with a sort of halfway house.  I 
don't talk about the Western Text, because I've suggested that it 
represents a style of transmitting the text and not a text-type.  
(But I accept that agreement between the Lvt and the 
Vetus Syra takes us back to an early form of the Greek text.  I think 
one could simply call that a second-century or third-century form of 
the text.)  I do use the term Alexandrian, because I know what I 
think I mean, and think I know what I mean, when I use it.  But I 
don't think that I necessarily use it strictly or only as a 
geographical term.  Its significance is also in reference to the kind 
of philology associated with Alexandrian scholarship, which I suppose 
was likely to be learned, but didn't have to be practiced, in the 
city of Alexandria.  Perhaps, in fact rather like the "western text", 
it is a description of a way of treating texts rather than a 
geographical locator.  And that reminds me that Scot 
McKendrick put forward a very lively argument at the Scriptorium 
Conference last year for an Ephesian origin for A, which is 
'Alexandrian' outside the Gospels.

I suspect that for some people the word Alexandrian is 
really a synonym for 'best' or 'original'.

The fact is that we probably need a revolution before we get 
a new set of terms to use.  The main thing until then is that we 
define the ones we have before we use them.

David Parker

Dr D.C. Parker
Reader in New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 10:14:05 -0500

>define the ones we have before we use them.

I won't argue with anything here.

On the other hand, given what is generally the innate conservatism
of textual critics, I wonder if a revolution is actually enough. :-)

What we need is a standards board -- preferably one to control
not only the terms, but their translations, at least into the
most important languages (English and German, obviously, but
I think we should also try for French, Latin, and Greek). There
is a real problem here, in that people *propose* things, but there
is no way to approve them. Look at all the work that Colwell did,
with nothing ever being universally accepted.

(Don't mistake that; I'm not saying, e.g., that we should accept
the Colwell/Tune 70% rule as the definition of a text-type; it
*isn't* the definition of a text-type. The definition of a text-type
is "The most abstract recognizable level of textual kinship."
But we need to decide some things, e.g. the meaning of
"textual variant" as opposed to "variant reading. We need an
approved *dictionary*.)

I don't know how to make this happen. But the need is there.
So what so we do now?
Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

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

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 14:39:04 -0400

Just before you start talking about the "half way house" below you discuss
the difficulties in arriving at text types and write of the danger of
linking them too closely to particular Mss.  It's worth stating for the
sake of the discussion that manuscripts are realia, but text-types are in
some sense abstractions based on deductions regarding individual readings.
--Rod Mullen

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 14:41:47 -0400

For my money, Eldon Epp has done some of the best work in clarifying our
terminology.  --Rod Mullen

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From: [email-masked] (U.B.Schmid)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 21:49:43 +0200

Larry Hurtado wrote:

[...]
> (a) preferring labels that are not misleadingly geographical, 
> and (b) building up group definitions tightly tied to the mss 
> evidence...
> Any larger categories and labels could/should only be "built up" 
> inductively on the basis of evidence.  

Thanks to Larry for sharpening the point I wanted to make. Unfortunately, my own 
words gave way to some misunderstanding.

D.C.Parker wrote: 

[...]
> risk that calling it the B-Aleph texts links it too closely to the 

My idea of linking designations of textual complexions to documents was opposed 
to linking them to certain locations such as "Alexandrian", "Western", etc. The 
result was that I overstated the case. Nevertheless I would like to emphasize 
the "empirical" value of such designations. Using David's example I think 
"B-Aleph-substratum in Mt (Mk, Lk, respectively)" is a much more neutral 
designation than, e.g., (proto-, late, etc.) "Alexandrian". In addition I think 
that designations like that are more flexible. 
I really do think we should built up larger textual complexions on the basis of 
smaller ones which usually give us empirically stronger links.

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