Subject: tc-list Re: The 3 TC problems

From: "Wieland Willker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 16:11:33 +0200

>> What are (for you) the 3 most serious, most difficult TC problems in the
NT?
Robert B. Waltz:
>Seriously, the problems are methodological

Of course methodology is important. What I meant was:
If you have three wishes of small fragments (some verses) from the
autographs, which ones would you choose?

Best wishes
    Wieland
      <><
--------------------
mailto:[email-masked]
http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:58:45 -0500

>autographs, which ones would you choose?

This gets much easier, because we can go by the importance of
the passages. So:

Mark 16:8 and whatever follows. :-)

John 7:52 and whatever follows.

1 Corinthians 13:3. (Maybe. This one is harder.) 

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

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

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From: "Dave Washburn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:24:58 -0700

> autographs, which ones would you choose?

1. The ending of Mark.
2. Since you only mentioned NT, that's about it for me.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Ich veranlassenarbeitenworken mein Mojo."

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From: Jack Kilmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 11:24:32 -0500

> autographs, which ones would you choose?

1. The rest of P52
2.  Autograph Mark
3.  Original Aramaic "Gospel of the Nazarenes."

Jack Kilmon
[email-masked]
http://www.historian.net

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 18:58:05 -0400

My first wish for an autograph copy would certainly be be a text containing
the "Western non-interpolations" first discussed by Westcott and Hort. 

My other two desiderata would relate to the development of the text: 
 
Second, a complete copy of Mark as used by Origen at Caesarea would be very
interesting, though probably not close to the Markan autograph.

Third, Tertullian's (or someone else in the West's) copy of the Catholic
Epistles so that we could see if there was ever anything that looked like a
"western" text in that section of the NT.

--Rod Mullen

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 19:02:57 -0400 (EDT)

With apologies to everyone who would like to find an autograph with the
Western non-interpolations (by which I assume is meant the longer text in
these instances, since obviously you can't "find" the non-interpolation,
if you see what I mean) -- it ain't going to happen! 

-- Bart Ehrman
   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 21:15:27 -0400

Bart, I know very well what you mean, but since we are in the realm of the
hypothetical here, an autograph (or even an additional papyrus) covering
the section of text in which the western non-interpolations are disputed
would be awful handy.  You and I have had this duscussion before, and I
still believe that liturgical practice has heavily influenced the text
here.  P75, A, B, K, PI, et al. have the order cup-bread-cup. D and itala-a
have the order cup-bread.  Itala b & e have the order bread-cup.  I think a
deeper look at the Syriac witnesses might be revealing.  All have the order
bread-cup, though Sinaitic Syriac seems to be a conflation of some sort.
Sinaitic and Peshitta Syriac have v.20 with the theologically charged "in
my blood."  Based on a look at the arabic version of Tatian's diatessaron
and at Ephraim Syrus' commentary (extant here only in Armenian)on the same,
I take the order bread-cup to be the typical Syriac order.  Ephraim doesn't
mention blood, and the arabic version of the diatessaron apparently follows
the Matthean wording, so we have no help there.  This is still a thorny
problem, so you can see why additional manuscript evidence would be
helpful.  --Rod

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 21:25:15 -0400 (EDT)

Sure.  My point simply was (and is) that if we *were* to discover the
autographs of Luke and Matthew (and if these could be proven to be
autographs even to Jim West) (see hypothetical I'm making this?  :-)),
they wouldn't contain the non-Western interpolations.  There's a lot more
than Luke 22:19-20 involved here, and all of the disputed texts move in
the same direction.  They (the longer texts) were interpolated, imho --
but note, there *is* evidence (!), by scribes with anti-docetic concerns.

-- Bart Ehrman

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From: [email-masked] (U.B.Schmid)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 08:45:26 +0200

Bart Ehrman wrote:
>    My point simply was (and is) that if we *were* to discover the
> they wouldn't contain the non-Western interpolations. 

Which bribgs us back to Jim's initial point: We would never recognize 
autographs. Let me put it slightly different: We would never _agree_ on 
identifying autographs, because, e.g., Bart would never allow a manuscript of 
Matthew and Luke containing the non-Western interpolations to be the autograph. 

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

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 06:28:44 -0400 (EDT)

Hey, I may be closed-minded about *some* things (we should avoid split
infinitives; the market economy is killing scholarship; and Talisker is
one fine single malt), but you show me a first-century manuscript of any
kind that has the texts interpolated, and I'll change my mind in a
*flash*!

-- Bart Ehrman

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From: [email-masked] (U.B.Schmid)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 15:06:16 +0200

I would be happy to learn more about first-century NT manuscripts. Are there 
recent findings, purchases, etc. that escaped my notice? But seriously, Bart.
Suppose the following scenario:
A fragment of a manuscript is found somewhere in the desert. It covers bits and 
pieces of the Gospel of Luke, including Lk 22:20 and it appears to be written by 
the same hand as P52. Given the usual dating of P52 (125 CE +/-25 years) 
touching the turn of the first century, would the supposed interpolation in 
your view tip the scale to date it later or not?

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 09:22:39 -0400 (EDT)

No, in fact I think the text would have to be dated strictly on
palaeographic grounds.  Once it is dated, then one would have to consider
the implications for theories of textual corruption (since there were
already strong anti-docetic tendencies in proto-orthodox circles by 125 CE
+/- 25, I'm not sure that it would affect things too much; by all counts,
whether one thinks the longer or shorter text is original, it was changed
very early) 

  If, though, a text were discovered that could *somehow* be dated even
earlier, say, to the year 95 CE (this wouldn't be impossible of course; 
suppose it were discovered as a text in a leather bound volume, and the
binding had been strengthened with documentary scraps -- grocery lists,
scorecards, or whatever -- that were dated 95;  that would be pretty good
evidence), then I should think the theory of an anti-docetic corruption in
this case would be seriously called into question. 

   Obviously all we can do is base our judgments on the evidence at hand,
and my point is simply that on the basis of what we've got, it looks as if
the shorter texts in these passages is original and that the
interpolations were made in an attempt to counter certain docetic
tendencies.

-- Bart Ehrman