Subject: Re: tc-list Baker withdraws COMFORT book

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 07:49:40 -0400

At 02:07 AM 9/20/99 -0400, you wrote:
>In light of our recent discussion of Comfort and Barrett's book, as well
>as David Parker's review of the volume in TC, I think all on the list will
>be interested in this letter from the publisher sent to our book review
>editor, Leonard Greenspoon (forwarded with his permission, of course). 

:-(

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

---

From: "Maurice A. Robinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 12:46:53 EDT

>In light of this, we ask that all reviews of this book be halted.

At least one review is still be forthcoming, and will be in part
favorable. Granting a non-specialist and classroom-based market for basic
NT textual criticism courses, I suggest that the book indeed remains
useful on a limited basis which would increase dramatically if only the
basic errors involving specific readings were resolved. Such of course
should have been done from the beginning, but generating an errata list
still could be accomplished (how long it might take would be another
matter). Once the main problems are resolved, a mailout prepared and
distributed free from Baker, perhaps via the internet, would serve to
mitigate the problem. 

As noted by Jim West and others (and to which I concurred regarding 98%+
of the transcriptions), "most of the text is ok".  Indeed, most of the
text, as verified by my continuing sample collations (including all of
Rom and 1 Cor in P46) _IS_ ok, and needs no fixing, despite the fact that
we might like dots under the letters, more accurate placement of
brackets, verse numbers in the margins, line numbers, variants from NA27,
etc.; but for a classroom-based market intended for beginning
text-critical students, this would not be as much of a problem as with
the specialist market for text-critical scholars. The problem was and
remains that unknown errors (of which there were too many) destroyed the
trustworthiness of any reading unless independently verified, which hurt
even the market for classroom use. 

In my P46 sample collations of Rom and 1Cor, the number of variations
(errors) from the original seems to run at around 3 or 4 per book of that
length; this is certainly not up to the level one should expect in an
"exact" transcription, but it also is not so far from the mark that it
could not have been corrected via an errata sheet (the question as to
_why_ such errors -- especially the obvious ones -- should ever have
occurred is quite another matter). If the same proportion of error versus
correct transcription holds throughout, the errata list would not run
more than 20 pages, I would guess, and possibly even less. 

Suspicion arose in regard to Comfort and Barrett's promise to produce an
accurate list of errata in light of the inaccuracies already noted. Maybe
it could be done properly; maybe not, but doubts would always remain
unless independently verified. (I planned to keep my more recent errata
notations to myself until C/B produced their own list, just to check
their accuracy once their list appeared). Someone still needs to
recollate and work through the C/B data _independently_ in order to
produce an errata list which will overcome any further suspicion of
inaccuracy (which is basically the intent of my statement regarding the
need for the work to be re-done from scratch).

I am continuing the collation of various MSS against C/B's transcriptions
and making my own notations of errata so I can USE the book as a
convenient resource -- why not?  I then will have personal verification
of its accuracy as well as its errors, and eventually will have for my
own purposes a number of significant MSS accurately presented in a handy
single-volume transcription. The C/B book then becomes what it originally
purported to be, and what I stated previously I would have heartily
welcomed: a handy compendium of biblical MS data which spares the casual
user from having to track down a plethora of source material and collate
from scratch (even though that is precisely what I am having to do in
order to make it useful). Just a pity it wasn't done right from the
beginning.

What now will become of the withdrawn volumes?  I doubt that Baker will
simply grind them into confetti; too much investment is at stake. CBD?
Possibly, though the market remains limited. I still suggest that Baker
offer some of them to students in textual criticism classes for
recollation against original photos or facsimiles and thus generate
independent errata sheets which could be compared and verified against
each other in order to produce a near-complete and correct list of actual
errors in the C/B volume.

So a peculiar situation exists: I actually found the book serviceable,
once I was able to trust any given portion of text after personal
verification. I only wish I could have had that same trust in the work as
published and saved a lot of (still-ongoing) collation time.Whether the
book should be totally withdrawn from circulation is another matter;
perhaps Baker will simply hold the copies in stock until C/B or someone
else generates that complete errata list, and then re-release? Either
way, there is no good or easy solution to the problem, but I am not
convinced that a total destruction of the existing volumes is the best
manner in which to proceed.

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