Subject: tc-list Philosophical Approaches?

From: Andrew Payne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:44:51 -0500

Andrew Payne here,

I am currently studying to take oral exams in October.  As part of my
studies I have reviewed both the philosophical and practical approaches
to doing New Testament textual criticism.

I have a question, and if anyone would prefer to respond off-list that
would be fine.

My teacher in textual criticism laid out the underpinnings for a
critical text very well and in my reading of Metzger and Aland I find
myself largely in agreement with them.  However, those proponents I have
looked at that argue for the Majority Text (starting with Burgon and
others) are older advocates and appear to come from a faith-oriented
don't-mess-with-my-text standpoint than from a scientific perspective.
I find myself agreeing with Sturz, Colwell, Wisse, McReynolds and others
that argue that NT textual criticism needs to take the Byzantine witness
seriously.  I have looked at Daniel Wallace's article in the monograph
edited by Bart Ehrman and Michael Holmes, but....

I feel as though I'm missing something.  What are the modern
philosophical (and for that matter practical) approaches for those who
hold to the Majority Text?

Any response you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Andrew Payne

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 17:33:10 -0500

>hold to the Majority Text?

You don't think small, do you? :-)

Let's tackle this in slightly smaller pieces.

First, there is the matter of "taking the Byzantine witnesses
seriously." This is a very vague statement. By it does one mean
"Know the nature of the Byzantine text," or "Give the Byzantine
text equal weight," or "Give the Byzantine text predominant
weight."

These are three different viewpoints, but all could fit your
description.

Now any sane critic will admit that we need to know the nature of
the Byzantine text. It's too pervasive to ignore. Even if one were
to say that it is entirely late and valueless (and no one -- not
even Hort -- would have said that), it has still influenced just
about every witness from the fifth century on. That means we
absolutely have to know its readings, its subtypes, its history.
This is what Wisse and McReynolds are calling for, and they
are absolutely right, and it is to the shame of the text-critical
community that there is no critical apparatus of the Byzantine
text (the apparatus of Hodges & Farstad is inadequate and based
on Von Soden).

The other two viewpoints are rather different. The need to know
the Byzantine text is a technical need; whatever we think of
its origins, we need to deal with it. But to maintain either
the equality or the priority of the Byzantine text is, fundamentally,
a philosophical issue.

Maurice Robinson is, of course, the most able defender of the Byzantine
text, and since I imagine he will respond, I won't try to state his
case. (He probably wouldn't like my statement anyway. :-) But there
is a difference between the Hills/Pickering school that says, more or
less, that the KJV/TR/Byzantine Text is divinely inspired as given
and the Robinson school that says that the Byzantine text is original
but not precisely preserved in any one place. (The irony is that both
claim to go back to Burgon. There is, actually, some truth in this --
except that Robinson got all the good parts and Pickering insisted
on using only the bad.)

The difference is that Robinson and the like *know* the manuscripts
(as Jim West stated earlier today, Robinson knows his materials very
well. The same was true of Burgon, though he expressed it rather
badly. It's *not* true of Pickering). These critics simply view the
critical rules differently. They write a different history of the text.

This is, in fact, a point where no absolute proof can be brought
forward; Robinson has constructed a logically different system
which simply rests on different premises than that of ordinary
critics. They place less weight on age and pedigree than on
numbers; they use different canons of criticism (e.g. they correctly
point out that "prefer the shorter reading" is much too simplistic).

There is a middle ground here, though it's sort of mushy. The middle
ground is occupied by people like Von Soden, Scrivener, and Sturtz --
all of whom have respect for the Byzantine text, but have respect
for other text-types too. To them, the Byzantine is allowed a vote,
even a casting vote, but not the only vote. Details vary widely,
though, which is why this is a mushy area. :-)

Again, there is no "scientific" answer here -- indeed, other than
Deering, almost no one practices an absolutely rigorous criticism,
in which some sort of formula determines the reading adopted for
the text. (Personally, I think this very bad, but that's another
issue.) Robinson et al have created a different philosophical
system -- one which I think wrong :-), but which is applied as
thoroughly and rationally as the other camp.

I hope this helps at least a little....

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: "Maurice A. Robinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 13:18:53 EDT

>those proponents I have looked at that argue for the Majority Text
(starting with >Burgon and others) are older advocates and appear to come
from a faith-oriented
>don't-mess-with-my-text standpoint than from a scientific perspective.

While for some a supposed theological agenda reigns supreme, I would not
consider the Majority Text position to be divorced from a scientific
perspective, even if I don't happen to share the theological portion of
other proponents' arguments and methodology. The "theological argument"
cannot bolster any position, since special pleading is generally
irrelevant to most points under consideration in any form of debate (this
does not rule out, however, the attempt to understand variations which
might have theological concerns or causes). I don't happen to make a case
based on faith presumptions (which I have in other areas, but which do
not particularly concern NT textual criticism), since I long ago learned
that weak arguments have no value. I thus happen to differ on many points
from Burgon, Hodges, Farstad, Pickering et al., since I don't accept the
portions of their line of argument which appeal to divine providence
(obviously, the same divine providence permitted the preservation of
_all_ extant witnesses to the text of the NT, regardless of texttype). 
But I can accept and/or appreciate their remaining non-theological
arguments when scientifically based. This is the only proper approach to
take in regard to textual criticism: separate the wheat from the chaff
and keep that which is of value.  

>>What are the modern philosophical (and for that matter practical)
approaches for >>those who hold to the Majority Text?

Good question. I wish I knew. All I know is that I was trained in modern
reasoned eclecticism (e,g, Metzger, Colwell, etc.) and had no problem
with that approach until I studied with Clark, who suggested the
possibility of the Byzantine Textform as the most likely candidate for
original text. My entire approach has been within a "normative"
scientifically-based methodology of text-critical praxis. I don't have an
agenda as to what the Byzantine Textform must include or omit, but depend
on a thorough examination of the evidence. I also don't really know what
underpins the theory of other Majority Text advocates, although it is
obvious that the theological factor plays a significant role for them in
a way which it does not for me (not to say that I or anyone else doesn't
have theological views and biases which probably color one's thoughts in
many areas). So what the "philosophical approach" happens to be in my own
case, I simply don't know, except the ultimate "quest for truth" concept
which might impel anyone to engage in any type of serious inquiry.

On Tue, 28 Sep 1999 17:33:10 -0500 "Robert B. Waltz"
<[email-masked]> writes:

>it is to the shame of the text-critical

Actually, Von Soden should not be so deprecated in regard to his major
text-critical groups (i.e. his bold "K" for the basic Byzantine Textform
and the accompanying sub-groups). Wisse has stated clearly that the major
 _groups_ cited by Von Soden appear to stand up to scrutiny while his
errors primarily tend to involve the citation of individual witnesses (so
also Voss as regards the Kr group in particular). The H/F text plus
apparatus can be accepted as reflecting a reasonable primary Byzantine
Textform with sub-Byzantine variation noted in their apparatus (this even
though I differ from their main text 220 times in Revelation and probably
about 100x or so in the remainder of the NT, due to differing principles
and opinions).

>[Robinson] ... probably wouldn't like my statement anyway. :-) 

Of course not. Only natural. :-)

>the Hills/Pickering school that says, more or less, that the
KJV/TR/Byzantine Text is >divinely inspired as given and the Robinson
school that says that the Byzantine text >is original but not precisely
preserved in any one place. 

I suspect some oversimplification in the statement, especially in putting
Pickering into the Hills/KJV/TR school merely because they both use
theological arguments within their respective cases. Even I consider the
NT as "divinely inspired as given"; but I just want to determine first
which form was the "given"; so also does Pickering. The Hills/KJV school
already "knows" that the TR underlying the KJV is the "original" form of
the text, while Pickering, Hodges/Farstad and even myself have quite a
different opinion. However (maybe only for me), the matter of "divinely
inspired as given" is actually not relevant to the matter of determining
the original form of the text, any more than it would be for were I to
seek to determine the original form of the text of, say, the
Protevangelium Jacobi; my methodology would basically be similar, though
adjusted to fit the quantity and quality of the witnesses in each
situation, taking into account the value assigned to such documents by
those who copied them through the centuries.

[re: "knowing" the MSS well]

>The same was true of Burgon, though he expressed it rather badly. 

Burgon could not write calmly about anything, it seems, and spoiled much
of his case by his bombast. Yet Burgon along with Scrivener in the 19th
century probably represent the two British scholars who did the most in
regard to locating and recording information about previously unknown
MSS, not to mention collating a good number of these. One need only scan
through Gregory's _Textkritik_ volumes to see how often Burgon put
Gregory on the trail of certain MSS, as well as mentioning a good number
which Gregory "sah mit Burgon" on various dates. 

>Robinson has constructed a logically different system

The rejection of the "shorter reading" is not argued only by
pro-Byzantine critics, but by various reasoned eclectics as well.  Also,
the advocacy of Byzantine priority is not so heavily based on number as
the pejorative term "majority text" might suggest (which is one reason
why I don't like that term). While "number" (as Burgon noted) is an
element of what might constitute "weight", it is not the only factor
(even Burgon's "seven canons" of criticism were not merely  "seven ways
of saying the majority is always right", as Fee caricatured it). Were the
Byzantine, Alexandrian, Western, and Caesarean texts all represented by
an equal number of extant MSS, a pro-Byzantine case could still be made
on internal and transmissional grounds, with "number" being at that point
a meaningless concept.

[re: one comment regarding Sturz' method].

Sturz advocated the early existence of the Alexandrian, Western, and
Byzantine texttypes. His method of determining the "second century text"
(which is as far back as he was willing to go) was to take the 2 out of 3
texttype approach, giving each texttype a single vote. The weakness of
this method (apart from the fact that it is wholly unscientific) is that
Alex+Byz  or West+Byz become the favored text except when Alex+West
happen to agree (and most people know how rarely that scenario occurs).
So _de facto_ Sturz ends up advocating a primarily Byzantine text, but
based on what I would consider wholly inadequate and unacceptable
principles.

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

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---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 13:55:45 -0500

On 9/30/99, Maurice A. Robinson wrote, in part:

[ the quotes of quotes are from me ]

>about 100x or so in the remainder of the NT, due to differing principles

For that matter, we shouldn't criticise von Soden's accuracy as much
as we do; while there are witnesses for which his edition is spectacularly
inaccurate (a spot check makes it appear that he determined the readings
of 330 by throwing darts or something like that), his citations of the
uncials are pretty good.

And in some ways von Soden actually appears to have the edge on
Wisse, since (despite Wisse) Ki and Kx do look a bit different.
And they certainly appear in different eras. Problem is, with
single-sample chapters, the difference between Ki and Kx wasn't
big enough for Wisse to see clearly.

But that's not quite what I was getting at. Von Soden didn't
give us a real apparatus of the Byzantine text, just an apparatus
with a lot of information about the Byzantine manuscripts (and,
of course, very hard to read). H&F converted this to an actual
apparatus of the Byzantine text, but threw away so much detail
that you cannot, e.g., determine the text of Family Pi, even
approximately, from their apparatus.

[ ... ]

>theological arguments within their respective cases.

There is truth in this, as they do argue for different texts (and
Pickering has "evolved" his thoughts, though clearly not under
the pressure of natural selection :-). However, all work largely
from a philosophical base of providential preservation. Anyone
who reads Pickering realizes that the rest is all mumbo-jumbo.
So, philosophically, Hills and Pickering are at one, even though
they don't use the same text.

>Even I consider the

Which is the point I was trying to make: You have a method. It's not the
standard method, but it is a method, based on the actual materials rather
than some philosophical ideal.

>which Gregory "sah mit Burgon" on various dates. 

Or we might simply observe that what are often called "Old Gregory"
or "Tischendorf" numbers are, to a significant extent, actually
Burgon numbers.

There is, actually, a scientific analogy to all this. Tycho Brahe
did not believe in the heliocentric solar system. But he gathered
the data which allowed Kepler to make the heliocentric system
rigorous. Similarly, Burgon was the greatest source of information
about nineteenth century manuscripts. The fact that others don't
agree with his theories of the text does not mean that he did not
provide a great deal of useful information (of which critics have
made far too little use).

Good grief, and that sentence is inverted enough to have come from
his pen. :-)

>pro-Byzantine critics, but by various reasoned eclectics as well.

Of course. That's why I say that pro-Byzantine critics *correctly*
point this out. This canon still shows up in the lists, but it is
increasingly falling into disrepute.

For the record: I don't think Maurice Robinson and I are really
disagreeing on anything here (other places, yes, but not here :-).
I'm just trying to clarify what we're both saying. :-) 

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]