Subject: Re: tc-list The Living Text

From: "Wieland Willker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 11:08:23 +0200

Ulrich Schmid wrote:
> In my view, the ultimate goal of textual scholarship is clearing up the
> textual  history of given texts. The proper designation of the starting
point
> of a  textual transmission is not "autograph", but *archetype*.

1. What is your definition of
a) autograph and
b) archetype?

2. How would you handle the edition of the GNT (pocket-edition) when there
are readings of "equal weighting"?

Best wishes
    Wieland
      <><
------------------------
Wieland Willker
mailto:[email-masked]
http://purl.org/WILLKER/index.html

---

From: [email-masked] (U.B.Schmid)
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 17:35:59 +0200

> 1. What is your definition of

The archetype is the starting point of a textual transmission. It's the last 
step you can reach when you try to find your way back through the extant copies 
of given texts.
Concerning definition of autograph I can't really tell. I do think, however, 
that the notion of autograph has something to do with the author of a text, 
pointing to a version he or she wrote down or dictated and approved. 

Within the realm of NT textual transmission the concept of autograph is very 
tricky to handle. Let's take, e.g., the Pauline epistles. In all likelyhood the 
letter to the Romans was sent to Rome as an individual text (possibly a single 
scroll). The physical reminders of the textual tradition of the Letter to the 
Romans, however, bears every sign of belonging to joint edition(s): Codex 
format, more than just the individual letter in one manuscript, superscripts and 
subscripts. Let's put it boldly: Does anybody really think that one of the 
versions of Romans found in GNT, NA-27, Von Soden, or Tischendorf has a chance 
to go back to the version that was sent to Rome? If we just consider the 
superscript "To the Romans" found in all the mentioned editions, we will 
immediately realize that critical editions don't pretend to go back to the 
letter that was sent ot the Romans, even if editors sometimes do. Critical 
editions just as probably every single piece of Romans' papyrus/parchment go 
back to collections of Pauline letters. It is not entirely clear, how many 
collections existed and how many of those have contributed to the textual 
transmission of the Pauline Corpus. It is, however, reasonably clear that more 
than one collection was involved. We don't know where, when and through whom the 
collections have been made. Moreover, we don't know how faithfully the various 
collections have preserved the individual letters. 
To sum up: There are quite a few intermediary stages within the textual 
transmission of the Pauline Corpus, some of which definitely contributed to 
confuse the whole story (contamination), that it seems utterly naive to assume 
the textual history of the Letter to the Romans will somehow naturally lead to 
as well as faithfully represent the version that Paul once sent to Rome - if 
that's what stands behind the notion of autograph.
In my view, we should concentrate our efforts to clear up the archetype 
situation of the NT books, i.e. identifying, localizing, and reconstructing 
collections and subcollections, instead of taking the short-cut to the desk of 
Paul (or John, or Matthew, or...). 

> are readings of "equal weighting"?

I've not studied every single variation unit within the NT, especially not in 
the GNT pocket-edition, because this one tends to isolate information to the 
extend that it's not possible to study similar phenomena throughout a given 
text. What do you mean by "equal weighting"? The committee's "D"-ratings? 

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