Matthew 12:47 ("But someone said to him, Behold your mother and your
brothers are standing outside asking to speak to you.") is enclosed
in brackets and given a grade of {C} for its inclusion.  Although
reasons for and against including the verse are interesting (and
would be appreciated), the focus of my question is the following:

My UBS4 lists the Diatessaron as a witness for inclusion.  If it is
possible that Mt12:47, if not original, is a harmonization to Mk3:32
and/or Lk8:20, how can the Diatessaron, itself a harmony, be evidence
one way or another on this passage of Matthew?

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson                   : Poetry speaks of aspirations,
scarlson@...              : and songs chant the words.
http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/ :               -- Shujing 2.35

> >Whatever I know I know from
> >books, occasional conversations, and some thousands of hours
> >with critical apparati and manuscript databases.
> >
> >But I'm not an official expert. If anyone was operating under
> >the assumption that I was -- well, either learn to disrespect me
> >now or forever hold your peace. :-)
>
> A doctors cap does not a wise man make; nor a shovel a fool.

Speaking to Bob as one who also never got the chance to earn a doctorate:
what Jim said.
Dave Washburn
dwashbur@...
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html

On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, wlp1@... (William L. Petersen) wrote:
>
> >I am confused:  We have two excellent *Patrologies* in English,  Quasten's

Hear, hear!  Let me my whole-hearted agreement with the opinions now
repeates so often in this thread that QUasten's Patrology is an excellent
book, a vital reference for English speaking students of Patristics,
whether they study for TC reasons or not.

> And I would make a point: The article at the web site is not by
> any means intended as a substitute for a patrology. Rather, it
> is intended to give information of use to textual critics. It's
> not the same thing, though the two are related.

Well, I hope you will make much use of Quasten's Patrology while writing
your own article.  Even if you are not trying to write a Patrology
yourself, there is so much in Quasten's book you should know when trying
to write even just an encyclopedia article.


> I am not expert in this part of the field (as I keep saying!),
> but it seems to me that there is no work which really approaches
> the Fathers from the text critic's viewpoint. If we (not necessarily
> me!) can offer such a tool, even a brief one, I think it would
> be very helpful.

Actually, there is quite a bit of work on various Fathers that analyzes
their texts.  But most of it seems to still be only in journal articles.
You will find references to quite a number of such articles if you dig
through the archives for this mailing list.

Besides, "such a tool" is helpful only if it is not misleading. One of the
reasons so many are asking to have it removed is that they fear that any
"encyclopedia" article on this topic _will_ be misleading.

> For that matter, the whole point of an "Encyclopedia" is to summarize
> information. An encyclopedia never covers a subject in complete
> detail.

Which is exactly why an encyclopedia is such a poor forum for discussing
the text of the Fathers.  Let's not forget that when Diderot first
conceived of the idea of writing a modern encyclopedia he was subject to
the same criticism, not without good cause.  Even the best encyclopedias
can be horribly misleading.  Try looking up the different ways of
computing the date of Easter/Passover in the encyclopedias "Encyclopedia
Americana" and "Encyclopedia Brittanica" for a good example.

Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

I couldn't let this pass without comment.

On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Dave Aiken wrote:

> Just because one has the physical or financial ability to put something on
> the internet does not mean one should necessarily do so. The web is
> cluttered with useless information and data.

True, true.  And so are books (and I speak as someone who works for a
publisher!).

CLearly Bob's online articles are no substitute for Quasten, nor do they
claim to be.  As I understand it, what he is trying to do is to provide a
convenient online location where one can gather a little bit of general
information about the church fathers, and I think there is validity and
value in that.  Even leading scholars in a particular field write books
and articles that are aimed at the non-professional, and they sometimes
even write about topics that they do not claim to be experts in!  Should
Bob's online articles be used as though they were authoritative statements
of a leading patristic, or even textual, scholar?  Of course not.  They
have not been through the peer-review process and thus cannot claim to be
"scholarship" in that sense.  If they are taken as I think they are
intended, however, as sources of general, widely accepted information
about various fathers (providing, of course, that Bob has done a good job
of choosing reliable sources and has accurately reflected their points of
view), I think they can be useful resources, especially if references to
the sources of the information are provided.

To give one example of a setting in which these articles might be of
value, a teacher might assign students to do some elementary research on a
church father of their choice.  Finding Bob's information online, the
student might read the brief information in the articles, choose a church
father that is of interest on the basis of what he/she reads, and do
further research in the library, perhaps on the basis of the sources Bob
cites in the article.  Since many students nowadays are so well-versed in
using the Web and enjoy doing so, why not use that interest to advantage
in teaching?  Yes, students will need guidance about which Web pages are
valid sources of information and which are pure garbage (the same can be
said, again, for printed books), so maybe teachers should include in the
bibliographies they hand to their students Web sites that contain useful
information.  Who knows, maybe some interested student will actually enjoy
an assignment that involves a little Web surfing, and might learn
something in the process!

I think Bob is to be commended for his work, and we should encourage his
efforts, and those of other people who are attempting to perform a public
service by putting good, high quality information on the Web.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
     and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

Despite the justified criticism levelled against the "Fathers' article" there
seems to be a remarkable agreement among the *styloi* of TC that we possess good
patrological referrence tools. The praises of ST. JOHaNnes Quasten was almost
universally sung. Therefore, in principle I can see no obstacle against
compiling a list of short information on patristic sources found in the various
critical aparatus.
This information should include:
a.) Localization of the patristic sources in time and space; conflicting
evidence and/or insecure ascriptions should be noted,
b.) Bibliography (editions and secondary literature).
This information should rely on:
c.) reputable patrologies (e.g., J. Quasten), clearly indicating the referrence
tool(s).

It is hard to imagine that scholars like Bart Ehrman, author of (inter alia) a
NT introduction, and Bill Petersen, author of (inter alia) articles in the
Anchor Bible Dictionary, should firmly contest that (inter alia) _their_
publications can and should be used as referrence tools in order to gather solid
information.
The actual performance of such a short list of information is open to dispute,
no doubt about that, but the possibility of compiling one can not be ruled out.

BTW-- Contemplating the history of encyclopedic enterprises in our disciplines
(Biblical studies, church history, theology) I am really puzzled. The Germans,
e.g., started the *Theologische Realenzyklopaedie* in 1977, published 26 vols.
so far, yet did not come to an end. Even more perplexing, the *Reallexikon fuer
Antike und Christentum* started in 1950, published 17 vols. so far, yet did not
come to an end. No doubt, the Germans want it all, but they don't want it now.
The ambitious German projects want to represent the actual state of the art as
well as covering research history as well as a making significant contributions.
In the end it turns out that when they reach the five vols. on the letter "Z"
the first 20 vols (at least) are partly outdated, for they represent the state
of the art from half a century ago (at best).
On the other hand, British-American projects, e.g., the *Anchor Bible
Dictionary* (prepared within six years, with nearly a thousand contributors,
published in six vols.) or *The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium* (prepared within
roughly a decade, published in three vols.), display quite different results.

No doubt there are differences between the mentioned encyclopedical enterprises.
However, the British-American scholars on the TC-list seem to incline more
towards the "German" encyclopedical attitude, whereas I find myself (moderately)
favouring the "British-American" encyclopedical attitude. Maybe we all tend to
prefer what we are lacking over what we actually have.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

James R. Adair wrote, in conclusion:

>
> I think Bob is to be commended for his work, and we should encourage his
> efforts, and those of other people who are attempting to perform a public
> service by putting good, high quality information on the Web.

Jim, you took the words right out of my mouth! I agree wholeheartedly
with this statement, as I am one among very many net users who will
profit greatly from this kind of electronic articles.

Bob, thank you for your effort in making such articles available to net
users.

Such efforts should be commended, not discouraged!


--
- Mr. Helge Evensen

Jim West wrote:
>
> At 05:10 PM 7/24/97 -0500, you wrote:
> >In his recent post, Jack Kilmon (<jpman@...>) referred
> >to me several times as "Dr. Waltz." So I'd better remind people
> >that I don't have a doctorate -- and certainly not in theology
> >or textual criticism or the like.
>
> Just for info's sake, I would remind the list that Karl Barth never earned a
> doctorate either- and only the most foolish would suggest that his
> contributions to theology (whether one agrees with him or not) were small.


What about Samuel Tregelles?


--
- Mr. Helge Evensen

Jack Kilmon wrote:
> > For those who wonder why others do not "better" the Fathers' page:
> > (1)
> > Professional academics have better things to do.  We try to do
> > *original*
> > research.  (2) Professional academics also see no need to reinvent the
> >
> > wheel:  We already have two very satisfactory *Patrologies*, hundreds
> > of
> > pages in length, and giving articles on each father;  why duplicate
> > what has
> > already been done?
>
>     Resources in print are static.  As you develop more information from
> your*original* research, publishers do not send out "updates" to the
> books that are
> no longer quite as accurate.  Instead, you publish in the peer-reviewed
> journals.
>
>     WWW Articles, such as Bob Waltz's, can be updated from those
> articles, therefore
> it is not a reinvention of the wheel but a new wheel altogether.  It is
> more "alive"
> than the print medium.

Yes.  To cite a recent example, Dave Aiken, who so disparaged Bob's
article and spoke of unnecessary material being put on the Web,
recently rejected my book "A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead
Sea Scrolls" because it would cost too much to update it periodically
and release new editions.  I began this work in 1982, and because of
this kind of attitude on the part of publishers it STILL has not seen
the light of day.  Jimmy Adair and I are now in the process of
working it up into a searchable web site that I will be able to
update daily if I want to (not that I would want to!).  This is a
perfect example of what I said in another post: the Net is the
future.


> > The beginning of scholarship is digging in the original sources and
> > secondary literature one's self.  Sell the computer;  use the money to
> > buy
> > good books.  Sit and study.  Examine the arguments and evidence.  Then
> > form
> > an opinion.  There is no other way.
> >
>
>     Again you dismiss, even disparage, the use of the computer and
> thevalue of a "living" WWW as a resource in addition to the works in
> print.
> I have, on my hard disk, and printable, 38 volumes of the works of the
> Patristics downloaded from a url...at no cost, thanks to the efforts and
>
> labors of the site owners who, like Bob, offer information (the wares
> of the academic) to us "serious amateurs."

Yep.  The computer has allowed some phenomenal leaps in areas of
biblical research, including TC.  One need only look at the programs
now available to do collation and comparison.  Sell the computer?
Ha. Join the 20th century!  My own chosen field of research is Hebrew
grammar, and the computerized resources available now allow
investigations of types that couldn't even be imagined in the
pre-computer days.  "Sit and study," yes.  Definitely.  But the real
up-to-date information these days is accessed via the computer.  So
get the books, but sit at the computer just as much as you sit at the
table with the books.  And contributions such as Bob's encyclopedia
are a big part of this new trend in up-to-date, easy-to-get
information.  If I want to look in a particular book, I frequently
have to wait weeks for Inter-Library Loan.  I can get info that's on
the Web in a matter of seconds.  Guess which one is preferrable.

Thanks, Bob.
Dave Washburn
dwashbur@...
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html

Bob Waltz wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, wlp1@... (William L. Petersen) wrote:
>
> >I am confused:  We have two excellent *Patrologies* in English,  Quasten's
> >and Altaner's.  Neither is expensive (Quasten has been reissued in paper;
> >my Altaner in English was picked up for < $5 at a secondhand store years
> >ago).  If anyone is *really* interested in textual criticism and the
> >Fathers, why not use these sources?  If anyone is a *serious* amateur and
> >has the money for a computer, then they certainly can afford a
> >*Patrology*--which has an extensive bibliography.
>
> I don't know if I should get into this, but there is a comment I would
> make here: I, for one, have a computer for work. I could not afford
> one for personal use.

I would also have to point out that Peterson's statement, though I'm
sure it wasn't intended this way, sounds more than a little arrogant.
  Until recently, I lived in a town in Wyoming where my chances of getting my
hands on such books was about as likely as winning the Wyoming
lottery (Wyoming doesn't have a lottery).  There are many, many
resources on the Net that I couldn't get - in some cases still can't
get - any other way.  The Net is the future; get used to it or get
left behind.

> And I would make a point: The article at the web site is not by
> any means intended as a substitute for a patrology. Rather, it
> is intended to give information of use to textual critics. It's
> not the same thing, though the two are related.

Agreed.  An encyclopedia by nature is not a complete compendium, but
I don't see anybody throwing out their Brittanicas because they don't
contain as much information on desert tortoises as some major
research papers.

> I am not expert in this part of the field (as I keep saying!),
> but it seems to me that there is no work which really approaches
> the Fathers from the text critic's viewpoint. If we (not necessarily
> me!) can offer such a tool, even a brief one, I think it would
> be very helpful.

And it is!  I refer to it a lot.  I confess I just read the article
on the Fathers a little while ago (largely because of Peterson's
complaints, I wanted to see what all the gripe was about) and found
it excellent.  It is accurate as far as I can see, well organized,
easy to follow, and immensely informative.  I don't understand what
the beef is.  So it's not the same thing as a huge book.  So what?

> >For those who wonder why others do not "better" the Fathers' page:  (1)
> >Professional academics have better things to do.
>
> Surely you don't mean that you have better things to do than supply
> information to the next generation of textual critics. And if that
> *is* what you mean, then how can you object if I -- in my admittedly
> limited way -- attempt to do what I can.

My first thought when I read Peterson's statement above was "Then
what are you doing fiddling around in this list?  Why aren't you out
doing that 'original research'?"  Better things to do?  The only
difference is that Bob is writing his material on the Web and some
others aren't.

> >We try to do *original*
> >research.  (2) Professional academics also see no need to reinvent the
> >wheel:  We already have two very satisfactory *Patrologies*, hundreds of
> >pages in length, and giving articles on each father;  why duplicate what has
> >already been done?
>
> As noted, I do not think this is a duplication.

To say nothing of the fact that he missed the point of the
encyclopedia...

> For that matter, the whole point of an "Encyclopedia" is to summarize
> information. An encyclopedia never covers a subject in complete
> detail. But encyclopedias still exist -- not because they supply
> complete information, but because they supply a place to start.
>
> I will concede that it would be good to supply bibliographic information
> for the patrologies. I hadn't thought of it.
>
> >Finally, one other note:  in his post on 22-7-97 @ 10:22, the author of the
> >site obseved that "The information on the site should all be accurate; it is
> >taken from reputable sources."  Now, however, in his post on 24-7-97 @
> >10:09, the same individual writes, "...This has led, inevitably, to some
> >errors [in the articles]."  What a difference two days makes!
>
> Yes, it does. Kind people have offered me information about errors
> and oversimplifications in certain sources. Problems not mentioned
> in any reviews I have seen. I concede the error. I am trying to
> correct it in the best way possible.

I can't help wondering if the above-mentioned compendia of patristic
material are completely without errors, oversights, typograpical
errors, etc. etc. etc.  Bob is doing something to help the general
community be better informed about TC.  And Bob, there are plenty of
us who appreciate it.

Dave Washburn
dwashbur@...
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html

I've now looked at Waltz's web page and understand it's allure.  It is
nice to have brief overviews of information so handily set out, and I
understand why he's getting some vocal support here.  But let me emphasize
that if the information provided is by the admission of its author
based on incomplete research and inadequate sources, and that it contains
to-this-stage-undetected inaccuracies, I still think it would be
better to *wait* until it is responsibly done before posting it for the
world to see.  That's what all of us have to do when we're publishing, and
I should think that this kind of minimal standard isn't too much to ask of
internet publication.

    Several other comments and queries:

	 (1) For those who have access to a reasonably OK public or
college library, I'd suggest consulting not only the patrologies that Bill
Petersen mentioned, but also the standard reference tool (which is
thoroughly researched and highly accurate), _The Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church_, ed. by F. L. Cross and, now, E. A. Livingstone.  It
provides much briefer info on all of the important patristic than the
patrologies, more like Waltz's entries, and is for the most part
completely reliable (though there are places where each of us might put a
different spin on things here and there).   Anecdotally, I might add that
when I was a graduate student, Bruce Metzger told me that he kept this
volume on his desk, and that this is the one book he told graduate
students that they should buy if they could buy only one.

	 (2) Several times Mr. Waltz has indicated that the info about the
Fathers that he provides (unlike the patrologies) is only that which is of
importance for textual criticism.  But I'm confused by this.  What
information about a father would *not* be of importance for textual
criticism?

	 (3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
Petersen).  Two issues:

	 (a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)

	 (b) There are several volumes "in the works" for the series,
including disssertations being finished or having been finished on Origen,
Athanasius, and Basil.  If anyone is interested in thinking about making a
contribution, please contact me.  The fields are white for harvest!

-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

May we stick to the basic issue?  If something is erroneous and
misleading, then the originator should not make it available and the
user should avoid consulting it.  Whether people have one or a
thousand degrees, and whether the medium is paper or a web-site is
quite irrelevant.  The question of access is apparently more
complicated, but it is hard to see why confusion is preferable to
blissful ignorance.

I for one am resigned to the fact that for the moment people are so in love with
things electronic that they'll prefer anything in it to looking out a
decent book or to leaving the matter alone.  But I absolutely support
Bart Ehrman's plea for a gestation period in publishing
electronically just as in the book production.  Post in haste and repent
at leisure.

In passing, the claim that there is little available on patristic
textual questions but a few articles is misleading.  One could compile a long
bibliography, of both general and specialist materials, without too
much thought.  But that's not an offer.  It's just underlining the
point that one should at least know these sources before writing on
the subject, even briefly.

There is an underlying point to these exchanges, which I want to
speak to frankly:  The more interest in textual studies the better, I'm
all for that.  But please will self-confessed amateurs listen
carefully to those of us who have given our lives to these matters, and
who spend every available moment in their study?    After 25
years at it, I have at least discovered my ignorance.  I think that
not everyone on the list realises that there is such a  stage.  To be
honest, there is a huge gap in knowledge and critical training
across this list, and in expectation of what constitutes proper
scholarship.  People are at many
different levels of knowledge, of course, that's fine. But the standards and
quality of the discipline will not be widely improved if those who
should be listening, reading and learning are talking and writing and
trying to teach.

And please remember, before you rush to scold me, that this is not an arrogant
piece of imperialism, but an attempt to encourage recognition of the
high standards of our discipline.

DC PARKER
DEPT OF THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
TEL. 0121-414 3613
FAX  0121-414 6866
E-MAIL PARKERDC@...

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman <behrman@...> wrote:

>   I've now looked at Waltz's web page and understand it's allure.  It is
>nice to have brief overviews of information so handily set out, and I
>understand why he's getting some vocal support here.  But let me emphasize
>that if the information provided is by the admission of its author
>based on incomplete research and inadequate sources, and that it contains
>to-this-stage-undetected inaccuracies, I still think it would be
>better to *wait* until it is responsibly done before posting it for the
>world to see.  That's what all of us have to do when we're publishing, and
>I should think that this kind of minimal standard isn't too much to ask of
>internet publication.

I'm going to shock some of you by agreeing, in outline, with Ehrman's
comment.

Certainly, if I/we decide to keep the page up, I am going to make
some immediate changes:

1. I will add a warning that the page is incomplete
2. I'm going to add information about my sources.
3. I made some misguided attempts to harmonize my sources. I will
    eliminate that.

And, of course, I will work to improve the entries.

But if the page is a good idea, then it seems to me worthwhile to
keep it up while we work on it. Why? Because it's the best way
to get feedback. Jean Valentin gave me some useful information
about Armenian fathers. Vincent Broman pointed me to some
useful work on Cyril of Jerusalem. Ulrich Schmid supplied
information about all sorts of topics.

There is a vast amount of TC knowledge on this list. If anyone
wants to help out, I will gladly give full credit. For example,
Ehrman knows more about the text of Didymus than I will ever
learn in my life. If he would write, say, 200 words on the
topic, I would be thrilled.

I would also point out that the *entire site* is inspired by
Rich Elliot's Encyclopedia. Eventually there *will* be a better
product. (Well, better on every subject except text-types and
mathematics, anyway. :-) In the interim, I am including as
much as I can. I think a TC Encyclopedia *requires* an article
on the Fathers. I would much, *much*, MUCH rather someone else
had written it. (Believe me, folks, writing te article was
not fun.) But I've opened my web space to others, and -- other
than the contributions mentioned above and -- no one has
come forward.

The offer is still open, BTW. If someone else wants to create a
similar article, of roughly equal length, I will happily convert it
to HTML and post it.

[ ... ]

> (2) Several times Mr. Waltz has indicated that the info about the
>Fathers that he provides (unlike the patrologies) is only that which is of
>importance for textual criticism.  But I'm confused by this.  What
>information about a father would *not* be of importance for textual
>criticism?

This is a good point, too. But I can think of a few examples. Take,
say, ethnicity. Obviously it matters that Ulfilas lived among the
Goths. And spoke their language, and translated their Bible, and
was their bishop, and was rather Arian. But does it really matter,
for our purposes, whether he was born a Goth or a Roman? I don't
see how.

(I know, I know, we have no writings of Ulfilas other than the
Gothic Bible. But it's an example, OK?)

> (3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
>sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
>though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
>in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
>edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
>Petersen).  Two issues:

While this is an important series to mention, I don't see that its
existence affects the Encyclopedia, or similar works, at all.
Obviously people who have those volumes should consult them, rather
than the Encyclopedia, for full details. On the other hand, how many
of you have the entire set on your desks?

And the very fact that the series is ongoing shows that people cannot
rely on it for everything. Obviously they can't rely on an encyclopedia
for everything, either. But let's not confuse the purposes of the
two.

Please note: I am not saying I will keep the Fathers page up (though,
right now, it's clear that a majority want it retained). The question
remains open. I just want the discussion to remain focussed on what
I consider the actual issue. :-)

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

                         Robert B. Waltz
                      waltzmn@...

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)

A few thoughts about this whole debate about the Informations that Bob
Waltz has put on the Encyclopedia site about the fathers.

Once again, we are stumbling over the issue of vulgarization. This reminds
me the thread about "academic imperialism" that took place some months ago,
and I'm really perplex about the issue.

Vulgarization of scholarly knowledge seems to cause difficulties. On the
one hand, there _are_ many people wishing to find short and accessible
information about our discipline. On the other hand, professional scholars
are often very critical when such information is provided. And judging by
their standards, we can only understand them.

Vulgarization is necessary, but then good vulgarization. But what is good
vulgarization? Probably the one that is done by the real specialists. But
they don't have time for it... It is probably not what their institutions
are paying them for. This is just one of the many frustrating realities of
life.

The problem then is that there is a growing gap between the preoccupations
of the scholars and those of the "lay" people who want to get information
because for some reason the subject is existential to them (and we're
dealing with matters related to religious faith, right?).

There is a difficulty of communication. What can we do about it? To give a
personal example, the congregation of which I've been a member for years
considers me now as "dangerous" just because I study textual criticism and
eastern christianity... I experience a growing gap, or difficulty of
communication that becomes really conflictual, between them and me. And on
my side, the way these brave believers and their leaders are speaking about
things they don't know about irritates me. This happens to many studying
people: there comes a point where they can no more communicate with the
public, and the public gets also frustrated because it probably expects
something else from them. It's a sociological reality we all have to live
with, I don't know if there's a solution... but sometimes it hurts. And
probably it hurts some of you too. Seems like we live "in two different
worlds" like the song says! This raises other issues like: what's the use
of scholarship anyway, what is its contribution to the construction of a
better world? But I guess I'm getting off-topic...

So coming back to Bob's work and to the remarks of many of you, I think
it's good that Bob thought about providing information to "the public". And
when he wrote to us, it was with the intention of making his informations
more accurate. If somebody like Bob wants to build bridges between
scholarship and the public, maybe it will prevent these frustrations I was
mentioning... So why not help him, this would become _our_ contribution to
the setting of an information that would be both correct when judged by
academic standards, and accessible for those who just need short
information.

BTW, a very important work about the fathers and the text they used are the
volumes of the "Biblia Patristica" published by the CNRS. To my knowledge,
there are already five volumes in this collection. These books follow the
order of the Bible texts and give references of quotations in the patristic
sources. In front of a biblical reference you find references in a father's
work. It makes hundreds of pages, just of references. No text, nothing else
than references to chapters and verses and pages of patristic editions,
nearly like a telephone book. An essential tool for the study of the text
of the Greek and Latin Fathers... It's worth using for us, and it's worth
mentioning to the public that such things exist, just for information...

It was just a few reflections in disorder, because this all makes me feel
very perplex...

Peace to all!

---------------------------------------------------------
Jean Valentin - Brussels - Belgium
email: jgvalentin@...
---------------------------------------------------------
A proud user of:
NISUS WRITER - The best word processor for the Macintosh!!
Support for HTML, best WorldScript implementation, best Search and Find
capabilities.
THE solution for writing in Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Chinese, Japanese...

Find more about it
at:
http://www.nisus-soft.com
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/nelc/grads/maschke/nisus_overview/toc.html
---------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman <behrman@...> wrote:
>
> >   I've now looked at Waltz's web page and understand it's allure.  It is
> >nice to have brief overviews of information so handily set out, and I
> >understand why he's getting some vocal support here.  But let me emphasize
> > [snip]
> I'm going to shock some of you by agreeing, in outline, with Ehrman's
> comment.
>
> Certainly, if I/we decide to keep the page up, I am going to make
> some immediate changes:
>
> 1. I will add a warning that the page is incomplete
> 2. I'm going to add information about my sources.
> 3. I made some misguided attempts to harmonize my sources. I will
>    eliminate that.
>
> And, of course, I will work to improve the entries.
>

All excellent ideas!

> But if the page is a good idea, then it seems to me worthwhile to
> keep it up while we work on it. Why? Because it's the best way
> to get feedback. Jean Valentin gave me some useful information
> about Armenian fathers. Vincent Broman pointed me to some
> useful work on Cyril of Jerusalem. Ulrich Schmid supplied
> information about all sorts of topics.

Given your resolve to add the warning of its incompleteness, I agree that
this is a good idea, the volunteered info is a good example of why.

> [snip]
> > (2) Several times Mr. Waltz has indicated that the info about the
> >Fathers that he provides (unlike the patrologies) is only that which is of
> >importance for textual criticism.  But I'm confused by this.  What
> >information about a father would *not* be of importance for textual
> >criticism?
>
> This is a good point, too. But I can think of a few examples. Take,
> say, ethnicity. Obviously it matters that Ulfilas lived among the
> Goths. And spoke their language, and translated their Bible, and
> was their bishop, and was rather Arian. But does it really matter,
> for our purposes, whether he was born a Goth or a Roman? I don't
> see how.

Well, but even this example _could_ turn out to be important.  So, for
example, if he was born Roman learning Gothic only later in life, even
after many years of being their bishop he might still speak and write
Gothic as an obvious non-native.  Look at any immigrant church in the US
for many examples of such bishops.  This in turn would affect his choice
of vocabulary for translating passages with significant variants.  If I
recall correctly, the article reviewed at

http://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu/scripts/TC/vol02/Bakker1997rev.html

has an interesting example of this problem in the Slavonic translation
of "censum" in Acts.  The article itself is not on the web.

>
> > (3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
> >sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
> >Petersen).  Two issues:
> [snip]
> While this is an important series to mention, I don't see that its
> existence affects the Encyclopedia, or similar works, at all.
> Obviously people who have those volumes should consult them, rather
> than the Encyclopedia, for full details. On the other hand, how many
> of you have the entire set on your desks?

One way in which its existence affects the Encyclopedia is that you could
compare your judgement concerning what information about the Fathers is
relevant to TC with the selection of information about the Fathers
actually used in the monographs.

Now one difference this whole thread illustrates between the Web and a
peer-reviewed forum is that sometimes the best way to get feedback
comparable to peer-review is to put something out there and filter through
the resulting criticism to decide which is useful correction and which is
not.  I hope you will find my comments useful.  My first comment after
finally being able to connect is that I wish you had an indication of for
which of these Fathers a critical edition is available. This would
certainly be of great relevance to TC.

The next omission I notice is that you seem to discuss the various Fathers
works only from the standpoint of _New_ Testament criticism, even when his
works are potentially useful for Old Testament (Old Latin & Vulgate)
criticism, such as Cassiodorus, who wrote a very complete commentary on
the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC.

Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
frequent reference to him as well.

Finally, since we are so lucky as to have a "terminus ad quem" for the
loss of Origen's Hexapla, I think it is worth mentioning when Caesarea was
burnt by invading Moslems, so that we know when the last date was (no, I
don't remember the date) that any other Father could have consulted
Origen's original manuscript (the copies were quickly corrupted to the
point of uselessness).

Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <mejohnsn@...> wrote, in part:

[ ... ]

>> > (3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
>> >sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
>> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
>> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
>> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
>> >Petersen).  Two issues:
>> [snip]
>> While this is an important series to mention, I don't see that its
>> existence affects the Encyclopedia, or similar works, at all.
>> Obviously people who have those volumes should consult them, rather
>> than the Encyclopedia, for full details. On the other hand, how many
>> of you have the entire set on your desks?
>
>One way in which its existence affects the Encyclopedia is that you could
>compare your judgement concerning what information about the Fathers is
>relevant to TC with the selection of information about the Fathers
>actually used in the monographs.

Oh, agreed. I was just pointing out that the series is not a
substitute for the Encyclopedia, or vice versa.

>Now one difference this whole thread illustrates between the Web and a
>peer-reviewed forum is that sometimes the best way to get feedback
>comparable to peer-review is to put something out there and filter through
>the resulting criticism to decide which is useful correction and which is
>not.  I hope you will find my comments useful.  My first comment after
>finally being able to connect is that I wish you had an indication of for
>which of these Fathers a critical edition is available. This would
>certainly be of great relevance to TC.

Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't have enough information at my disposal
to do this well. If someone else does, again, I will include it.

>The next omission I notice is that you seem to discuss the various Fathers
>works only from the standpoint of _New_ Testament criticism, even when his
>works are potentially useful for Old Testament (Old Latin & Vulgate)
>criticism, such as Cassiodorus, who wrote a very complete commentary on
>the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC.

Again I plead lack of knowledge and information.

I'd also ask a question. This is not an argument, I'm simply curious:
What is the significance of Cassiodorus's commentary on Psalms for
NT criticism? (Apart, of course, from any NT passages it cites.) Not
having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.

>Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
>commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
>of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
>Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
>frequent reference to him as well.

Er -- that turns out not to be the case. If you look on pp. 74*-76* in
the NA27 introduction, you'll see an (allegedly) complete list of fathers
cited. (I say "allegedly" because it contains a couple of minor errors --
e.g. it does not list the Pseudo Dionysus, who is quoted, I think, twice).
Theophylact does not appear in the list.

The list of fathers for whom I provided entries was chosen according to
a very simple principle: If the author is cited in NA27 or Merk, I
included him. Otherwise, no. I know there are some important sources
omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.
And I decided that the lists in UBS4 and (even more so) Souter were
too much work. If enough people want me to add the fathers cited in
UBS4, I guess I'll try -- but the results won't be as good. (I refuse
even to consider trying to add everyone in Souter. Some of those I
can't even figure out the official English name for. :-)

Incidentally -- it turns out that Merk's list of Fathers cited
is very inaccurate. I haven't finished going through the gospels
yet, but I've already found three (I think it was) authors he
cites who do not appear in his list, and several more whom he
cites under the wrong abbreviation. So that's one more thing to
be added to the article.... :-)

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@...

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):

> No one has referred,
>though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
>in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
>edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
>Petersen).  Two issues:

> (a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
>for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
>comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)

>From my own experience with the series as well as with patristic testimonies in
general I would like to add three suggestions for (IMHO) improving the series:

1) It is absolutely vital for readers of the series to have exact information on
which readings are judged to be part of the body of readings subjected to
quantitative analysis. When working, e.g., with Bart Ehrman's *Didymus the
Blind* it takes a lot of stupid, even confusing work to make your way through
the aparatus in order to figure out the units of variation judged to be
genetically significant. I do not claim that this is impossible, but it's
boaring and prone to error. Just as a service for the reader, why not
highlightening the units of variation judged to be significant within the
aparatus itself or adding lists?

2) Quantitative analysis requires _complete_ collation of all witnesses included
in the pool. To perform this task is relatively easy, though not without
occasional problems, as long as we are solely dealing with MSS. As soon as
Church Father testimonies are involved we face the problem of insecure
ascriptions of readings due to loose citation or allusion. In case of exploiting
allusions, which no doubt is a tricky business, one would like to know why out
of a possible range of variant units only one or two are accepted while others
are rejected. For example, in *Didymus the Blind* (p. 88) out of an allusion
judged to refer to Mark 4:10 only the variation unit TAS PARABOLAS was accepted
while the possible unit ERWTWSIN has been passed with silence. I have no doubts
that Bart Ehrman had his reasons for this judgement. However, I simply wished he
would have told us, for, in order to arrive at the conclusion presented, a set
of highly complex individual decisions had to be made. The more difficult
judgements are involved the more transparency is appreciated.

3) Somehow related to point 2) is the quest for how to assess what is judged to
be a "genetically significant" unit of variation. G.D. Fee (in a review,
published in CBQ 53 [1991] 320f) made the important point that what might be
considered genetically significant when dealing with MSS, must not be
automatically considered genetically significant when Church Father testimonies
are involved. Fee suggests that within patristic testimonies (especially
allusions) addition/omission of particles, articles, exchange of tempora,
singular/plural, synonymic prepositions/conjunctions are suspect to be "textual
trivia" (Fee's expression), displaying no genealogical relationship. Granted
this point has at least some merit, it seems vital to address this issue within
a broader scope, thus giving it a more prominent role in future studies on
Church Fathers' texts. It may well turn out that the Fathers can not be treated
all the same, for some, e.g., may well prefer to adjust their own argument to
the biblical text over the opposite attitude for which we have plenty of
evidence. Some may even change their attitude towards the biblical text when
writing in different genres or addressing different audiences (c.f. Clement of
Alexandria's Protreptikos vs. Paidagogos + Stromateis). However, this has to be
assessed, documented, and applied to the evaluation of the evidence.

To sum up: In my mind, increasing transparency on various levels is appreciated
to improve the series. A lot has already been done. Nevertheless, still more
could be achieved.

Ulrich Schmid (Muenster)

These are excellent points by Ulrich Schmidt, and my sense is that
subsequent studies in the series (including a couple that are now in the
pipeline) have done a better job at explaining the logic behind the
necessary decisions than I did as I sloshed through the Didymus material.
When I was doing this study (it was my dissertation), by the way, I was
struck by at how even in this sub-discipline (i.e., t-c) which is commonly
touted as the most "objective" of all NT studies, *decisions* have to be
made at every step along the way, human fallible decisions that totally
belie the idea even that grouping witnesses is a non-subjective
enterprise.  Oddly enough (too oddly, some might think), it started me
down the slippery slopes to become the postmodernist you see before you
pecking at his keyboard today!

    With respect to Mark 4:10, all I can do at this stage is try to
reconstruct my thinking back when I was grinding away at this in the early
80's.  I don't have all my data right here, but it looks to me like
Didymus's text clearly does support the plural _parabolas_, even in the
allusion; but I'm not sure how his present tense _erwtwsin_ *could* be
used to support either the imperfect or the aorist tense found, e.g., in
the TR and UBS.  (Recall, I provided an asterisk for allusions that could
be used for one variant or another, and then indicated *those* variants,
rather than give full collations at those points ((since what would be the
point of knowing that other witnesses vary at points for whom the father's
text is indeterminable?)); in this case, I decided that it could be used
for one variant in the tradition but not the other).  Ulrich, did I miss
something here?  (i.e., *is* there a variation among the MSS that I used
for which Didymus's text could be used to adjudicate by his _erwtwsin_)?

     The point about textual trivia is also important, though I must say
that Gordon Fee and I have argued about this for years, and I disagree
with him in discounting *everything* that he would want to discount.
Sometimes the presence of articles, changes in tenses and word orders,
etc. *can* be counted on in a father's text.  It has to be decided on a
case-by-case basis (by Father and by variant), which, of course, calls
again into question the objective character of the enterprise.  (And, in
my judgment, as I've pointed out on this list before, there's nothing that
can be done about that, because this *is* a human venture, and decisions
have to be made -- even if one decides to try to set up a system in which
no decisions have to be made!) (i.e., that's a decision, and is not
self-evidently the best way to proceed -- so there's already a
value-judgment involved ; and the guidelines one chooses then for the
system are *still*, precisely, chosen!).

    Gordon and I have had to come to terms with our
disagreement on this issue, since we've been doing the Origen project
together (with Mike Holmes and now Bruce Morrill) (not that one can notice
any significant progress being made, I might add...); Gordon has eased up
a bit on his hard line on this, and I've conceded some of his major
points, esp. dealing with variations at the outset of a quotation, where
things tend to get *really* loose.

    But it would be a good idea, I agree, at least to indicate where
variation is thought to be significant and where not.

    Thanks again for the suggestions.

-- Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil



On Sat, 26 Jul 1997 schmiul@... wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):
>
> > No one has referred,
> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
> >Petersen).  Two issues:
>
> > (a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
> >for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
> >comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)
>
> >From my own experience with the series as well as with patristic testimonies
in
> general I would like to add three suggestions for (IMHO) improving the series:
>
> 1) It is absolutely vital for readers of the series to have exact information
on
> which readings are judged to be part of the body of readings subjected to
> quantitative analysis. When working, e.g., with Bart Ehrman's *Didymus the
> Blind* it takes a lot of stupid, even confusing work to make your way through
> the aparatus in order to figure out the units of variation judged to be
> genetically significant. I do not claim that this is impossible, but it's
> boaring and prone to error. Just as a service for the reader, why not
> highlightening the units of variation judged to be significant within the
> aparatus itself or adding lists?
>
> 2) Quantitative analysis requires _complete_ collation of all witnesses
included
> in the pool. To perform this task is relatively easy, though not without
> occasional problems, as long as we are solely dealing with MSS. As soon as
> Church Father testimonies are involved we face the problem of insecure
> ascriptions of readings due to loose citation or allusion. In case of
exploiting
> allusions, which no doubt is a tricky business, one would like to know why out
> of a possible range of variant units only one or two are accepted while others
> are rejected. For example, in *Didymus the Blind* (p. 88) out of an allusion
> judged to refer to Mark 4:10 only the variation unit TAS PARABOLAS was
accepted
> while the possible unit ERWTWSIN has been passed with silence. I have no
doubts
> that Bart Ehrman had his reasons for this judgement. However, I simply wished
he
> would have told us, for, in order to arrive at the conclusion presented, a set
> of highly complex individual decisions had to be made. The more difficult
> judgements are involved the more transparency is appreciated.
>
> 3) Somehow related to point 2) is the quest for how to assess what is judged
to
> be a "genetically significant" unit of variation. G.D. Fee (in a review,
> published in CBQ 53 [1991] 320f) made the important point that what might be
> considered genetically significant when dealing with MSS, must not be
> automatically considered genetically significant when Church Father
testimonies
> are involved. Fee suggests that within patristic testimonies (especially
> allusions) addition/omission of particles, articles, exchange of tempora,
> singular/plural, synonymic prepositions/conjunctions are suspect to be
"textual
> trivia" (Fee's expression), displaying no genealogical relationship. Granted
> this point has at least some merit, it seems vital to address this issue
within
> a broader scope, thus giving it a more prominent role in future studies on
> Church Fathers' texts. It may well turn out that the Fathers can not be
treated
> all the same, for some, e.g., may well prefer to adjust their own argument to
> the biblical text over the opposite attitude for which we have plenty of
> evidence. Some may even change their attitude towards the biblical text when
> writing in different genres or addressing different audiences (c.f. Clement of
> Alexandria's Protreptikos vs. Paidagogos + Stromateis). However, this has to
be
> assessed, documented, and applied to the evaluation of the evidence.
>
> To sum up: In my mind, increasing transparency on various levels is
appreciated
> to improve the series. A lot has already been done. Nevertheless, still more
> could be achieved.
>
> Ulrich Schmid (Muenster)
>

Colleagues,
A new article is available in the Journal of Biblical Studies:

VOICI VENIR TON ROI:  L’entrée messianique et le roi pacifique dans la Bible
et dans l’Orient Ancien,
by Lucien-Jean BORD

Just go to the journal home page and follow the 'articles' link.

The Journal is found at

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

Let me again mention that the Journal and its editors are happy to review
articles for publication in the field of Biblical and related studies.


Jim
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology

jwest@...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

behrman@... wrote:
> If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
> for improving the series [tNTitGF], it'd be good to know.

One consideration that I hope will receive due attention in the
forthcoming works will be the question of how accurately the text of
the Pater is transmitted to us in the extant MSS and critical editions,
since so much patristic literature is preserved only in late medieval copies.
This relates to two concerns, which I can illustrate from the work on Cyril
of Jerusalem by Mullen that I just reviewed.

The reliability of the biblical text reconstructed from quotations
varies from verse to verse, even from syllable to syllable, because of
variations in the opportunity or temptation to paraphrase,
variations in the consensus of the Pater's MSS, in how many times a
phrase gets quoted, etc.  The Gospel of John was one of the books where Cyril's
text leaned most heavily in the Byzantine direction, and I wondered whether
that might be related to the fact that the Sermon on the Paralytic,
which supplied many quotations from John, wasn't represented in the oldest
MS of Cyril.  Unfortunately, there was no easy way for me to find out
how good the attestation for the Sermon was, or how much effect that it
had on the statistics for John.

It occurred to me that one way for Ehrman and Fee to compromise on the use
of textual evidence that was likely to be compromised by the quotation
process (substitution of introductory conjunctions, adjustment of tense,
et al) would be to introduce some kind of weighting scheme,
so that in points of variation where the quoted evidence has impaired
credibility it is given a smaller numerical weight, and in points
where explicit reasoning in the commentary or repeated use by the Pater
give more substance to the text, it is given redoubled weight.
Compared to the approach of discarding everything but the gold, you
would have more usable data to draw on, and compared to the use-it-all
approach, you would rely most strongly on the data you judge to be best.
Of course, you would want the critic to attach the weights first to the
abstract causes of credit/discredit, instead of to the points of variation
directly, for the sake of transparency.

My other concern is a kind of circularity that I see all the time.
The editors of the critical editions of Cyril, by policy, discarded variant
readings in the NT quotations that matched a Byzantine text, because
of the overwhelming magnetic pull of the Greek Vulgate thought to operate
in the minds of copyists of the Pater's text.  Mullen made some additional
suggestions of Byzantine variants that he would discard.  Still, when
we approach the bottom line, we find that Cyril of Jerusalem's NT text
contains a very substantial Byzantine element, and Mullen said that
not much conformation by copyists to a Byzantine standard seems to have
actually occurred after all.  Now I wonder whether we need to rethink
the critical edition of Cyril without the assumption that anything Byzantine
is a late/foreign intrusion into the text of the Pater.  I'm reminded of the
old-fashioned analyses of texts that only counted variations from the TR.

Hoping to avoid such problems, I wonder what patristic literature IS
preserved in early MS sources, say pre-ninth-century?  Any specifics?
I can think of Ephrem Syrus and Didymus the blind for whom we have
fifth century MSS.  We have some Apostolic Fathers in early MSS like
Sinaiticus, which are mostly useful for OT quotations, because of
their free attitude toward the NT text.  Chrysostom, hugely popular
as he was, has only fragments that are early, if I recall correctly.
Others?


Vincent Broman         Email: broman@...,broman@...     =   o
2224 33d St.             Phone: +1 619 284 3775                    =  _ /- _
San Diego, CA  92104-5605  Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W     =  (_)> (_)
___ PGP protected mail preferred.  For public key finger broman@... ___

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On Sat, 26 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):

>   With respect to Mark 4:10, all I can do at this stage is try to
>reconstruct my thinking back when I was grinding away at this in the early
>80's.  I don't have all my data right here, but it looks to me like
>Didymus's text clearly does support the plural _parabolas_, even in the
>allusion; but I'm not sure how his present tense _erwtwsin_ *could* be
>used to support either the imperfect or the aorist tense found, e.g., in
>the TR and UBS.  (Recall, I provided an asterisk for allusions that could
>be used for one variant or another, and then indicated *those* variants,
<rather than give full collations at those points ((since what would be the
>point of knowing that other witnesses vary at points for whom the father's
>text is indeterminable?)); in this case, I decided that it could be used
>for one variant in the tradition but not the other).  Ulrich, did I miss
>something here?  (i.e., *is* there a variation among the MSS that I used
>for which Didymus's text could be used to adjudicate by his _erwtwsin_)?

With respect to the HRWTWN unit of variation in Mark 4:10 I was thinking of the
reading EPHRWTWN in D Theta 565 or EPHRWTHSAN in W family 13 (cf. Lk 8:9).

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

TCers --

Just in case anyone missed all the fuss, I need your opinions on
the article on the Church Fathers posted at the web site below.
Should it go or should it stay?

As it stands now, I count eight in favour of keeping it (some of
whom replied off-list), four opposed (though their opposition has been
on the list and very vocal :-), and three who have not expressed a
strong opinion (though two of them supplied useful information --
hmmm). If you have't spoken up, I am going to give you until the
end of Thursday, July 31. (Let's make that 23:59 GMT Thursday, so
there are no disagreements. :-)

Of course, if you want the page to stay, or even if you don't,
additional information, or suggestions for improvement (if I
can manage them), are welcome.

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

                         Robert B. Waltz
                      waltzmn@...

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)

I would not like to see you remove the information.  If there is
information that is inaccurate it can be fixed and I for one
never take single source information as factual until I have verified
it for myself anyway.

Keep up the good work, some of us appreciate it.

Larry


>
> TCers --
>
> Just in case anyone missed all the fuss, I need your opinions on
> the article on the Church Fathers posted at the web site below.
> Should it go or should it stay?
>
> As it stands now, I count eight in favour of keeping it (some of
> whom replied off-list), four opposed (though their opposition has been
> on the list and very vocal :-), and three who have not expressed a
> strong opinion (though two of them supplied useful information --
> hmmm). If you have't spoken up, I am going to give you until the
> end of Thursday, July 31. (Let's make that 23:59 GMT Thursday, so
> there are no disagreements. :-)
>
> Of course, if you want the page to stay, or even if you don't,
> additional information, or suggestions for improvement (if I
> can manage them), are welcome.
>
> -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>                         Robert B. Waltz
>                      waltzmn@...
>
> 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)
>
>

> I would not like to see you remove the information.  If there is
> information that is inaccurate it can be fixed and I for one
> never take single source information as factual until I have verified
> it for myself anyway.
>

What he said.
Dave Washburn
dwashbur@...
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html

On Sat, 26 Jul 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <mejohnsn@...> wrote, in part:
>
> [ ... ]
>
> >> > (3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
> >> >sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
> >> >though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
> >> >in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
> >> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
> >> >Petersen).  Two issues:

I am glad Ehrman mentioned this source, but I have not found it listed
in either GRACE at GTU or MELVYL at University of California.  So either
it is in the periodicals database (in which case I did not err by much
in calling it a "journal") or even these libraries do not yet have a
copy.  If the latter, I hope people will put pressure on the publisher
to market the book more seriously.

> >The next omission I notice is that you seem to discuss the various Fathers
> >works only from the standpoint of _New_ Testament criticism, even when his
> >works are potentially useful for Old Testament (Old Latin & Vulgate)
> >criticism, such as Cassiodorus, who wrote a very complete commentary on
> >the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC.
>
> Again I plead lack of knowledge and information.


Quasten has much of this sort of information.  You will find yourself
pleasantly surprised at how much you can learn by spending even only a few
hours reading it.

>
> I'd also ask a question. This is not an argument, I'm simply curious:
> What is the significance of Cassiodorus's commentary on Psalms for
> NT criticism? (Apart, of course, from any NT passages it cites.) Not
> having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.
>
My reasoning was something like this:
    1) This list is concerned with OT as well as NT criticism, so why
    restrict yourself to NT?

    2) The psalms are themselves heavily quoted in the NT, so any
    imrovement in the knowledge of the history of the text of the
    psalms has the potential to lead to an improvement in the
    knowledge of the history of the text of their citations in the
    NT.

    3) The commentary (aside from the history of its own text) tells
    us much about how people of Cassiodorus's own time and earlier
    thought about the psalms.  This in turn influences what sort
    of modifications they made to the text, whether by accident or
    in a recension.  Besides, you will find his method of explaining
    away the Old Latin translation gaffes quite amusing (e.g. "omnis
    homo mendax" which should really be "omnis homo fallax").

> >Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
> >commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
> >of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
> >Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
> >frequent reference to him as well.
>
> Er -- that turns out not to be the case. If you look on pp. 74*-76* in
> the NA27 introduction, you'll see an (allegedly) complete list of fathers
> cited. (I say "allegedly" because it contains a couple of minor errors --
> e.g. it does not list the Pseudo Dionysus, who is quoted, I think, twice).
> Theophylact does not appear in the list.

My copy of NA26 (yes, it is 26 not 27) is 40 miles away as I write this,
so I cannot double check where I saw this but it was either NA26 or UBS
where I saw him referenced on Heb 2:7 "KhWRIS TOU THEOU" instead of
"KhARITI TOU THEOU", which Theophylact, like Oeconomicus, assumed was a
Nestorian tendentious alteration.

>
> The list of fathers for whom I provided entries was chosen according to
> a very simple principle: If the author is cited in NA27 or Merk, I
> included him. Otherwise, no. I know there are some important sources
> omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.

The omission of Ignatius seems particularly serious, more so than that of
Cassiodorus or Theophylact, since he is such an important witness to the
(possibly pre-recensional readings of the) Western text-type.

> And I decided that the lists in UBS4 and (even more so) Souter were
> too much work. If enough people want me to add the fathers cited in
> UBS4, I guess I'll try -- but the results won't be as good. (I refuse
> even to consider trying to add everyone in Souter. Some of those I
> can't even figure out the official English name for. :-)
>
> Incidentally -- it turns out that Merk's list of Fathers cited
> is very inaccurate. I haven't finished going through the gospels
> yet, but I've already found three (I think it was) authors he
> cites who do not appear in his list, and several more whom he
> cites under the wrong abbreviation. So that's one more thing to
> be added to the article.... :-)

This sounds more tedious than using the list in UBS4!

Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

PS: Quasten also lists bibliographical references for critical editions of
the Fathers.  Of course, by now his list is rather incomplete, but it
would at least give you a start on including some info in your own page
about which Fathers have critical editions available.  For more up-to-date
info you could try "HELLENIKE^ PATROLOGIA" by Christou Panagiotis (1974).
If you can read NT Greek, Christou's Katharevousa shouldn't be too hard!

In my previous reply, the reference to Theophylact should be on
verse 2:9 in Hebrews, not 2:7.

M.J.

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <mejohnsn@...> wrote, in part:

[ ...many things on which I have no comment omitted... ]

>> I'd also ask a question. This is not an argument, I'm simply curious:
>> What is the significance of Cassiodorus's commentary on Psalms for
>> NT criticism? (Apart, of course, from any NT passages it cites.) Not
>> having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.
>>
>My reasoning was something like this:
>   1) This list is concerned with OT as well as NT criticism, so why
>   restrict yourself to NT?

The Encyclopedia is devoted to NT textual criticism. I'm imitating
the Encyclopedia. If you want it broadened, talk to Rich Elliot. :-)

Seriously, I have not devoted any space to OT topics elsewhere at the
site, for the good and simple reason that I don't know enough. (I
freely confess I have no Hebrew.)

[ ... ]

>> >Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
>> >commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
>> >of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
>> >Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
>> >frequent reference to him as well.
>>
>> Er -- that turns out not to be the case. If you look on pp. 74*-76* in
>> the NA27 introduction, you'll see an (allegedly) complete list of fathers
>> cited. (I say "allegedly" because it contains a couple of minor errors --
>> e.g. it does not list the Pseudo Dionysus, who is quoted, I think, twice).
>> Theophylact does not appear in the list.
>
>My copy of NA26 (yes, it is 26 not 27) is 40 miles away as I write this,
>so I cannot double check where I saw this but it was either NA26 or UBS
>where I saw him referenced on Heb 2:7 "KhWRIS TOU THEOU" instead of
>"KhARITI TOU THEOU", which Theophylact, like Oeconomicus, assumed was a
>Nestorian tendentious alteration.

This was, of course, corrected to Hebrews 2:9 in another post.

And based on the data in UBS4, the above is presumably correct.
But it's not in NA26 or NA27. For CWRIS QEOU (no TOU) NA26 and
NA27 give the evidence 0243 (listed as 0121b in NA26) 1739*
vg-ms Or-mss Ambr Hier-mss Fulg. I doubt that anyone would claim
that this is a complete list of witnesses (e.g. 424** also supports
the reading) -- but it's what NA says.

I went back and checked the list of fathers in the NA26 iontroduction
also. No Theophylact. Remember that I also recently tallied every
citation in NA27. If Theophylact is cited, I missed it.

Is it possible that this goes back to NA25?

>>
>> The list of fathers for whom I provided entries was chosen according to
>> a very simple principle: If the author is cited in NA27 or Merk, I
>> included him. Otherwise, no. I know there are some important sources
>> omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.
>
>The omission of Ignatius seems particularly serious, more so than that of
>Cassiodorus or Theophylact, since he is such an important witness to the
>(possibly pre-recensional readings of the) Western text-type.

Why do you think I mentioned him? :-)

But remember, this is an encyclopedia, not a patrology. The idea is
to help people using NA27 or Merk. As it turns out, Ignatius is not
cited in NA27, Merk, or UBS4. So any articles on him belong in a
different reference.

>> And I decided that the lists in UBS4 and (even more so) Souter were
>> too much work. If enough people want me to add the fathers cited in
>> UBS4, I guess I'll try -- but the results won't be as good. (I refuse
>> even to consider trying to add everyone in Souter. Some of those I
>> can't even figure out the official English name for. :-)
>>
>> Incidentally -- it turns out that Merk's list of Fathers cited
>> is very inaccurate. I haven't finished going through the gospels
>> yet, but I've already found three (I think it was) authors he
>> cites who do not appear in his list, and several more whom he
>> cites under the wrong abbreviation. So that's one more thing to
>> be added to the article.... :-)
>
>This sounds more tedious than using the list in UBS4!

It is. :-)

On the other hand, although Merk is incredibly inaccurate (remember that
the apparatus is basically taken from von Soden, with mistakes of its
own added), it offers many things not found in any other pocket edition.
To begin with, it has a *full* critical apparatus. The number of variants
is much higher than in NA27. Also, it includes the (Clementine) Vulgate
with a significant critical apparatus (much fuller than the two-manuscript
version in the bilingual Nestle).

Now the simple truth is that Merk's apparatus can never be relied on;
there are some manuscripts (e.g. 330) where it almost seems it would be
more accurate to cite the inverse of his readings (yes, it's that bad),
and others (e.g. 1739) which aren't that bad but which have errors on
almost every page. But as a catalog of readings, there is nothing
currently available to replace it. Hence my decision to make it one
of the foundations for my article. But also my decision to try to
show how reliable it is.

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@...

The original message was received at Thu, 31 Jul 1997 00:23:22 -0400
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From: "Roderic L. Mullen" <rlmullen@...>
Subject: Broman's reveiw of my book

In the 1997 issue of TC, Vincent Broman reviewed my NEW TESTAMENT TEXT OF
CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.  While I thank Dr. Broman for his remarks, many of which
are helpful, I'm afraid his choice of wording misrepresented my position and
conclusions at several points.  Here is a reply point by point.

In 1., Broman writes "[Cyril's text is related to the Koridethi Gospels [ms
Theta] and the miniscules 13, 28, and 565, as are also the last seventeen
chapters of Matthew."

This is misleading:  what I argue is that in MARK, Cyril is related in
different ways to two groups of mss-- Koridethi, 565, and 700 on the one
hand and W, fam13, and 28 on the other hand.  Neither of these two small
groups stand up so far as I can tell in Matthew, where Cyril does seem to
have some affinity with Koridethi and fam13 in Matthew 12-28.

Under "the Data" in 3., Broman writes "The points of variation discarded
seem to have been sigular and sub-singular variants, but Mullen fails to
document just which points were used and which discarded..."  A valid point,
perhaps in future presentations of patristic witnesses we should give a
serial number to each point of variation and refer to the accordingly in the
analyses.

Under "the Analysis" in 4, Borman writes "Mullen is not able to draw much
meaningful information out of Colwell's statistics that is not more clearly
observable in Ehrman's statistics.  His description of the two methods as
being complementary is overly gracious to the older method..."

Here I must present an APOLOGIA PRO COLWELL, for I really do believe that
use of his method is an essential first step for a clear understanding of
manuscript relationships and for the understanding of patristic witnesses.
The difficulty in leaping to the use of a profile method without applying
Colwell first is that most of the profiles rely upon pre-defined groups of
mss, and so far as I know the best way to make a preliminary judgment about
ms relationships is by Colwell's method (See, for example, Tables 1 & 1A on
pp.41-42 of my book.  These tables are in line with analyses of ms
relationships in Mark carried out by the likes of Ayuso, Hurtado, etc.,
esentially showing that there is no broadly unified group of mss that can be
called "Caesarean" in Mark (nor outside of Mark for that matter.)  Were we
to use the manuscripts that B.H. Streeter designated as "Caesarean" without
further analysis, we would be gravely misled regarding the character of ms
(and consequently patristic) witnesses in Mark.  (Examples could be
multiplied on this point.

Under "Analysis" in 5, Broman writes "His model of a binomial probability
density for agreement counts is raesonable, but the numerical calculation on
page 305 is incomprehensibly wrong."

MEA CULPA!  So far as I know I'm the first text critic to delve into the
statistical basis for our work, and despite the generous help of James
Murphy and Ken Hardy, I dont claim to be an expert in statistical method.
[Just so the casual raeder will understand, the discussion of binomial
probability density relates to Colwell's method.]  Of course, Broman is
right about the calculation. After consulting with Ken Hardy again, I think
the confusion in footnote 12 on page 305 stems from my interpreting an
ESTIMATED range of confidence related to the sample NUMBER [15 out of 20 in
my example, for which the formula should be sqrt(N*P*Q)*Z] in terms of an
exact sample PERCENTAGE (i.e. 75%).  Thus in the footnote, my "plus/minus
3.88 percentage points" should be "plus/minus 3.18 points of variation."
(obviously though, we can't count points of variation in anything other than
integers, so it would be safer to say "plus/minus 4 points of variation."
The same thing worked out for percentages [using the formula sqrt (p*q/n)*z]
should read "plus/minus 15.88 percentage points."  Hope it's right this time.

Further on in "Analysis", 5, Broman writes "his concern about normal
approximations to the binomial distribution is not to the point."  O.K., I'm
relying on my knowledge of calculus from 1979-80, but as I understand it,
the approximation to the normal distribution curve is the theory that lies
behind the analysis in the first place.

In 7 under "analysis", Broman writes, "It might be argued that differences
in percentages of agreement with different control witnesses are not really
differences of independent binomial samples, but Mullen does not raise this
issue..."

True, that might be argued after the quantitative analysis is done, but at
the beginning of a quantitative analysis the relationships are (in theory)
unknown, therefore assumption is made that the witnesses are independent.
The various profile methods that I have seen begin with the assumption of at
least some group relationships.  The danger of assuming this can be seen in
the Profile Method developed by Wisse and McReynolds where (in attempting to
dtermine the sub groups of Byzantine mss) ms D is grouped with ms B, etc.
Again the problem is that most profile methods begin with assumed groups-- a
problem that is especially acute with the falsely so-called "Caesarean"
witnesses and one which I tried to address in my chapter 3.

Also in 7 under analysis, Broman writes, "Also symptomatic of his confusion
about how much accuracy the figures support is the fact that percentages are
always cited with a decimal point--- even though most sample sizes are less
that 100..."

I had to go back to my freshman chemistry lab manual to reply to this one.
Broman is referring to the question of significant digits, and I'm sure he's
more up to date on this than I am.  Since we're dealing with integers in a
count it may be best as he suggests to stick with integers in the resultant
percentages.  All I can plead on this point is that since the 1960's text
critics have often allowed themselves one digit beyond the decimal point.
(Colwell & Tune in 1963 worked strictly with integers, but by 1968 Fee-- in
his "Codex Sinaiticus" was making calculations to one digit beyond the
decimal point.  In 1974 though, Fee went back to using strictly integers in
his "P75, P66, and Origen."  I suspect that we later text-critics have
become a bit over- confident.  We could use some clarity here.

QUOD SCRIPSI, SCRIPSI. (Jn.19:22)  In section 8 under analysis, Broman seems
more convinced of my results, but, unfortunately, his choice of wording here
might severely mislead the uninitiated as to my position.  In detail my
reply is as follows:

Broman says "Cyril is shown to join Eusebius and Origen in citing a text of
Mark that relates to the Caesaraean manuscripts."  Yes, Cyril joins Origen
and Eusebius in some particulars, but I deliberately avoid using phrases
like "Caesarean manuscripts," because, as indicated above, I'm not convinced
that there is any such broad group in Mark (or elsewhere).  What I think is
clear is that Origen and Eusebius (and to a lesser degree Cyril) attest a
text similar to Koridethi, 565, and 700 in MARK.  Following Ayuso and
Hurtado, I think that other so-called Caesarean mss in fact have little if
anything to do with Caesarea.

Further on in the same section, Broman says "In some other books Cyril
provides one of the earliest witnesses to a Byzantine form of text."
Reference is here made to John, and I cannot completely explain the
phenomenon there.  If there was later Byzantinization of mss of Cyril going
on, why was it not so heavily carried out for readings from other gospels?
Especially since Cyril's quotations from JN are laregely interspersed with
the rest.  One important observation is that at the points from JN qupted in
Cyril, the Byz text has very few distinctive readings; more often Byz
witnesses share their readings in common with Alexandrian or other
witnesses.  As Broman has pointed out in a more recent contribution to this
list, further analysis of this phenomenon is needed.

Still further on in the same section, Broman writes "Mullen's assumption
that there was a single Palestinian text of the NT, the evolution of which
can be traced through time from Origen through Eusebius, and Cyril to
Epiphanius, seems tenuous..."  I NEITHER ASSUME NOR CONCLUDE SUCH!  In fact,
much of my chapter 3 is devoted to showing what I say on p.58, namely that
"From a survey of New Testament text-types and of patristic authors related
to Palestine there is scant evidence for a distinct and independent
text-type centered in the region.  Indeed, only in Mark does there appear to
be a distinctive group, group theta, related to Palestine.  Outside Mark,
Patristic writers of Palestine seem to have used manuscripts with a variety
of text-types."  Permit me to provide exegesis of my remarks:  "From a
survey OF New Testament text-types AND OF patristic authors..." should be
read disjunctively.  Had I wanted to associate any text-types with Palestine
I would have written "From a survey OF New Testament text-types AND
patristic authors..."  Perhaps I should have italicized the word SCANT.
Also, as I have noted above, my concept of "Group Theta is very limited
(only three mss:  koridethi, 565, and 700).  Plaese note as well, I do not
recall that I ever wrote of a PALESTINIAN TEXT.  I did write of Patristic
authors of Palestine, and perhaps even of the "Text of the New Testament in
Palestine", but this is a far cry from writing about a "Palestinian text."
Perhaps I should have entitled my chapter 3 "Refutation of the Caesarean
text falsely so-called."  I had hoped to put the last nail in the coffin of
"the Caesarean text-type" under any name, but like some hoary old Dracula,
the concept seems to keep rearing its head.

Again please note that on pp.327-28 and 339-340 I studiously avoid mention
of either the word "Caesarean" or the phrase "Palestinian text" in my
conclusions.  If I don't think such a thing exists, obviously I don't think
it can be traced.  What I do think is that the various authors mentioned
(Origen, Eusebius, Cyril, and Epiphanius) allow us windows into the textual
situation through which we can glimpse the evolution of texts (or textual
usage) in Palestine over time.  If that seems to be a dangerous proposition
based on only four patristic witnesses, I'm sorry to say they are about all
we've got for that region.

Under "Improving Methods," section 9, Broman has several helpful comments.
He writes "Imagine that behind each text-type lies a single ideal or
archetypical text, which is only imperfectly represented in the extant
witnesses belonging to the type...  We might model our uncertain knowledge
of that ideal text by means of a probability distribution, related to the
voting consensus of the manuscripts.  Based on that distribution, the
statistically expected level of agreement between the testee and the ideal
text can be computed."  Broman's suggestion here sounds very much like the
type of analysis developed by Bart Ehrman in Profile Four of his DIDYMUS THE
BLIND AND THE TEXT OF THE GOSPELS (see pp.243ff. of that work) and used by
me in studying Cyril's quotations in relation to the Alexandrian witnesses
for Acts (pp.341ff. of my book).  Now that we have the beginnings of an idea
of how to calculate the percentages of variation for quantitative analysis,
I would be very interested to see whether Broman can develop something
similar for profile methods.  I see two dangers to be avoided though.
First, the suitability of certain witnesses in a group could only be
determined when the profile is complete, hence I see the need for the
continued use of quantitative analysis.  Second, if we allow the voting
consensus of the mss to determine the reading of the text-type at a given
point of variation, how can we avoid falling into the trap of the majority
text (only here at the level of the "text-type" rather than at the level of
the always elusive "original text.")  Would this not simply move majority
rule back one level?

Comments always welcome --Rod Mullen

On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, "Roderic L. Mullen" <rlmullen@...> wrote:

>In the 1997 issue of TC, Vincent Broman reviewed my NEW TESTAMENT TEXT OF
>CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.  While I thank Dr. Broman for his remarks, many of which
>are helpful, I'm afraid his choice of wording misrepresented my position and
>conclusions at several points.  Here is a reply point by point.

I'm not going to review either the review or the book, but where
mathematical issues come up, I can't avoid adding my two cents. :-)

I'll omit anything that does not pertain to mathematics. And, BTW, this
is directed as much to the list as to Mullen, since it has to do with
our current methods of analysis.

[ ... ]

>Under "the Analysis" in 4, Borman writes "Mullen is not able to draw much
>meaningful information out of Colwell's statistics that is not more clearly
>observable in Ehrman's statistics.  His description of the two methods as
>being complementary is overly gracious to the older method..."
>
>Here I must present an APOLOGIA PRO COLWELL, for I really do believe that
>use of his method is an essential first step for a clear understanding of
>manuscript relationships and for the understanding of patristic witnesses.
>The difficulty in leaping to the use of a profile method without applying
>Colwell first is that most of the profiles rely upon pre-defined groups of
>mss,

It is absolutely true that systems of comparison rely on our current
knowledge of manuscripts and text-types (a defect which is potentially
fatal if, as seems entirely reasonable, there are undiscovered
text-types). However, the "Quantitative Method" is not the answer.
It is too dependent on the manuscripts sampled, and in any case
its use of fixed percentages is ludicrous. Larry Richards has
shown that Colwell's "gap" will not exist in large samples, and
I have data that shows that the introduction or removal of *a single
manuscript* from the sample set can change the relationships between
other manuscripts by 8-10% -- often causing them to cross the 70%
threshold. I'm still fathering data on this, but you can see some
evidence in the text-types article on my web site. If you want more
data, try the Munster Papyrus volumes. Try examining Colossians.
Compare B and Aleph, and use all uncials as your comparison base.
Then remove F from the comparison base. You may be surprised.

[ ... ]

>Under "Analysis" in 5, Broman writes "His model of a binomial probability
>density for agreement counts is raesonable, but the numerical calculation on
>page 305 is incomprehensibly wrong."
>
>MEA CULPA!  So far as I know I'm the first text critic to delve into the
>statistical basis for our work, and despite the generous help of James
>Murphy and Ken Hardy, I dont claim to be an expert in statistical method.

This could be interpreted as meaning that textual critics never use
statistics (clearly false), but I assume it to mean that textual
critics have not studied the statistical nature of variants. Which
seems generally to be true. Oh, I've been working on it for years --
but I haven't come to any good conclusions, so I wouldn't have
published even if I had a vehicle. :-)

>[Just so the casual raeder will understand, the discussion of binomial
>probability density relates to Colwell's method.]

[ ... ]

>Further on in "Analysis", 5, Broman writes "his concern about normal
>approximations to the binomial distribution is not to the point."  O.K., I'm
>relying on my knowledge of calculus from 1979-80, but as I understand it,
>the approximation to the normal distribution curve is the theory that lies
>behind the analysis in the first place.

It should be noted that this is a *guess* at the nature of variants.
We have no hard data. And I believe this analysis leans too much on
the Central Limits Theorem (to invoke jargon just this once). The
Theorem, of course, states that once you reach a decent sample size
(my textbooks give this as 30 samples), the deviation can be treated
as a normal distribution. But it tells you *nothing* about the original
distribution.

If that doesn't mean anything to most of you (and I expect it doesn't :-),
suffice it to say that -- unless somebody knows something I don't know --
we cannot assume anything in particular when using small sets of variants.

>In 7 under "analysis", Broman writes, "It might be argued that differences
>in percentages of agreement with different control witnesses are not really
>differences of independent binomial samples, but Mullen does not raise this
>issue..."
>
>True, that might be argued after the quantitative analysis is done, but at
>the beginning of a quantitative analysis the relationships are (in theory)
>unknown, therefore assumption is made that the witnesses are independent.

Finally I get to act like my Abstract Algebra teacher and ask the
eternal question:

Why?

A mathematical analysis cannot make assumptions until it is prepared to
test them.

>The various profile methods that I have seen begin with the assumption of at
>least some group relationships.  The danger of assuming this can be seen in
>the Profile Method developed by Wisse and McReynolds where (in attempting to
>dtermine the sub groups of Byzantine mss) ms D is grouped with ms B, etc.
>Again the problem is that most profile methods begin with assumed groups-- a
>problem that is especially acute with the falsely so-called "Caesarean"
>witnesses and one which I tried to address in my chapter 3.

With that I agree. My solution (with which Ehrman disagrees, of course)
is to use *mechanically-created* classified profiles. (I fear that my
difference with Ehrman here is irreconcilable; I cannot consider
scientific any method that requires more than the absolute minimum of
human intervention.)

>Also in 7 under analysis, Broman writes, "Also symptomatic of his confusion
>about how much accuracy the figures support is the fact that percentages are
>always cited with a decimal point--- even though most sample sizes are less
>that 100..."
>
>I had to go back to my freshman chemistry lab manual to reply to this one.
>Broman is referring to the question of significant digits, and I'm sure he's
>more up to date on this than I am.  Since we're dealing with integers in a
>count it may be best as he suggests to stick with integers in the resultant
>percentages.  All I can plead on this point is that since the 1960's text
>critics have often allowed themselves one digit beyond the decimal point.
>(Colwell & Tune in 1963 worked strictly with integers, but by 1968 Fee-- in
>his "Codex Sinaiticus" was making calculations to one digit beyond the
>decimal point.  In 1974 though, Fee went back to using strictly integers in
>his "P75, P66, and Origen."  I suspect that we later text-critics have
>become a bit over- confident.  We could use some clarity here.

There's nothing to be "up to date" about. This is very old. You only
get as many significant digits as your data allow. Roughly speaking,
you get one digit each time you multiply the sample size by ten.
So if you have ten readings, your results get *one* significant digit
(0%, 10%, 20%, 30%,... 90%, 100%). Move up to 100 readings and you
get two digits. You have to get to *a thousand readings* to get that
first decimal digit.

That this is known to textual critics is shown by Wisse's remark in footnote
17 (p. 23) of his book on the Claremont Profile Method:

   For the Newberry Gospels, [Goodspeed] gives 42.758962% as the Syrian
   element in Mark. The six decimals tell us, of course, more about
   Goodspeed than about the MS.

I'd almost like to see that remark framed. :-)

I suppose this is one of the things that the mathematically trained
among us should make more of an issue of. But for me, for instance,
I've been dealing with the for half a lifetime. It doesn't occur
to me until I see the rules violated. :-)

[ ... ]

>Under "Improving Methods," section 9, Broman has several helpful comments.
>He writes "Imagine that behind each text-type lies a single ideal or
>archetypical text, which is only imperfectly represented in the extant
>witnesses belonging to the type...  We might model our uncertain knowledge
>of that ideal text by means of a probability distribution, related to the
>voting consensus of the manuscripts.  Based on that distribution, the
>statistically expected level of agreement between the testee and the ideal
>text can be computed."  Broman's suggestion here sounds very much like the
>type of analysis developed by Bart Ehrman in Profile Four of his DIDYMUS THE
>BLIND AND THE TEXT OF THE GOSPELS (see pp.243ff. of that work) and used by
>me in studying Cyril's quotations in relation to the Alexandrian witnesses
>for Acts (pp.341ff. of my book).  Now that we have the beginnings of an idea
>of how to calculate the percentages of variation for quantitative analysis,
>I would be very interested to see whether Broman can develop something
>similar for profile methods.  I see two dangers to be avoided though.
>First, the suitability of certain witnesses in a group could only be
>determined when the profile is complete, hence I see the need for the
>continued use of quantitative analysis.  Second, if we allow the voting
>consensus of the mss to determine the reading of the text-type at a given
>point of variation, how can we avoid falling into the trap of the majority
>text (only here at the level of the "text-type" rather than at the level of
>the always elusive "original text.")  Would this not simply move majority
>rule back one level?

The danger you outline is real, but it's a matter of careful algorithm
preparation. I'll give an example of the right way to do things, based
on a program I once used to prepare a text of family 1739. I was working
with five witnesses for the most part: 1739, 1881, 6, 424**, 630.
(In decending order of quality.) The algorithm went something like this:

If 1739 is non-Byzantine and not singular, then the reading of family
   1739 = 1739.
If 1739 is Byzantine, and all other mss. of the group are Byzantine, then
   the reading of family 1739=Byz.
If 1739 is Byzantine and 1881 is not Byzantine, then if 1881 has support
   from any of the other mss or B, then the reading of family 1739=1881.
If 1739 is Byzantine and 424** is not Byzantine, then if 424** has support
   from any of the other mss or B, then the reading of family 1739=424**.
If 1739, 1881, 424, and (6 or 630) are Byzantine, then the reading of
   family 1739=Byzantine.

Admittedly this leaves a few special cases: 1881 non-Byzantine with no
support, 424** Byzantine with no support, 6 and 630 both non-Byzantine.
As I recall, this rule gave two instance in about 400 readings where it
was not sure of the reading of family 1739 (and one of those proved to
be a case where the Byzantine text was divided; I needed to add a rule
for that).

So one *can* determine a text-type or family text mechanically without
resort to majority rule. It simply requires that one know the nature
of the mixture in the family members.

I realize this is only tangentially related to the topic of the remark --
but, hey, we all spout off once in a while. :-)

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

                         Robert B. Waltz
                      waltzmn@...

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)

B. Metzger, in EVNT p. 50 and 60, mentions the Peshitto ms named codex
Phillips 1388 kept in Berlin. I would like to obtain copies of this ms
for the purpose of comparing it with another ms which I am exploring for
the moment.

Does anybody know which library it is and what is its address?

Thank you,

Jean Valentin - Brussels

I would appreciate it if anyone could direct me to a review of J.
Weingreen's "Introduction to the Critical Study of the Text of the Hebrew
Bible".

Thanks

(I ask because his "horizontal model" is very intriguing).


Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology

jwest@...