I need to locate two or three books or Journal articles that discuss the
early church fathers' use and citation of biblical texts.  If you have
found any to be particularly useful for the non-specialists, but informed
reader, I would appreciate information on them.


--
Prof. Ron Minton: rminton@...   W (417)268-6053  H 833-9581
Baptist Bible Graduate School 628 E. Kearney St. Springfield, MO 65803

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

Adair mentioned:
> http://slate.blue.dmu.ac.uk/projects/Collate ... for more information.

Thanks kindly for the URL.  Unfortunately, the blurbs there are rather
uninformative about what the program's capabilities are (or else they are
informative but it is not very capable).

One is left entirely in the dark about what the inputs to the program
are, aside from scholarly keystrokes.  Input of Texts? Collations? how many
at a time? in what formats? the same formats as supported for output?
In what alphabets and with what lexical analysis rules? With markup or
only bare text?

Does the program filter or edit collations? separate or merge points of
variation? output subset collations? support a turing-complete scripting
language? run in batch mode? perform regularizations by rule?
classify variants as significant/insignificant?  organize variants with
sub-variants, sub-sub-variants?  etc.

Vincent Broman                                       San Diego, California, USA
Email: broman at sd.znet.com (home)       or spawar.navy.mil or nosc.mil (work)
Phone: +1 619 284 3775                       Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W
=== PGP protected mail preferred.   For public key finger me at np.nosc.mil ===

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Jim West asked the TC-List:

>Does anyone know if the Samaritan pentateuch is in print and available?

The Samaritan Pentateuch is also available as a text module in Accordance
for the Mac from the GRAMCORD Institute (www.GRAMCORD.org), if you want
to work with it in computer form.

XAIREIN...



***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages        Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street                               Portland, OR  97220
Voice: 503-251-6416    FAX:503-254-1268     E-Mail: dalemw@...
***********************************************************************

On method in using patristic evidence for TC, see esp. G. D. Fee,
"The Use of Greek Patristic Citations in NT Textual Criticism," in
E. J. Epp, G. D. Fee, _Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual
Criticism_ Eerdmans, 1993.

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  L.Hurtado@...

Von Gall is the only critical edition with apparatus of SP and it is good
that it remains in print.  However. A. Tal, a recognized expert in the
filed of SP, says ". . . The extant edition [von Gall] does not fulfill the
requirements of modern philology.  Not only is the text he created an
eclectic composition, but von Gall even altered the character of Samaritan
Hebrew by giving priority to what he called 'the rules of Hebrew Grammar."
An alternative, or at least a supplement to von Gall is Tal's _The
Samaritan Pentateuch edited according to MS 6(C) of the Shekhem Synagogue_
(Tel-Aviv University, 1994).  Tal also published a critical edition of the
Samaritan Targum in three volumes (Tel-Aviv, 1980-83).

Harold P. Scanlin
United Bible Societies
1865 Broadway
New York, NY  10023
scanlin@...

Vincent Broman said:

>Thanks kindly for the URL.  Unfortunately, the blurbs there are rather
>uninformative about what the program's capabilities are (or else they are
>informative but it is not very capable).
>

>One is left entirely in the dark about what the inputs to the program
>are, aside from scholarly keystrokes.  Input of Texts? Collations? how
>many at a time? in what formats? the same formats as supported for output?
>In what alphabets and with what lexical analysis rules? With markup or
>only bare text?

>Does the program filter or edit collations? separate or merge points of
>variation? output subset collations? support a turing-complete scripting
>language? run in batch mode? perform regularizations by rule?
>classify variants as significant/insignificant?  organize variants with
>sub-variants, sub-sub-variants?  etc.

Here's a more informative URL:
http://slate.blue.dmu.ac.uk/projects/Collate.  From this page you can get
quite a bit more information about the program.  Peter Robinson is the
head of the Textual Criticism work group of the Text Encoding Initiative,
and his text of the Canterbury Tales, for which he wrote Collate, is
tagged in TEI.  For the really gory details, you might want to look at his
book _The Transcription of Primary Textual Sources Using SGML_, Office for
Humanities Communication Publications, no. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University
Computing Services, 1994).

I've just run across a Perl script called tdiff that does some simple
collations, too, that some might be interested in.  For more information,
see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/etg10/tdiff.html.

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

Ron,

Bruce Metzger has written two articles on Patristic Evidence and TC.

Bruce Metzger.  "Patristic Evidence and the Textual Criticism of the New
Testament."  _New Testament Studeis_  18, pp. 379-400.

Bruce Metzger.  "Explicit References in the Works of Origen to Variant
Readings in New Testament Manuscripts," in _Historical and Literary
Studies:  Pagan, Jewish and Christian_.  New Testament Tools and Studies,
Vol. VIII, ed. B.M. Metzger.  Leiden:  E.J. Brill, 1968.

The second article deals with variant readings that Origen mentions in
his writings that no longer exist.

John Russell
ThM Student
Baptist Bible College, PA

At 20:32 02/12/97 -0600, you wrote:
>I need to locate two or three books or Journal articles that discuss the
>early church fathers' use and citation of biblical texts.  If you have
>found any to be particularly useful for the non-specialists, but informed
>reader, I would appreciate information on them.

A very good study is the Oxford study "The NT in the Apostolic Fathers."
It is out of print, but I got hold of a copy via inter-library loan from
Princeton Theological Seminary library.  It is done by a committee, none of
whom are named in the book.

From: Ronald L. Minton <rminton@...>

I need to locate two or three books or Journal articles that discuss the
early church fathers' use and citation of biblical texts.  If you have
found any to be particularly useful for the non-specialists, but informed
reader, I would appreciate information on them.

STEVE CR
I'm definitely a non-specialist, but I found these books to be good:

Bellinzoni, A.J.  The sayings of Jesus in Justin Martyr Leiden 1967
Hagner, Donald A. The Use of Old and New Testament in Clement of Rome
Leiden 1973
Donfried, Karl Paul The Setting of Second Clement in early Christianity
1974


Steve Carson-Rowland
Brisbane, Australia

Can anyone recommend a decent work on Irenaeus' use of the NT - both his
view of canonical scripture and the text types he quotes.

Thanks
Steve Carson-Rowland
Brisbane, Australia

At 20:32 02/12/97 -0600, you wrote:
>I need to locate two or three books or Journal articles that discuss the
>early church fathers' use and citation of biblical texts.  If you have
>found any to be particularly useful for the non-specialists, but informed
>reader, I would appreciate information on them.

A good introduction is:
Simonetti,Manlio: Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: an
Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis ( T. & T. Clarke, Edinburg 1994
ISBN 0 567 09557 6 (HB_
                     29249 5 (PB)

Regards,

Maurice


Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros@...

[using Eudora Pro 3   and Trumpet Winsock 3.0d ]

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

> Here's a more informative URL:

Thanks, but I had already found my way to that.
The published stuff you mentioned might be worth my hunting up.

The tdiff description looks interestingly similar to wdiff, which is another
wrapper on diff.  Of course, the hard part which it (and wdiff and diff)
doesn't do is collate a third text against the first two.

Since I don't run any Microsoft or Apple operating systems, I am starting to
think again of embedding the guts of diff into Python and making a general
collating tool with scripting capability.  Someone send me a round tuit.


Vincent Broman                                       San Diego, California, USA
Email: broman at sd.znet.com (home)       or spawar.navy.mil or nosc.mil (work)
Phone: +1 619 284 3775                       Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W
=== PGP protected mail preferred.   For public key finger me at np.nosc.mil ===

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A thank you for all the info on the church fathers.  It was great help.

--
Prof. Ron Minton: rminton@...   W (417)268-6053  H 833-9581
Baptist Bible Graduate School 628 E. Kearney St. Springfield, MO 65803

In a one-page article ["Codex 565 of the Gospels," Theologische Zeitschrift
25 (1969): 130], the late George D. Kilpatrick alludes to "a recent
collation of Cod. 565 by J. A. Spranger".  Since Kilpatrick does not add a
bibliographical footnote to this allusion I wonder whether such a collation
has ever been published.  J.K. Elliott mentions Kilpatrick's article in his
_Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts_ (Cambridge UP, 1989) 144,
but does not mention Spranger's collation.  I have found no mention of it in
bibliographical publications such as Biblical Studies [CD-Rom], NTA,
Elenchus, Bibliographie biblique, Annee philologique (a few years prior to
1969) nor in the bibliographies of several works of NT Textual Criticism.

Has anyone on this list ever seen or heard of Spranger's collation of MS 565?

Jean-Francois Racine
Lecturer
Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi



______________________________________________________________

   Jean-Francois Racine    |      Tel: (418) 626-4583
   265, 65e rue Ouest      |      FAX: (418) 626-8271
   Charlesbourg, QC        |      internet: jracine@...
   G1H 4Y5                 |
   CANADA                  |

> Date:          Wed, 3 Dec 1997 11:22:35 -0500
> From:          "Harold P. Scanlin" <scanlin@...>
> Subject:       tc-list RE: Sam Pent
> To:            TC-List <tc-list@...>
> Reply-to:      tc-list@...

> Von Gall is the only critical edition with apparatus of SP and it is good
> that it remains in print.  However. A. Tal, a recognized expert in the
> filed of SP, says ". . . The extant edition [von Gall] does not fulfill the
> requirements of modern philology.  Not only is the text he created an
> eclectic composition, but von Gall even altered the character of Samaritan
> Hebrew by giving priority to what he called 'the rules of Hebrew Grammar."
> An alternative, or at least a supplement to von Gall is Tal's _The
> Samaritan Pentateuch edited according to MS 6(C) of the Shekhem Synagogue_
> (Tel-Aviv University, 1994).  Tal also published a critical edition of the
> Samaritan Targum in three volumes (Tel-Aviv, 1980-83).
>
> Harold P. Scanlin
> United Bible Societies
> 1865 Broadway
> New York, NY  10023
> scanlin@...

Another useful publication is Pentateuco Hebreo-Samaritano Genesis by
Luis Fernando Giron Blanc, in the series Textos y Estudios "Cardenal
Cisneros"de la BIBLIA POLIGLOTA MATRITENSE Instituto "ARIAS MONTANO".
C.S.I.C. Madrid 1976.


>
Prof. Johann Cook
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
University of Stellenbosch
7600 Stellenbosch
SOUTH AFRICA
tel 22-21-8083207
fax: 22-21-8083480

Vincent Broman asked about Collate. I have used Dr Robinson's Collate
program, so I can answer some of his questions. How well is another
matter...

Input of Texts?

The program is SGML aware, but mostly in the output stages. I heard Peter
Robinson say (facetiously) that he thought it was the most prolific SGML
generator anywhere, although I suppose that the US military beats him on
this point. I am not sure how well it translates SGML input. Robinson was
an early convert to SGML and no one is keener than him to make a collation
program that accepts SGML. It would be good to find out whether he has
managed to do it and tell the list.

Collations?

I am not sure whether it accepts collations. You are not the only one who
has asked this question.

How many at a time?

100 max.

In what formats?

You must specify what delimits textual divisions, what is punctuation, tag
marker characters, gloss markers, milestone markers, and so on. The native
format is that used in the Oxford Text Archive:  e.g.,

<ch 1><v 1> Yesterday, I went [ul]swimming[/ul]. <ch 2><v 2> The end.

Things in <> are division markers (Robinson calls them blocks), Things in
[] are tags, with[/] specifying the end (ul means underline here). As
you can see, it is SGML-ish.

The same formats as supported for output?

Don't know.

In what alphabets.

Whatever you like, although if you want anyone else to be able to use
your transcriptions you should stick to a convention. The program
compares words (i.e. things between white space) division by division,
and relies on the specification of some standard text as a collation
base.

With markup or only bare text?

With mark-up, but it will regard the mark-up as part of the word. For
example, [ul]blah[/ul] will NOT be equal to blah, but the 'fuzzy match'
capability will recognise these as close to each other.

Does the program filter or edit collations?

The program works by taking a set of manuscript transcriptions then
collating them against a reference text in the classical manner. It allows
you to regularise spelling variations and to specify how you want a
variation unit to look. In this sense, it allows you to filter and edit
collations.

Support a turing-complete scripting language?

Sorry, I don't know what this means. I do not think the program supports
scripting languages, although the last time I spoke to him, Dr Robinson
was talking about changing to programming in Java rather than C.

Run in batch mode? perform regularizations by rule?

I don't think so. It performs regularisations individually on a local or
global basis according to your specification (a very important capability
-- global regularisation can be RISKY).

Classify variants as significant/insignificant?  organize variants with
sub-variants, sub-sub-variants?  etc.

Don't know.

All in all, my impression of Robinson's program is good. It has output
formats for consequent use in database, cladistic analysis and
multivariate analysis software. It can produce HTML output automagically.
That means you can produce a web-oriented collation output as easily as a
print-oriented one. It is SGML savvy, which is more than can be said for
any other collation program (is TUSTEP?  -- if there was an English
operator's manual we would know). It has a long history in computer terms,
is written by someone who cut his teeth on manuscripts, and is still being
supported. I do not recommend writing your own collation program when you
can get this one, unless you have a very good reason for doing so. (I'm
speaking from experience here).

Best regards,

Tim Finney.

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

> no one is keener than him to make a collation
> program that accepts SGML. It would be good to find out whether he has

The product blurbs suggest that Collate2-Project has some capability
to input TEI, but that more general SGML was still in the blue-sky stage.
I would conjecture that only a very limited subset of TEI is expected
for this input option; full TEI would be almost as hard as full SGML.

> I am not sure whether it accepts collations.

The question is whether the basic function of the program is to
start with a reference text and a set of 1-100 transcribed texts and
output an apparatus of collations, or whether it is to start with an
apparatus of a reference text with zero or more collations, and to add
one more collation to it by processing one new transcribed text.
The interactive approach described makes the second case seem most
likely (assuming you are not required to keep your computer turned on
{and never crash} until your set of collations is complete.)

>>Support a turing-complete scripting language?
>Sorry, I don't know what this means.

A scripting language, or an extension language, is what allows the
user to do things with the program that weren't foreseen in detail
by the vendor (always my case).  An extension language is Turing-complete
if it has enough features to perform any computation that a Turing
machine can (i.e. anything that any computer can), which means that
you need functions, variable names, loops or recursion, if-tests, and some
useful data type[s].  Writing in Java may or may not support user-extensions,
depending on how you export the capabilities in the program.

> I do not recommend writing your own collation program when you
> can get this one,

Buying and installing Windoze for my home computer, just to be able to
eventually buy the non-cheap Collate2, which does some of the things
I want to do, is not all that attractive to me.  I'll still end up
programming the other functions that I want.  Besides, I'm not interested
in time-wasting GUIs, let me bang on bare metal with Unix power tools.
I'm still mulling over what my real needs are.


Vincent Broman                                       San Diego, California, USA
Email: broman at sd.znet.com (home)       or spawar.navy.mil or nosc.mil (work)
Phone: +1 619 284 3775                       Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W
=== PGP protected mail preferred.   For public key finger me at np.nosc.mil ===

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BTW, the edition of the SP to be found in Accordance is that of Prof Tal.


***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages        Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street                               Portland, OR  97220
Voice: 503-251-6416    FAX:503-254-1268     E-Mail: dalemw@...
***********************************************************************

A quick note regarding Collate:

It is an excellent collation program for the Mac, which I have been using
for several years. Until now I have been collating primarily Old Slavic and
Greek NT MSS. It also handles Latin and Middle Dutch and provides good
services in comparing the disparate Diatessaron witnesses. To my surprise
and that of the developer of Collate, we even manage to collate Syriac and
Arabic MSS.

With a colleague from Germany I made a small comparison with TUSTEP: what
took him three months te learn, took me about one hour with Collate. I
think that says enough.

Collate has a very handy feature called 'Regularisation', which enables you
to handle interactively orthographic variation (extremely useful for
dealing with versions). It will probably take quite a lot of time and
energy to provide a similar implementation on other platforms.

Computer collation in general enables you to work in a heuristic and
transparent fashion. Cf. the review by Dr. Parker of my dissertation
(http://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu/scripts/TC/vol02/Bakker1997rev.html), for
which Collate served as an indispensible tool.

Cheers! -- Michael


Dr H.P.S. Bakker

Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS)
Meijboomlaan 1
2242 PR Wassenaar
The Netherlands
tel.: +31 70 512 2700
fax: +31 70 511 7162

Slavic Seminar
University of Amsterdam
Spuistraat 210
1012 VT Amsterdam

Just a few lines about what I find while typing the text of Sinai Arabic
69, one of the oldest mss of the Melkite Arabic version of the XIth
century.

As you know, most texts are reading here "the holy city" (thn agian
polin), while several diatessaronic witnesses have "Jerusalem".

My Arabic ms has a peculiar text, I would like to know if it's possible
to interpret it - I mean, if it's possible to detemine which of both
texts it follows.

Sinai Arabic 69 reads (in Arabic): Bayt al-Maqdis, which is to be
translated "the House of the Sanctuary". To which of both texts does it
correspond?

Arguments in favor of the "canonical" variant:
- Both have the notion of holiness, and this Arabic name, though not
closely, seems to follow the usual text (can have been "suggested" by it
to the translator).
- Jerusalem is usually translated "Urushalim" in this ms. It is the first
time I meet "Bayt al-Maqdis" in this ms.

Arguments in favor of the diatessaronic text:
- Bayt al-Maqdis is the usual designation of Jerusalem in Christian
Arabic texts from Palestine, probably derived from hebr. Beyt ha-Miqdash
or Beyt ha-Qodesh (the Temple) via the Aramaic Beyt Maqdesha.
- Bayt al-Maqdis is used in Ms Sinai Arabic 151, one of the oldest Arabic
translations of the Acts. There (in Acts 1.4 for example) it translates
"Jerusalem". But in this ms, the translation "Urushalim" appears also
(e.g. in Acts 1.8), so the situation is not very different except for the
Vorlage that is always Ierosolyma in Ms 151.

Another argument in favor of the canonical variant, is that, given the
wide dissemination of this version, it is probably the version of
Ibn-al-Fadl, known to us as having produced an Arabic version of the
Gospels that became the official one in the melkite church. Ibn-al-Fadl
was not a Palestinian, he was from Antioch, so probably he would have
been less prone to use this typically Palestinian expression for
Jerusalem. On the other hand, even if it's his version, the influence of
earlier vocabulary can never be totally excluded.

I think in such a case I should suppose that ms 69 follows the usual
Greek text, but I would reserve a small possibility for the diatessaronic
variant, because I've already met with many variants coming from very
different traditions. And I would wait to see if I meet more examples of
Bayt al-Maqdis in this Arabic version. Would you agree with this choice?

Thank you for your advice and suggestions,

Jean V.

_________________________________________________
Jean Valentin - Bruxelles - Belgique
e-mail: jgvalentin@...
_________________________________________________
"Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complexe est
inutilisable"
"What's too simple is wrong, what's too complex is unusable"
"Wat te eenvoudig is, is verkeerd; wat te ingewikkeld is, is onbruikbaar"
_________________________________________________

For what it's worth, some members of the Samaritan community in Nablus refer
to the site of their former temple on Mount Gerezim as "Beyt Miqdash," so at
least in that case of present usage it doesn't mean Jerusalem.

I think your point that Arabic Ms. 69 usually uses "Urusalayim" to translate
Jerusalem is a powerful internal argument in favor of "bayt al-miqdas"
representing the canonical text.  A full study of the text would, as you
suggest, give greater certainty on this point.  Of course, that's just my
own opinion.  --Rod Mullen

At , you wrote:
>Just a few lines about what I find while typing the text of Sinai Arabic
>69, one of the oldest mss of the Melkite Arabic version of the XIth
>century.
>
>As you know, most texts are reading here "the holy city" (thn agian
>polin), while several diatessaronic witnesses have "Jerusalem".
>
>My Arabic ms has a peculiar text, I would like to know if it's possible
>to interpret it - I mean, if it's possible to detemine which of both
>texts it follows.
>
>Sinai Arabic 69 reads (in Arabic): Bayt al-Maqdis, which is to be
>translated "the House of the Sanctuary". To which of both texts does it
>correspond?
>
>Arguments in favor of the "canonical" variant:
>- Both have the notion of holiness, and this Arabic name, though not
>closely, seems to follow the usual text (can have been "suggested" by it
>to the translator).
>- Jerusalem is usually translated "Urushalim" in this ms. It is the first
>time I meet "Bayt al-Maqdis" in this ms.
>
>Arguments in favor of the diatessaronic text:
>- Bayt al-Maqdis is the usual designation of Jerusalem in Christian
>Arabic texts from Palestine, probably derived from hebr. Beyt ha-Miqdash
>or Beyt ha-Qodesh (the Temple) via the Aramaic Beyt Maqdesha.
>- Bayt al-Maqdis is used in Ms Sinai Arabic 151, one of the oldest Arabic
>translations of the Acts. There (in Acts 1.4 for example) it translates
>"Jerusalem". But in this ms, the translation "Urushalim" appears also
>(e.g. in Acts 1.8), so the situation is not very different except for the
>Vorlage that is always Ierosolyma in Ms 151.
>
>Another argument in favor of the canonical variant, is that, given the
>wide dissemination of this version, it is probably the version of
>Ibn-al-Fadl, known to us as having produced an Arabic version of the
>Gospels that became the official one in the melkite church. Ibn-al-Fadl
>was not a Palestinian, he was from Antioch, so probably he would have
>been less prone to use this typically Palestinian expression for
>Jerusalem. On the other hand, even if it's his version, the influence of
>earlier vocabulary can never be totally excluded.
>
>I think in such a case I should suppose that ms 69 follows the usual
>Greek text, but I would reserve a small possibility for the diatessaronic
>variant, because I've already met with many variants coming from very
>different traditions. And I would wait to see if I meet more examples of
>Bayt al-Maqdis in this Arabic version. Would you agree with this choice?
>
>Thank you for your advice and suggestions,
>
>Jean V.
>
>_________________________________________________
>Jean Valentin - Bruxelles - Belgique
>e-mail: jgvalentin@...
>_________________________________________________
>"Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complexe est
>inutilisable"
>"What's too simple is wrong, what's too complex is unusable"
>"Wat te eenvoudig is, is verkeerd; wat te ingewikkeld is, is onbruikbaar"
>_________________________________________________
>

Colleagues,

mine is an historical question.  In the history of TC scholarship has anyone
ever argued the thesis that the Greek version of the OT is actually the
older and that the Hebrew version was only later translated for Jews in
Palestine?

Thanks,

Jim

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

jwest@...

Jim West wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> mine is an historical question.  In the history of TC scholarship has
> anyone
> ever argued the thesis that the Greek version of the OT is actually
> the
> older and that the Hebrew version was only later translated for Jews
> in
> Palestine?

     Sounds like an argument that would come from Copenhagen (g).
I would think that the obviousness of translational over compositional
Greek would make that position very difficult.

Jack

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
    Jack Kilmon (jpman@...)


  http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium

> Date:          Mon, 08 Dec 1997 11:25:41 +1100
> To:            tc-list@...
> From:          John Hill <jhill@...>
> Subject:       Re: tc-list priority
> Reply-to:      tc-list@...

> At 12:27 07-12-97 -0500, Jim West wrote:
> >Colleagues,
> >
> >mine is an historical question.  In the history of TC scholarship has anyone
> >ever argued the thesis that the Greek version of the OT is actually the
> >older and that the Hebrew version was only later translated for Jews in
> >Palestine?
>
>  Jim,
> 	 I'm not aware of a current scholarly debate over the whole of the MT and
> LXX. I can only think of the well-known issue that is alive and kicking in
> Jeremiah scholarship about the relationship between the MT and LXX textual
> traditions, where there is a school of thought that maintains a priority of
> the LXX over our MT. The thesis is that our LXX is closer to the earliest
> Hebrew Vorlage of the book than our present MT. I'm not aware of a similar
> debate over the relationship between LXX  Samuel and MT Samuel. I mention
> Samuel together with Jeremiah because the differences between the MT and
> LXX traditions is quite extensive - in Jeremiah the MT is about one-eight
> longer and has a different order.

In respect of Samuel there are indeed scholars who argue that the
Vorlage of LXX is closer to some Qumran fragments and that it
represents older Hebrew Vorlagen. This is obviously a difficult
issue. The text-critical value of any given version must naturally
first of all be determined before an answer of some value may be
suggested. It does also pay to hold on to the given that individual
translation units should be treated separately. What would hold for
LXX Jeremiah needs not automatically be true of Samuel. I have just
published a book in the series VTS no 69 at Brill concerning LXX Proverbs
where I argue that the difference in the order of some of the final
chapters in LXX compared to MT is the result of the translator and
not of a deviating Hebrew parent text. I do, nevertheless, suspect
that in LXX Jeremiah, where a more literal translation technique was
followed by the translator, different Hebrew Vorlagen are possible.

Johann Cook

>
Prof. Johann Cook
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
University of Stellenbosch
7600 Stellenbosch
SOUTH AFRICA
tel 22-21-8083207
fax: 22-21-8083480

A review of Charles Landon's _A Text-Critical Study of the Epistle of
Jude_ is now available in TC, vol. 2.  To see it, go to the volume 2 Table
of Contents page at http://purl.org/TC/vol02/vol02-toc.html.  Comments on
the book (or the review) are welcome on the list.

Jimmy Adair
General Editor of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism
-------------------> http://purl.org/TC <--------------------

At 12:27 07-12-97 -0500, Jim West wrote:
>Colleagues,
>
>mine is an historical question.  In the history of TC scholarship has anyone
>ever argued the thesis that the Greek version of the OT is actually the
>older and that the Hebrew version was only later translated for Jews in
>Palestine?

	 Jim,
		 I'm not aware of a current scholarly debate over the whole of the MT and
LXX. I can only think of the well-known issue that is alive and kicking in
Jeremiah scholarship about the relationship between the MT and LXX textual
traditions, where there is a school of thought that maintains a priority of
the LXX over our MT. The thesis is that our LXX is closer to the earliest
Hebrew Vorlage of the book than our present MT. I'm not aware of a similar
debate over the relationship between LXX  Samuel and MT Samuel. I mention
Samuel together with Jeremiah because the differences between the MT and
LXX traditions is quite extensive - in Jeremiah the MT is about one-eight
longer and has a different order.

On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, schmiul@... (U. Schmid) wrote:


>Under point 4. of your review, Jimmy, I read: "...Landon offers a set of
>distinctive characteristics of Jude's style: the frequent use of
>[italics]hapax legomena[/italics]...".
>
>Do you (or Landon) really consider the "_use_ of hapax legomena" (Of what?
>The NT? The Biblical Greek? The Koine Greek? The...???) to be
>characteristic of someone's "_style_"? If so, this amazing phenomenon
>should be treated under the heading "providential anticipation of a NT
>author's vocabulary choices when compared to the rest of his fellow
>collegues" (filling in just the first reference at hand for "hapax
>legomena").
>Or is there a different way to understand your text, overlooked by the
>non-native speaker?

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on what is said, but
I think this is a meaningful statement.

A quick glance at my specially-marked-up Bible shows 14 unique words
in Jude -- a very high rate. (Though it's not as high as the 51 in
2 Peter.) To me, this means that the author of Jude liked to use
unusual and hard-to-understand words. He is, in other words,
pretentious.

This may not be the point of the original observation -- but it
is how I think that data can be used. (Of course, the large number
of _hapax_ also implies an author who doesn't have many other
writings in the NT -- as, e.g., the large number of unique words
in Ephesians implies that it is not by Paul. But the number in
2 Peter and Jude is too high for that.)

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

                         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)

On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Jean Valentin wrote:

>Just a few lines about what I find while typing the text of Sinai Arabic
>69, one of the oldest mss of the Melkite Arabic version of the XIth
>century.
>
>As you know, most texts are reading here "the holy city" (thn agian
>polin), while several diatessaronic witnesses have "Jerusalem".

As far as I know only two western diatessaronic witnesses have "Jerusalem":
The 13th century Middle Dutch "Liege Harmony" and the 13th century Middle
High German "Himmelgarten Fragments". No witness of the eastern branch has
been brought forth so far. According to Bill Petersen's recent discussion
of the general problem (see his _Tatian's Diatessaron_. Leiden 1994, esp.
chapter 7: Using the Diatessaron, pp. 357-425) the mentioned reading would
not count under the (reasonably) secure diatessaronic readings because it
lacks eastern support.

>My Arabic ms has a peculiar text, I would like to know if it's possible
>to interpret it - I mean, if it's possible to detemine which of both
>texts it follows.
>
>Sinai Arabic 69 reads (in Arabic): Bayt al-Maqdis, which is to be
>translated "the House of the Sanctuary". To which of both texts does it
>correspond?
>
>Arguments in favor of the "canonical" variant:
>- Both have the notion of holiness, and this Arabic name, though not
>closely, seems to follow the usual text (can have been "suggested" by it
>to the translator).
>- Jerusalem is usually translated "Urushalim" in this ms. It is the first
>time I meet "Bayt al-Maqdis" in this ms.

This, I consider a very strong argument. It makes me wonder what your ms
reads in Mt 4.5 (in case it is extant)? Note, the Greek Ms 566 states in a
marginal gloss to Mt 4.5 that TO IOUDAIKON (a Judaic-Christian Gospel)
reads EN IEROUSALHM (cf. Aland's Synopsis ad locum). The above mentioned
"Liege Harmony" also reads "Jerusalem" in this case (the "Himmelgarten
Fragments" are not extant), but cf. Lk 4.9!

[snip]

>I think in such a case I should suppose that ms 69 follows the usual
>Greek text, but I would reserve a small possibility for the diatessaronic
>variant, because I've already met with many variants coming from very
>different traditions. And I would wait to see if I meet more examples of
>Bayt al-Maqdis in this Arabic version. Would you agree with this choice?

Your "very different traditions" would be interesting to know in some more
detail. Are there more readings that could be paralleled with diatessaronic
witnesses?

Ulrich Schmid,
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies

 I am writing papers on brief history of exegesis and am looking for some more materials how the methods of exegesis (including coming back to original text) developed. Is there anything on-line available on this subject? You can address me off-list. 

Any help is appreciated. 

Thanks

Gregor P. Turkanik
______________________________

student of Biblical studies
at Christian Academy of Theology
in Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: gat@...
______________________________

On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, U. Schmid wrote:

> Do you (or Landon) really consider the "_use_ of hapax legomena" (Of what?
> The NT? The Biblical Greek? The Koine Greek? The...???) to be
> characteristic of someone's "_style_"?

Landon's point is that Jude has 14 hapax legomena with relation to the NT
(22 if Jude and 2 Peter are considered together).  (Although not
explicitly stated, the term "hapax legomena" is commonly used in both OT
and NT discussions to refer to words unique _to the corpus under
discussion_, and I think most people seeing the phrase without further
qualification would interpret it that way.)  He says, "The presence of so
many hapax legomena in such a short text has implications for my handling
of transcriptional evidence at some points of variation in Jude:  scribes
habitually substituted unfamiliar words with familiar words, and the
possibility of such substitution having been effected must always be
considered whenever a hapax legomenon is not firm in the text of Jude."
True, hapax legomena are not independent stylistic criteria like triadic
illustration or synonymous parallelism, but they do serve as a measure of
Jude's vocabulary in comparison with the rest of the NT (in a manner
similar to Jude's use of set expressions found elsewhere in the NT).

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