Church sign #2

[Ziggy]

DocC: you can't say the Byzantine text descended from a single MSS, even the autograph, for there is not one single NT autograph, but 27 autographs.

I suspect this is quibbling of a high academic nature, so let me be more precise: the Byzantine text of any given NT book must have originally descended from some single MS of that particular book, and the issue at hand revolves around whether that particular Byzantine source MS of that particular NT book happened to be the autograph or some later stage of development. Is that not the point that BF was trying to raise?

Whew....Does being *specifically precise* make the point any clearer?

 

[TCassidy]

Originally posted by Ziggy:
DocC: you can't say the Byzantine text descended from a single MSS, even the autograph, for there is not one single NT autograph, but 27 autographs.

I suspect this is quibbling of a high academic nature, so let me be more precise: the Byzantine text of any given NT book must have originally descended from some single MS of that particular book, and the issue at hand revolves around whether that particular Byzantine source MS of that particular NT book happened to be the autograph or some later stage of development. Is that not the point that BF was trying to raise?

Whew....Does being *specifically precise* make the point any clearer?

I got your point the first time but just couldn't resist!

And my real answer is we take into account the forgotten rule of textual criticism, geography. If we have two equally ancient readings in variance, the one coming from the location to which the autograph was addressed is most likely to be the original.

The Palestinian/Syrian/Asia Minor/Southern European churches were the churches to which the autographs were addressed and those churches were much more likely to have the original readings as they had, at least for a time, the autographs to compare their copies to, so, the apographs originating in those areas are more likely to have the original reading.

 

[Bluefalcon]

Originally posted by Ziggy:
But what if a "more difficult" reading is *not* found in an isolated region or versional tradition, but is show to exist among, say, the Egyptian MSS, the Old Latin, the Syriac versions, and various early patristic witnesses -- and yet such a reading differs from the Byzantine tradition? On what legitimate grounds should one reject such a collection of widespread authorities which retain a scribally "more difficult" reading when the Byzantine tradition retains the scribally "easier" reading?

Can you give an example please (not that one doesn't exist, but that it makes the point easier to discuss)? And please don't let all or most of your early patristic evidence (before A.D. 300) consist only of Egyptian Fathers. My presumed response is that many of the OL align with the Byz just as much as they align with the Alexandrians, and with Jerome saying that ordinary people who knew basically nothing of Latin or nothing of Greek were making OL translations of the NT. Many OL manuscripts are connected to Egyptian Fathers who used Latin, and these early Egyptian Fathers, I admit, probably used some type of a proto-Alexandrian text that is mixed, agreeing with the Alexandrians here, the Byzantines there. The OS consists only of 2 MSS most likely copied in Egypt (Sy-s and Sy-c), so their weight is not so heavy even when they combine with Alexandrians. It is generally agreed that most errors, including ones that appear to be difficult, happened within the first 100-150 years after the autographs, and such an early start, even for a corrupt reading, would likely spread itself as far as one might expect under normal transmissional principles, but not enough in the end to overcome the earliest (i.e. original) propagated form of the Greek text.

Cheers, Bluefalcon