Is the Byzantine Text Form Inferior?

[Chick Daniels]

Thomas said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>NOTE:Over 150 "distinctively Byzantine readings have been found in papyrus MSS predating 350 AD. Hort emphatically maintained that, were this principle overthrown {non existence of such readings} his entire hypothesis would be demolished. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thomas, in your original response to my first post on this thread you offered this "150 distictively Byzantine readings" statistic a second time after I have shown that Wallace counted them himself and found that not all 150 are distinctively Byzantine. Furthermore, I cannot understand why you deleted my post when I questioned why you were spending so much time reacting to Hort, when today's CT editors do not follow Hort's methods any more, nor their default conclusions about the value of Aleph and B. This was germane to the discussion because it illustrates misconceptions about the influence of W & H upon the current UBS text. I have repeatedly used James 5:4 to demonstrate that Aleph and B do not get default correct status to modern critical text editors.

Furthermore, to answer your question posed to TomVols, Wallace answers it in his 1994 JETS article that I quoted earlier:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>On page 209, Wallace concludes: "The combined testimony of the external evidence--the only evidence that the MT defenders consider--is that the Byzantine test apparently did not exist in the first three centuries. The Greek mss, versions and Church fathers provide a threefold cord not easily broken. To be sure, isolated Byzantine readings have been located--but not the Byzantine text. There is simply no shred of evidence that the Byzantine text-type existed prior to the fourth century."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The Alexandrian text-form is older
The Byzantine text-form is missing from the first three centuries.
The Byzantine text-form has some conflated variants.
The Alexandrian text-form is more consistent with manuscript text-critical canons used in all kinds of literature (shorter readings, fewer harmonizations, more difficult readings etc.)

Again, I have not said and never will say that the Byzantine text-form is useless or worthless. It is an extremely important chapter in the history of the NT Greek text. Some of its readings have landed into the Critical text UBS4 with an A rating (James 5:4, and even a distinctively Byzantine readings (Phil 1:14). When weighed overall, the Byzantine text form is inferior--a word used to show position, not scale--to the Alexandrian text-form.

Best wishes,

Chick

[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Chick Daniels ]

 

[DocCas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chick Daniels:
The Alexandrian text-form is older<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Already dealt with. There are Byzantine readings which are older than the Alexandrian readings. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The Byzantine text-form is missing from the first three centuries.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Already dealt with. See above. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The Byzantine text-form has some conflated variants.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Already dealt with. See above <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The Alexandrian text-form is more consistent with manuscript text-critical canons used in all kinds of literature (shorter readings, fewer harmonizations, more difficult readings etc.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Already dealt with. The "Modern Scientific Textual Criticism" which demands shorter readings, more difficult readings, etc., were constructed to point to the Alexandrian textform.

Can you offer anything which has not already been dealt with?

[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Thomas Cassidy ]

 

[Chick Daniels]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Chick: "Originally posted by Chick Daniels:
The Alexandrian text-form is older"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Thomas "Already dealt with. There are Byzantine readings which are older than the Alexandrian readings."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thomas, I have already dealt with this. A READING is not the same as the TEXT-FORM!! See above.


Thomas: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The Byzantine text-form is missing from the first three centuries.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Already dealt with this Thomas. See above, where Dan Wallace has dealt with this in detail.

Thomas: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Already dealt with. The "Modern Scientific Textual Criticism" which demands shorter readings, more difficult readings, etc., were constructed to point to the Alexandrian textform.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No they were not Thomas, as these are the same basic canons used to reconstruct everything from Shakespeare to Plato.

You have yet to explain away Dan Wallace's assertions about the absence of the BYZ text-form in the first three centuries. Remember TEXT-FORM, not READINGS.

Chick

 

[Chick Daniels]

Thomas,

You have also not responded to Wallace's discovery that the 150 older Byzantine readings are not all distictively Byzantine as you have proposed. The best case (Phil 1:14) that Wallace discovered is a distinctively Byzantine Reading that the UBS editors adopted.

Chick

 

[Chris Temple]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Thomas Cassidy:
Already dealt with. There are Byzantine readings which are older than the Alexandrian
readings. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Yet Thomas, that does not necessitate the Byzantine text form as being as early or earlier than the Alexandrian, does it?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Already dealt with. The "Modern Scientific Textual Criticism" which demands shorter readings, more difficult readings, etc., were constructed to point to the Alexandrian textform. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think this is valid.

 

[Chick Daniels]

You have also not responded to Wallace's challenge that regarding the BYZ absence from the early versions and fathers. This along with the absence of the BYZ text-form in the first three centuries of Greek mss is quite an obstacle if the BYZ text-form being superior.

 

[DocCas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chick Daniels:
Remember TEXT-FORM, not READINGS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You err. A textform is a reading. It is the form a text takes, completely independent of all other texts and text forms. Trying to say a reading is not a textform is an oxymoron, and a manufactured argument to try to minimize the fact that one of the "pillars" of "Modern Scientific Textual Criticism" has been proven to be incorrect.

 

[DocCas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chick Daniels:
Thomas,

You have also not responded to Wallace's discovery that the 150 older Byzantine readings are not all distictively Byzantine as you have proposed. The best case (Phil 1:14) that Wallace discovered is a distinctively Byzantine Reading that the UBS editors adopted.

Chick<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Mr. Wallace is one of a dozen people who have examined the readings in question, and the only one who claims they are not distinctively Byzantine.

 

[Chick Daniels]

Another note on Textual Critical methods: Laying aside Hort, and whatever motives he had or may have had, most of the "Canons" of textual criticism, are just simply applied use of logic--with the understanding that each canon points to a conclusion, but in fact may wrong. In other words, the textual critic uses common sense to determine which variant most likely explains the existence of the other(s). When one manuscript shows a variant from a Matthew account that includes a word from a Lucan account of the story, likely the copyist had Luke's account in mind while copying Matthew. Such logic is possible in our minds without Hort telling us to watch out for it. Of course, some canons less helpful than others, and sometimes they do cancel each other out. But when you compare the text-forms, the Alexandrian text-form more often is aligned with canons.

[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Chick Daniels ]

 

[Chick Daniels]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mr. Wallace is one of a dozen people who have examined the readings in question, and the only one who claims they are not distinctively Byzantine.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who are your dozen people? Wallace personally checked and printed his results in JETS. He has much at stake if he is lying about it. He could lose his post at Dallas Seminary. Have you read his article for yourself Thomas?

Also a text-form is Not a reading, hence the use of two different words.
Wallace gives the difference in the same JETS article refered to above:
"The difference between a reading and a text-type is the difference between a particular variant and a pattern of variation. For example, although both the NIV and KJV have identical wording in John 1:1, the pattern of variation of the NIV found over a whole paragraph will differ from the KJV. No one would argue that a handwritten copy of John 1:1 from c. A.D 1775 was taken from the NIV--even though its wording would be identical with the wording of the KJV for that verse. Yet this is the same kind of argument that MT defenders use for the primitiveness of the Byzantine text. Simply because isolated Byzantine readings are found before the fourth century is no argument that the Byzantine text existed before the fourth century. They have confused reading with text." (Page 209)

 

[Phillip]

Chick Daniels

Just a word of agreement. . . Amen!