-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Sturzian Textual Criticism?
- Thread starter 37818
- Start date
Hum, it’s not really a type of TC, it’s a refinement, rather old at that.
It was only a few years ago that his book was reprinted in PB, rather affordable too.
I offered a brief review in the Books Forum along with an Amazon link.
The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism
Rob
It was only a few years ago that his book was reprinted in PB, rather affordable too.
I offered a brief review in the Books Forum along with an Amazon link.
The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism
Rob
The Byzantine Priority Hypothesis
Summary and author's expression of opinion:
When I started this article, I expected the Byzantine text to come off as clearly and significantly inferior to the other text-types. I was wrong. While I believe additional tests are needed, I cannot help but suspect that Hort was in error, and the Byzantine text has independent value. This does not make me a believer in Byzantine priority, but I am tempted toward a "Sturzian" position, in which the Byzantine text becomes one of the constellation of text-types which must be examined to understand a reading.
The basic difficulty, and the reason this issue remains unresolved, is the matter of pattern. It is not sufficient to do as Sturz did and show that some Byzantine readings are early; this does not mean that the type as a whole is early. But it is equally invalid
to do as Hort did and claim, because some Byzantine readings are late, that the type as a whole is late. The only way to demonstrate the matter as a whole is to examine the Byzantine text as a whole. One must either subject all the readings in a particular passage to the test, or one must use a statistically significant sample of randomly selected readings. It is not sufficient to use readings which, in some manner, bring themselves forward (e.g. by having the support of a papyrus). It's like taking a political poll by asking all registered Democrats to reveal their presidential preference. It may comfort the candidate (if he's stupid enough), but it really doesn't tell us much.
There seems to be a strong desire among scholars to make textual criticism simple (as opposed to repeatable or mechanical; although these may seem like the same thing, they are not). Hort made TC simple by effectively excluding all text-types but the Alexandrian. The Byzantine prioritists make TC simple by excluding all text-types but the Byzantine. One wishes it could be so -- but there is no reason to believe that TC is simple. If it were simple, we could have reduced it to a machine algorithm by now. But no one has yet succeeded in so doing -- and probably won't until we make some methodological breakthrough
Summary and author's expression of opinion:
When I started this article, I expected the Byzantine text to come off as clearly and significantly inferior to the other text-types. I was wrong. While I believe additional tests are needed, I cannot help but suspect that Hort was in error, and the Byzantine text has independent value. This does not make me a believer in Byzantine priority, but I am tempted toward a "Sturzian" position, in which the Byzantine text becomes one of the constellation of text-types which must be examined to understand a reading.
The basic difficulty, and the reason this issue remains unresolved, is the matter of pattern. It is not sufficient to do as Sturz did and show that some Byzantine readings are early; this does not mean that the type as a whole is early. But it is equally invalid
to do as Hort did and claim, because some Byzantine readings are late, that the type as a whole is late. The only way to demonstrate the matter as a whole is to examine the Byzantine text as a whole. One must either subject all the readings in a particular passage to the test, or one must use a statistically significant sample of randomly selected readings. It is not sufficient to use readings which, in some manner, bring themselves forward (e.g. by having the support of a papyrus). It's like taking a political poll by asking all registered Democrats to reveal their presidential preference. It may comfort the candidate (if he's stupid enough), but it really doesn't tell us much.
There seems to be a strong desire among scholars to make textual criticism simple (as opposed to repeatable or mechanical; although these may seem like the same thing, they are not). Hort made TC simple by effectively excluding all text-types but the Alexandrian. The Byzantine prioritists make TC simple by excluding all text-types but the Byzantine. One wishes it could be so -- but there is no reason to believe that TC is simple. If it were simple, we could have reduced it to a machine algorithm by now. But no one has yet succeeded in so doing -- and probably won't until we make some methodological breakthrough