Roger Pearse

I think this may be a change of topic, and I'd like to clarify one point if I may?

A papyrus (of any text, not just a biblical one) may have a 'wild' text because it is the product of accumulated mistakes in an uncontrolled environment (as opposed to those which come from a scriptorium where there are procedures to check and correct copies). The original text from which it is descended may be of any family of manuscripts, of course, if those families existed at that date.

I seem to remember someone (it's been a while since I read any papyrological papers) saying that one of the characteristics of the Oxyrhynchus papyri was the lack of corrections on them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Julian

Which backs up my point regarding a later development of the 'mainstream' text.
It shows dubious scholarship that P75 was used to remove the Western non-interpolations because of a papyrus when P46 didn't change the Pauline epistles. This shows a bias on the part of the Alands.
Can I just add my resounding agreement to this section?

Julian

Steven Avery

Never said they did.

My understanding is that the Nestle-Aland text has become a smidgen (only a smidgen) less alexandrian (since W & H used Vaticanus as a proof-text, buttressed by Sinaiticus and that proof-text view changed to a bit more eclectic later) ...

Your the expert and say otherwise ?
Ok, I'll take that at face.

Any signficant verses where you want to show NA-27 or the new NA-28 as more alexandrian than early W & H editions ?

Since I consider both of these horses as lame, I won't ride on either one.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

S.C.Carlson

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to in reference to P46. In terms of text, P46 is closest to B (though not as close as P75 is to B in Luke and John).

I suspect part of the reason for Aland's views is that the important Egyptian papyri were just being published and analyzed right at the beginning of his scholarly career. A lot of scholars show a predisposition toward their own (or their generation's) discoveries and tend to overestimate them, probably because it is easier to make their own mark that way.

I think you may be in increasingly better company. The Western non-interpolations seem to be getting looked at again in the academy. I welcome this development.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

Just making that clear.

All the Western non-interpolations, for example. (But I suppose your position is that it's OK to be more Alexandrian than W-H if it also happens to agree with the Byzantine...)

Stephen

Julian

Don't have much info here at work but there is this:

"P46 should have been the most important papyrus ever discovered. P45 is too fragmentary and periphrastic to be important, P47 too limited in extent, P66 too error-prone, and P72 and P75 too close to B to really contribute much. P46 should have changed our view of the entire history of the text of Paul. Somehow, this seems not to have happened."

From here.

Maybe. I tend to believe that he doesn't want to rock the boat too much and deviate from his religious views. YMMV.
Indeed. Ehrman supports them. I suspect, this is an educated guess, that Metzger does, too.

Julian

S.C.Carlson

OK. I've been in communication with Bob Waltz about this for many years, so let me try to explain what I think he means (the key is the "history of the text").

Basically, what he means (and I tend to agree with him) is that P46 should have led to a reassessment of the identification of text-types in Paul, with the result that the so-called Alexandrian should be broken up into three different, early text types, one centered around B-P46, another around 01-A-C, and a third around 1739. Waltz thinks that it is a mistake to lump them altogether as Alexandrian and treat them as a single group.

In practical terms, however, adopting Waltz's history of the text won't affect the critical text very much, except to give a little bit more weight to 1739 than otherwise.

Stephen

Julian

Thank you for that explanation, that clears up a lot. I have been looking at various readings but never did any statistical analysis or anything like that. I will have to get Swanson's Pauline books and see exactly how I feel, I guess.

I do agree that Alexandrian has grown to be a bit of a catch-all.

Julian

Steven Avery

Are you saying that on those the papyrus is the extra weight.. it used to be (essentially) Byzantine + Alex outweighed by the Western. Now it is Byzantine + Alex + Papyrus outweigh the Western ? Would you give a verse or two that matches this ?

And are those the full extent of 'more alexandarian' readings ? Aren't there also a number of less alexandrian readings in the more recent NA texts, so that it is not accurate to say that the texts today are generally 'more alexandrian' even if you include the western non-interps on one side.

And you really did not answer this paragrapgh question, (other than to say that sometimes the papyrus supports the byz and alex against the very lightly-attested western. Rather a different issue, so let me ask again).

Does Aland ever discuss the number and extent of differences even between a supposed alexandrian papyrus and Aleph or B ? Textual, as well as spelling and simple blunders ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

S.C.Carlson

I'd never say that, becase the Byzantine text has virtually zero weight in modern textual criticism of the NT. In modern TC, it pretty much has been Alexandrian vs. Western, and the papyri add numbers to both sides.

I haven't done a numerical study, so my views are impressionistic. In terms of significance, however, the Western non-interpolations are generally more meaningful than the host of word order, spelling, and harmonizational variants that we usually see. Also, P75 has supported some of B's otherwise singular readings and that affected the critical text in B's direction.

Then, you'll have to read for yourself Aland's article "Die Bedeutung des P75 für den Text des Neues Testaments: Ein Beitrag zur Frage des 'Western non-interpolations" (1967). A lot of the detailed comparison work, however, has been done by Calvin Porter for his 1961 Ph.D. dissertation at Duke.

Stephen