jgibson000

Three questions:

1. Do the marks you say indicate ommissions of known passages ever occur elsewhere in these MSS?

2. Are known passsages missing at those points?

3. What is your evidence that marks such as these indicate what you claim they indicate?

JG

Riverwind

Um...someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the single dot is a Greek "period".

In fact, if you look back up at your computer screen layout, Nazaroo, you'll note the red dots (ie. "periods" or "sentence stops") in several places, including the end of the sentence before the word 'palin' (just as in your MS example).

Yes, these verses were early, but they don't appear to have been in the earliest MSS.

Riverwind

Sorry, Gibson, am I ruining your socratic fun?

Nazaroo

1. If you bother to properly examine the photos. you'll know that the marks appear on the very page we are discussing in several places, on both P66 and P75.

As for the purpose and usage of these marks (and the similar ones on Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) WIllker has a whole group of pages and .pdf articles posted on his website, which I am sure you already know about.

However, since others are perhaps unaware of recent research into for instance the 'umlauts' of Codex B, here is the link:

http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/

2. the marks are used for a variety of variant readings, not just omissions, but also alternate readings, word order reversals etc.

A detailed exploration of this would take us too far afield from the focus of this thread. If you are interested, I suggest starting a general thread on textual critical markings or early textual critical practices.

Riverwind

I understand TC quite well and am also familiar with Willker's works.

I don't have a problem with the "umlauts" in Vaticanus potentially marking the omission, but I do have a problem with your assessment of the "dots" in Sinaiticus and P66, which I whole-heartedly believe are simple periods (and found throughout both texts).

Nazaroo

Yes. You are wrong. If you had carefully read the posts in this thread, where the marks are discussed in detail, you'd be aware that they have different usages and purposes in each of the two papyrii in question.

In P66 (the oldest MS) they appear to be text-critical marks.

In P75 (made 50 yrs later) they appear to be serving as verse declinations.

In both cases, the marks do NOT serve as punctuation marks having any equivalence to a modern 'period'. At best they could be compared to public reading pauses or 'stops' for cantors and church readers during a service, in the case of P75.


You must mean the dots I placed there in composing the complex html sheet to display the collation of Comfort and Barrett.

"oh! he can talk! isn't he cute!"

"Of course I can talk mother, I'm minister for overseas affairs."

"Ooh such a clever boy! Do you like your rattle? Do you like your rattle?"

"Yes, the rattle yes. Very nice mother. very nice."

Riverwind

I had not been following the thread until recently when I happened to notice a post I thought had a pretty lame explanation for normal MS lacunae.

Appear to be text-critical marks. What recent research can you point to in order to back up this claim?

I happen to have the opening verses of John from P66 hanging on my wall. The dots are "periods" (no not modern periods).

Please explain what you mean by "verse declinations". If you mean "periods" (or "reading pauses"/"'stops' for cantors", etc.), then you would be correct, and also in the case of P66.

Why did you place those dots there?

What the heck was that?

jgibson000

But whether there are any other places "on the very page that we are discuusing: is not, as you know, what I was asking. I was asking whether the marks -- specifically the dot you say indicates an ommission -- appears on other pages of the MSS in question, and whether there we find an ommission of a passage that we know from other MSS originally appeared at that point of the text the page witnesses to.

I'd appreciate a straight answer to this , as you know, is not what

I wasn't asking about umlauts. I was asking about the occurence of the dot mark that you say indicates an ommission.

So it is by no means certain that the dot mark you point to indicates an ommission?

Since the issue at hand is the truth of your claim that dots in MSS signify ommissions of passages known to the scribe who made the dot, a detailed exploration of what marks -- and especially dots -- in manuscripts signify is not something that would take us far afield from the focus of this tread. It is exactly what needs to be undertaken to stay focued.

Why will you not do it? And why will you not tell me -- as you've avoided doing now three times -- what your evidence is that dots in MSS indicate ommissions.

I take it from your designation the exploration of the claim as off topic and your refusal yet again to answer my call for you to provide evidence for your claim, that you have no evidence that backs it up.

JG

Nazaroo

No time like the present to review the thread and the detailed discussions of both the damage to P75 and the markings in the text.

I won't repeat my analysis here. You are of course free to give an alternate explanation for both the page damage and any markings in the text.


I have provided the link to Willker's posting of at least four detailed articles on the umlauts in Codex Vaticanus. These I consider to be recent research with backs up or at least supports my claims.

However, I don't do business that way really. I believe evidence and argument stands or falls on its own merits. When dealing with cutting-edge research, there is often a dearth of research. It should not be expected.

But even if there were dozens of articles on the critical markings in ancient manuscripts, I would not rely upon them for support of my own claims.


Now you are just playing semantics or moving the goal posts. I have carefully referred to the phenomenae as "dot and space" to neutrally describe marks while investigating their function.

I have shown clearly that they don't function as a modern 'period', and so don't deserve that name.

Reading pauses/stops are not the same as grammatical sentence indicators. Again two entirely different functions are being confused by you.

As I indicated, I placed the dots in red, precisely where Comfort and Barrett indicate they exist in the text. I chose a different color to make them easily visible.

Nazaroo

This depends upon which manuscript we are talking about. The 'space and dot' is a common enough symbol, and is used elsewhere in both manuscripts.

As the photo (released to the public on the internet) of the first page of John indicates, P75 has such dots throughout the manuscript, and I have carefully noted that it appears to be used as a public reading 'stop' in that manuscript.

This is a change, both from its apparent usage in P66, and most importantly, its usage in Codex Sinaiticus, a carefully produced 4th century manuscript which includes text-critical marks of various kinds.

Similarly, Vaticanus also includes various text-critical marks. That the scribes of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were aware of textual variants and used text-critical markings of various kinds is not in serious dispute. The usage of the 'dot and space' in P66 conforms to the usage of the same symbol in Codex Sinaiticus (see photos posted above).


Then I will presume you are not seriously disputing the function of the umlauts as general indicators of textual variants, that is, that they are text-critical marks.

You say "it is by no means certain", however, I say it is very obvious that in P66 the marks indicate the omission of the Pericope de Adultera. The case regarding P75 is clouded by a change in usage of the dots for this manuscript, however, this manuscript too has its peculiarities and apparent signs of tampering, as I previously described.



I have given you all the evidence that is available. If you are seeking the opinions of other scholars, by all means consult them as an alternative.

I cannot present more evidence than the manuscripts or their transcripts actually provide. You can take it or leave it.