Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Nazaroo · 02-22-2007, 09:10 AM

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Originally Posted by Apikorus

This is simply false. The books of the LXX were translated with unequal quality. Some translations were fairly literal, while others were expansive and paraphrastic.

No matter how 'literal' a translation is from Hebrew to Greek, it remains expansive and paraphrastic, in fact highly interpretational, as the controversy over 'virgin' proves.

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Such presumed "doctrinal" and "theological" alterations of the LXX have a certain truthiness to them, but it is hard to identify examples of this sort of thing.

Modern scholars generally find that [off you go again] there is little Christian tampering with the text, and that overwhelmingly the differences between the LXX and the MT are due to the LXX being witness to a different Hebrew exemplar, as is attested by the biblical DSS.

Its hard to identify examples of this sort of thing. But the 'virgin' controversy is a good example. ....DOH!

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Nazaroo:
But nothing can be reasoned from the almost arbitrary verb form in Hebrew, since it is almost universally acknowledged that Hebrew temporal sense ('tense') is context dependant and also 'interpretational.

Apikorus:
Everytime I hear about something being "universally acknowledged," I know I'm in for a snow job.

The point here, is, do you actually protest the statement that Hebrew 'tense' is contextual, and recognized as such pretty much universally?

For instance, do you have a list, or even one name of a single Hebrew scholar or linguistic expert who actually challenges this view? If not, what is the point of challenging this statement?

I'm trying to understand exactly what statement of mine you want to attach 'snow job' to...it can hardly be this one.

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Nazaroo:
Vaticanus. Its a heavily edited artificial ecclesiastical production probably made on order by Constantine. If that doesn't stamp it "beware, this could be crap", nothing can.

Apikorus:
Rubbish.

Lets check:

Vaticanus:

(1) heavily edited

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"One marked feature, characteristic of this copy, is the great number of its omissions, which has induced Dr. Dobbin to speak of it as presenting 'an abbreviated text of the NT and certainly the facts he states on this point are startling enough. He calculates that Codex B leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 330 times in Matthew, 365 in Mark, 439 in Luke, 357 in John, 384 in Acts, 681 in the surviving Epistles; or [approx.] 2,556 times in all. That no small proportion of these are mere oversights of the scribe seems evident from the circumstance that this same scribe has repeatedly written words and clauses twice over, a class of mistakes which Mai and the collaters have seldom thought fit to notice, inasmuch as the false addition has not been retraced by the second hand, but which by no means enhances our estimate of the care employed in copying this venerable record of primitive Christianity." (Scrivener, Plain Introduction to the NT p. 120)

http://cadesign.webworkercanada.com/.../index.html#03

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In the Gospels, Westcott and Hort centered the "Neutral"/Alexandrian text around B and Aleph. At that time, they agreed more closely with each other than with anything else (except that Z had a special kinship with Aleph). Since that time, things have grown more complex. B has been shown to have a special affinity with P75 -- an affinity much greater than its affinity with Aleph , and of a different kind. The scribal problems of P66 make it harder to analyse (particularly since Aleph departs the Alexandrian text in the early chapters of John), but it also appears closer to B than Aleph. Among later manuscripts, L has suffered much Byzantine mixture, but its non-Byzantine readings stand closer to B than to Aleph. Thus it appears that we must split the Alexandrian text of the Gospels into, at the very least, two subfamilies, a B family (P66, P75, B, L, probably the Sahidic Coptic) and an Aleph family (Aleph, Z, at least some of the semi-Alexandrian minuscules). This is a matter which probably deserves greater attention.

There is little to be said regarding Acts. B seems once again to be the purest Alexandrian manuscript, but I know of no study yet published which fully details the relations between the Alexandrian witnesses. It is likely that B, A, and all belong to the same text-type. We have not the data to say whether there are sub-text-types of this text.

In Paul, the matter is certainly much more complex. Hort described B, in that corpus, as being primarily Alexandrian but with "Western" elements. This was accepted for a long time, but has two fundamental flaws. First, B has many significant readings not found in either the Alexandrian ( A C 33 etc.) or the "Western" (D F G latt) witnesses. Several good examples of this come from Colossians: In 2:2, B (alone of Greek witnesses known to Hort; now supported by P46 and implicitly by the members of Family 1739) has tou qeou Cristou; in 3:6, B (now supported by P46) omits epi tous uious ths apeiqeias. Also, B was the earliest witness known to Hort; was it proper to define its text in terms of two text-types (Byzantine and Alexandrian) which existed only in later manuscripts?

It was not until 1946 that G. Zuntz examined this question directly; the results were published in 1953 as The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition Upon the Corpus Paulinum. Zuntz's methods were excessively labourious, and cannot possibly be generalized to the entire tradition -- but he showed unquestionably that, first, B and P46 had a special kinship, and second, that these manuscripts were not part of the mainstream Alexandrian text. This was a major breakthrough in two respects: It marked the first attempt to distinguish the textual history of the Epistles from the textual history of the Gospels (even though there is no genuine reason to think they are similar), and it also marked the first attempt, in Paul, to break out of Griesbach's Alexandrian/Byzantine/Western model.

Zuntz called his proposed fourth text-type "proto-Alexandrian" (p. 156), and lists as its members P46 B 1739 (and its relatives; Zuntz was aware of 6 424** M/0121 1908; to this now add 0243 1881 630 2200) sa bo Clement Origen.

It appears to me that even this classification is too simple; there are five text-types in Paul -- not just the traditional Alexandrian, Byzantine, and "Western" texts, but two others which Zuntz combined as the "Proto-Alexandrian" text. (This confusion is largely the result of Zuntz's method; since he worked basically from P46, he observed the similarities of these manuscripts to P46 but did not really analyse the places where they differ.) The Alexandrian, "Western," and Byzantine texts remain as he found them. From the "Proto-Alexandrian" witnesses, however, we must deduct Family 1739, which appears to be its own type. Family 1739 does share a number of readings with P46 and B, but it also shares special readings with the Alexandrian and "Western" texts and has a handful of readings of its own. It also appears to me that the Bohairic Coptic, which Zuntz called Alexandrian, is actually closer to the true Alexandrian text.

This leaves B with only two full-fledged allies in Paul: P46 and the Sahidic Coptic. I also think that Zuntz's title "Proto-Alexandrian" is deceptive, since the P46/B type and the Alexandrian text clearly split before the time of P46. As a result, I prefer the neutral title P46/B type (if we ever find additional substantial witnesses, we may be able to come up with a better name).

When we turn to the Catholics, the situation seems once again to be simple. Most observers have regarded B as, once again, the best of the Alexandrian witnesses -- so, e.g., Richards, who in the Johannine Epistles places it in the A2 group, which consists mostly of the Old Uncials: A B C Y 6.

There are several disturbing points about these results, though. First, Richards lumps together three groups as the "Alexandrian text." Broadly speaking, these groups may be described as Family 2138 (A1), the Old Uncials (A2), and Family 1739 (A3). And, no matter what one's opinion about Family 1739, no reasonable argument can make Family 2138 an Alexandrian group. What does this say about Richards's other groups?

Another oddity is the percentages of agreement. For the A2 group, Richards gives these figures for rates of agreement with the group profile (W. L. Richards, The Classification of the Greek Manuscripts of the Johannine Epistles, SBL Dissertation Series, 1977, p. 141):

Manuscript Agreement %
Y 96%
C 94%
94%
B 89%
A 81%
6 72%

This is disturbing in a number of ways. First, what is 6 doing in the group? It's far weaker than the rest of the manuscripts. Merely having a 70% agreement is not enough -- not when the group profiles are in doubt! Second, can Y, which has clearly suffered Byzantine mixture, really be considered the leading witness of the type? Third, can C (which was found by Amphoux to be associated with Family 1739 in the Catholics) really be the leading Old Uncial of this type? Fourth, it can be shown that most of the important Alexandrian minuscules (e.g. 33, 81, 436, none of which were examined by Richards) are closer to A than to B or . Ought not A be the defining manuscript of the type? Yet it agrees with the profile only 81% of the time!

http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/Man...ncials.html#uB

---------------------------------------
(2) artificial

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"But I do not see how it is possible to accord the Aleph/B group any general neutral base as against the other texts, or to see any way out of the difficulty except an assumption that the Aleph/B group represent this Egyptian/Hesychian revision, with traces here and there, it is true, of a foundation common to an earlier form shared by both Antiochian [e.g. Alexandrinus] and Egyptian bases before either revision took place.

The principal point involved is: "Who is responsible for the greater revising?" And the answer seems decided that the Aleph/B group should be given the palm." (Hoskier, Codex B and Its Allies, Pt 1 pg 5)

[online at ccel]

(3) ecclesiastical production

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Dated paleographically to the fourth century. It can hardly be earlier, as the manuscript contains the Eusebian Canons from the first hand. But the simplicity of the writing style makes a later dating effectively impossible.

Tischendorf was of the opinion that four scribes wrote the manuscript; he labelled them A, B, C, and D. It is now agreed that Tischendorf was wrong. The astonishing thing about these scribes is how similar their writing styles were (they almost certainly were trained in the same school), making it difficult to distinguish them. Tischendorf's mistake is based on the format of the book: The poetic books of the Old Testament are written in a different format (in two columns rather than four), so he thought that they were written by scribe C. But in fact the difference is simply one of page layout; scribe C never existed. For consistency, though, the three remaining scribes are still identified by their Tischendorf letters, A, B, and D.

Of the three, scribe D was clearly the best, having almost faultless spelling. A, despite having a hand similar to D's, was a very poor scribe; the only good thing to be said about him was that he was better than B, whose incompetence is a source of almost continual astonishment to those who examine his work.

The New Testament is almost entirely the work of scribe A; B did not contribute at all, and D supplied only a very few leaves, scattered about. It is speculated (though it is no more than speculation) that these few leaves were "cancels" -- places where the original copies were so bad that it was easier to replace than correct them. (One of these cancels, interestingly, is the ending of Mark.)

http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/Man...ncials.html#uB

(4) probably made on order by Constantine

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...Let us begin by assuming that there was NO connection with the order of Constantine. We should then have to assume that, at some time during the 4th century, the scriptorium at Caesarea was asked to produce, as a matter of urgency, a complete Greek bible. This was executed on a grand scale, with 4 columns of text on pages of exceptional size. When the MS was virtually complete, it was suddenly abandoned. Why? If it was because errors had been found in the text, why could not these have been corrected, as they were in fact 200 years later? Instead, a completely new MS, Vaticanus was written in a much smaller format. But why was this reduction in size made when SInaiticus had already been written on such a lavish scale? ANd who would have met the cost of producing the abandoned Sinaiticus?

As will have been seen, the supposition that SInaiticus and Vaticanus are NOT connected withthe order of Constantine gives rise to a number of questions to which it is very difficult to find rational answers; and if we now turn to the alternative, that the 2 MSS ARE so connected, it is remarkable how much more understandable the situation becomes..."

(Skeats, The Cod. Sin. and Cod. Vat. and Constantine, JTS, #50 1999)

(5) possibly crap. Note that I didn't say it *was* crap, just that the preponderance of the evidence is that it is very expensive bumwad.

Nazaroo · 02-22-2007, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus

Praxeus calls the Vaticanus "junque" while Tov and Jobes & Silva (and Frank Cross and ...) regard it as the most reliable witness to the Old Greek. Who to believe?

...the one NOT bankrolled by the Jesuits.

Apikorus · 02-22-2007, 02:00 PM

Nazaroo's source, from which he drearily quotes at length, is Scrivener's 1889 volume on New Testament text criticism. It is highly irrelevant to the discussion here, which, of course, deals with the Hebrew Bible, about which Scrivener says next to nothing. The transmission histories of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are two very different subjects. Scrivener's report that

He [Dobbin] calculates that Codex B leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 330 times in Matthew, 365 in Mark, 439 in Luke, 357 in John, 384 in Acts, 681 in the surviving Epistles; or [approx.] 2,556 times in all.

would be a potent challenge to the assessment of Tov, Cross, Jobes & Silva, et al. if only Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Acts were part of the Old Testament. But, of course, they're not, and Nazaroo has knocked down a straw man.

Here's an exercise for Nazaroo. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament consists of roughly two dozen books, and about 305,000 words in total. If Christian tampering were present in one hundredth of one percent of the text, that would mean 30 instances throughout. Nazaroo has paraded before us the perpetual example of Isaiah 7:14, which has his knickers in a twist. I challenge him to come up with nine other instances of alleged Christian tampering. (I'll even spot him one: Psalm 22:17c.) At that point he'll have proven that a little less than one third of one hundredth of one percent of the Old Testament incurred such modification -- provided he can actually argue that each of the differences are not simple scribal variations.

While worrying about Jesuits under his bed, Nazaroo is missing the forest through the trees. The overwhelming majority of differences between the LXX and the MT are due to the LXX's being witness to a different Hebrew exemplar. We know this from Qumran. We even have from Nahal Hever a fragment of Ps 22:17c which reads K)RW (meaning unclear, but suggestive of a verb in the 3rd person), as well as two Hebrew mss reading KRW. It is of course hardly clear a priori that the LXX's wruxan is a Christian invention. The LXX of Jeremiah is 13% shorter than the MT version, and Nazaroo thinks this is the result of a diabolical plot by Constantine? To use his own expression, "doh!"

At any rate, I await Nazaroo's list of additimenta Cristiania.

Emanuel Tov is a tool of the Jesuits? Laughable!

Steven Avery · 02-22-2007, 09:38 PM

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Originally Posted by Apikorus

At any rate, I await Nazaroo's list of additimenta Cristiania.

And I await the Apikorus reply to my question in post #133 about comparing the utility of the Latin and Aramaic to the wild and wooly Greek
as a window to ancient understanding of the Hebrew grammar.

Api, if you want to say that all are useless, that spin's whole idea is
rubbish, that is acceptable.

However if they are useful, why did you not agree that the Latin and Aramaic, comparatively homogeneous textlines directly translated from Hebrew, are a better window than any Greek text (even if the Greek is not mixed, conflicting, as here) ?

Oh, maybe you could fill in the blanks from the spin analysis,
since you are defending Vaticanus so much, and spin gave
us basically zilch to work with in his 'theory'.

Was this present tense of Vaticanus given by Jewish or Christian scribes ?
Were they Hebrew experts ?
When was it originally translated, how much copying till the 4th century ?
What if it was given by Jewish scribes who were deliberately messing up
the Gentile text (as the Talmud discusses) ?
Or who were translating for ideology, as with Aquila ?
Or Christian ecclesiastical scribes with minimal Hebrew ?
How would that effect the text ?

Oh.. how would they have actually done their analysis,
what type of tools would they have that we lack today
for understanding the Hebrew ?

Would you answer those questions to the best of your ability,
in regards to the Judges text of Vaticanus.

==========

btw, this whole thread is truly a classic

To see Api actually trying to buttress up Codex Vatianus as
a pristine and wonderful text ... clearly one that could correct
the Hebrew Bible in his eyes. Amazing !

And all for political posturing, to provide cover.

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

Nazaroo · 02-22-2007, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus

Nazaroo's source, from which he drearily quotes at length, is Scrivener's 1889 volume on New Testament text criticism.

Actually, I only quote Scrivener once. The five points you characterized as 'rubbish' were supported by five or six independant sources. Only one was Scrivener.

Scrivener, by the way has been recognized as the most concilliatory, fair /open-minded, and level-headed textual critic of his time. When others were grinding their axes, Scrivener calmly refereed with scientific disinterest, and chose no sides.

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It is highly irrelevant to the discussion here, which, of course, deals with the Hebrew Bible, about which Scrivener says next to nothing. The transmission histories of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are two very different subjects.

On this we are agreed. So I am not sure what your argument is. Vaticanus is irrelevant, because the Greek LXX is secondary in any case.

But now that we are on the right subject (the Hebrew text), lets have a look, because it provides clear evidence of just how screwed up codex Vaticanus really is, in the OLD testament. Here's a scan of my Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1987 ed.):

Oh look, 'G' (the LXX has at least five variants in a mere ten lines of Judges 13:1-9). Note that all the LXX MSS flop around all over the place, pairing up randomly. 'G' is usually Codex Vaticanus (as you say considered the 'best' LXX extant MS).

5 variants in 10 verses: (5+ out of 100 words = 5% by wordcount) which is an accurate approximation to every page of the Hebrew critical text with footnotes on the 'LXX'. That is, of about 300,000 words, we can expect codex Vaticanus to significantly wander away from the MT about 15,000 times in as many different places.

Who is more likely to be in error in those 15,000 variants? The MT or Vaticanus? Who cares? If Vaticanus was only 'wrong 10% of the time, that woud be 1,500 errors.

Of course to allow even this optimistic assessment of Vaticanus, we'd have to virtually burn the MT in 9 out of 10 places.

Put that MS in the can, in case we run out of toilet paper.

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Scrivener's report ...would be a potent challenge to the assessment of Tov, Cross, Jobes & Silva, et al. if only Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Acts were part of the Old Testament. But, of course, they're not, and Nazaroo has knocked down a straw man.

Vaticanus is more of a red herring than a straw man.

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Here's an exercise for Nazaroo. ...

See a more efficient test above.

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While worrying about Jesuits under his bed, Nazaroo is missing the forest through the trees. The overwhelming majority of differences between the LXX and the MT are due to the LXX's being witness to a different Hebrew exemplar.

Agreed. But I'd still worry about the Jesuits under the bed.

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We know this from Qumran. We even have from Nahal Hever a fragment of Ps 22:17c which reads K)RW (meaning unclear, but suggestive of a verb in the 3rd person), as well as two Hebrew mss reading KRW. It is of course hardly clear a priori that the LXX's wruxan is a Christian invention.

Agreed agreed agreed. How can any of this support Vaticanus, a 4th century Christian liturgical text?

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The LXX of Jeremiah is 13% shorter than the MT version, and Nazaroo thinks this is the result of a diabolical plot by Constantine?

Not at all. I think the omission of John 8:1-11 is the part calling for a plot by Constantine and Eusebius. After all, Emperor Constantine boiled his queen to death....for adultery. Not exactly the spirit of Christian charity.

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To use his own expression, "doh!"

At any rate, I await Nazaroo's list of additimenta Cristiania.

Emanuel Tov is a tool of the Jesuits? Laughable!

Well, the Jews don't run everything...

spin · 02-22-2007, 11:16 PM

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