tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post1652777483390965034..comments2024-03-28T09:52:15.415-04:00Comments on Common Denominator: 15. The Text of the New TestamentKen Schenckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09745548537303356655noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-60212440073301065312009-11-09T09:43:55.502-05:002009-11-09T09:43:55.502-05:00Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your research...Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your research!Ken Schenckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09745548537303356655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-23749155830224394452009-11-09T09:13:44.267-05:002009-11-09T09:13:44.267-05:00KS: "You're suggesting that Mark 16:9-20...KS: "You're suggesting that Mark 16:9-20 were added by a different hand than the earlier material, close enough to the initial production of Mark to be called part of the original?"<br /><br />Yes, exactly. The internal evidence in 16:9-20 tells about the Gospel of Mark's production-history rather than its transmission-history.<br /><br />KS: "Mark 16 covers the same story as the earlier verses" --<br /><br />Not really; the only actual backtracking begins and ends in 16:9a. <br /><br />KS: "If it were close to original, why would it ever have been removed?"<br /><br />Because an early overly meticulous copyist was aware, or deduced, that it had not been added personally by Mark, and/or interpreted John 21 as a more appropriate and apostolically approved sequel to 1:1-16:8. <br /><br />About "lectio brevior": Royse really did show that "lectio brevior" is an invalid canon. There may be more text-critics out there still echoing earlier works to the contrary, but they are wrong and have probably never met Royse's data. Text-critics should be weighed, not counted.<br /><br />Btw, you can download a draft of my big essay on Mark 16 at the textexcavation website; a link to "The Origin of Mark 16:9-20, eMail Edition" is at http://www.textexcavation.com/jimsnapp.html . This is a bit obsolete as I am still expanding the essay, but my basic approach, as well as a lof of data, is there.<br /><br />(The Greek Uncial Archetype of Mark is also at the site, at <br />http://www.textexcavation.com/marcanarchetypescans.html . The apparatus-like notes on the last three pages cover 16:9-20.) <br /><br />Yours in Christ,<br /><br />James Snapp, Jr.James Snapp Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09493891380752272603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-68896552571801592152009-11-08T21:54:43.613-05:002009-11-08T21:54:43.613-05:00Perhaps you are arguing for something more subtle ...Perhaps you are arguing for something more subtle than I thought. You're suggesting that Mark 16:9-20 were added by a different hand than the earlier material, close enough to the intial production of Mark to be called part of the original?<br /><br />If you are arguing that John 21 and Jeremiah 52 represent additions to earlier material in the composition history of those books, this puts you in a different category than I thought, and I agree. I took you for a reactionary who resists these sorts of theories on presuppositional grounds. Yes, Jeremiah 52 is clearly drawn from 2 Kings 25, just like Isaiah 36-39 was drawn from 2 Kings 18-20.<br /><br />But there is of course a significant difference between John 21 and Jeremiah 52 and Mark 16:9-20. Mark 16 covers the <i>same</i> story as the earlier verses and in a summarizing style rather than the slower moving narrative of what preceded. There are no manuscripts missing John 21 while there are significant attestations to the absence of Mark 16:9-20, along with an alternative ending. If it were close to original, why would it ever have been removed?<br /><br />By the way, I am not suggesting that <i>lectio brevior</i> is always the case, but I think the majority of textual critics would still say it is true more often than it is not.<br /><br />We have seen many instances where new perspectives have balanced out older ones, but rarely have the "assured results" of earlier scholarship been completely overturned. The primary conclusions have remained the majority positions for over a hundred years even though few would now be so bold as to call them "assured results."Ken Schenckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09745548537303356655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-36228185469612106522009-11-08T20:52:10.317-05:002009-11-08T20:52:10.317-05:00And, if those who reject Mk. 1:9-20 are the only p...And, if those who reject Mk. 1:9-20 are the only people "really interested in the truth from a standpoint of evidence," then why are so many of their descriptions of the evidence full of distortions, errors, inaccuracies, deliberate vagueness, and one-sided misrepresentations?<br /><br />Just because a person is not as impressed by Metzger as some others have been, and considers Hort's approach an impossible oversimplification, that does not mean that he is not interested in the truth.<br /><br />Yours in Christ,<br /><br />James Snapp, Jr.James Snapp Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09493891380752272603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-4153484014596492132009-11-08T19:21:36.111-05:002009-11-08T19:21:36.111-05:00Ken,
The issue does not end with the observation...Ken, <br /><br />The issue does not end with the observation that in 16:9, the story restarts. There's also a restart in the Gospel of John at the end of ch. 20. There's a restart in Jeremiah at the end of ch. 51. Are you planning to jettison John 21 and Jeremiah 52, just because a co-author or redactor was involved in the production of the text, or does external evidence matter?<br /><br />The problem with relying on internal evidence as the primary basis for text-critical decisions (well, one major problem at least) is that internal evidence conveys information about the text as it existed while it was still in production, as well as information about what the copyists did with the text afterwards. As a result, the work of a co-author or redactor, who actually contributed to the text while it was still in production, can be mistaken for the work of a copyist. <br /><br />"Majority text scholarship" is something you'd have to take up with an advocate of the Majority Text. That is not my approach.<br /><br />Yours in Christ,<br /><br />James Snapp, Jr.James Snapp Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09493891380752272603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-69512453060759576442009-11-07T08:57:33.168-05:002009-11-07T08:57:33.168-05:00James, I was raised on the King James so I spent a...James, I was raised on the King James so I spent a period of several years trying to get my head clear on these sorts of things. Because of the subtleties of external evidence (which you have so impressively shown), I did not reach my final conclusions on the basis of it. It was internal evidence, good old common sense, that finally convinced me.<br /><br />I do not see anyway that anyone who is really interested in the truth from a standpoint of evidence--who approaches the evidence with an open mind--will conclude that it is at all likely internally that Mark 16:9-20 was a part of the original manuscript. It begins the story all over again as if Mark 16:1-8 had never been. And the issue ends there.<br /><br />Majority text scholarship of this sort is really a diversion and really has little to do with the actual evidence they produce. They come to the evidence with a particular conclusion already in hand and then apply their considerable intellect to make it come out that way. But if we are only making our decisions on the basis of a leap of faith, why even pretend to process the evidence?Ken Schenckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09745548537303356655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-37497969645276974032009-11-07T00:51:35.879-05:002009-11-07T00:51:35.879-05:00Just a few clarifications:
P52's date is a pa...Just a few clarifications:<br /><br />P52's date is a palaeography-based estimate. It might be from 125 or from 150 or 160. <br /><br />It's an exaggeration to say that the papyri do not have any breaks or punctuation. <br /><br />KS: . . . . “Mark 16:9-20. The manuscript evidence for this ending being original is not very good. The oldest copies we have of Mark do not have it.”<br /><br />Vaticanus and Sinaiticus don’t have it, but B's copyist left a prolonged blank space after 16:8, as if his exemplar didn't contain 16:9-20 but his memory did. And in Sinaiticus, Mk 14:54 to Lk 1:56 is on a cancel-sheet, a four-page replacement of the pages made by the main copyist. <br /><br />KS: “Several early Christians do not seem to know about it.” <br /><br />Clement did not use hardly any of Mark outside of chapter 10. Origen did not use 34 other 12-verse passages in Mk. Such non-use can't be validly used to indicate the contents of their copies of Mk.<br /><br />KS: “Two very important Christians from the 300s and 400s say that few manuscripts of Mark they knows have it.”<br /><br />(“Knows” should be “know.”) Only Eusebius says this. Jerome made an extract of Eusebius’ composition, in the course of his letter #120. It is this extract, rendered by Jerome into Latin, which has been misrepresented as if it is an independent statement by Jerome, who included Mk 16:9-20 in the Vulgate. <br /><br />KS: “Using a half dozen or so manuscripts, . . . he quickly put together an edition of the Greek New Testament..."<br /><br />Erasmus did not begin to look at Greek manuscripts just as he began the printed-Greek-NT project. He was aware of the contents of other manuscripts, Latin as well as Greek. He was also familiar with many patristic writings and their Scripture-references. And one of the mss used by Erasmus was Codex 1, a leading representative of the “Family 1” group. <br /><br />KS: (About Acts 8:37) “The earliest manuscripts suggest instead that the verse had been added in centuries after Acts was written.” <br /><br />Why mention the earliest mss without mentioning the earliest evidence? Irenaeus and Cyprian refer to this verse. <br /><br />KS: “The full verse (I Jn 5:7)appears in only eight of the over 5000 known Greek manuscripts.”<br /><br />That is a misleading statistic. How many of the over 5,000 known Greek mss contain I Jn??<br /><br />KS: (About I Jn 5:7) Erasmus “remarked that he would (iinclude it) if a Greek manuscript could be shown to have it.”<br /><br />Metzger and others have spread this story far and wide; Metzger provides it in the third edition of his “Text of the NT,” p. 101. But in the appendix, on p. 291, Metzger admits that this story is not factual. All that happened is that Erasmus, responding to a charge that he had been negligent by not including the phrase in question, stated that no one had the right to call him negligent unless it could be shown that a Greek manuscript contained the phrase, and that he, while making his previous edition of the Greek text, had had access to such a manuscript. There was no rash promise in the picture at all – just the anticipation by Erasmus, after Codex Montfortianus had been brought to his attention, that he would be vulnerable to further criticism if he did not include the phrase.<br /> <br />Research by Royse and others has shown that the “lectio brevior” canon is simply not true. <br /><br />The monks of St. Catherine’s monastery, to this day, insist that Tischendorf’s version of events is not true. And J. Rendel Harris agreed with the monks. <br /><br />(Also, Maurice Robinson of SEBTS is also an advocate of the Majority Text.)<br /><br />Yours in Christ,<br /><br />James Snapp, Jr.James Snapp Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09493891380752272603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-70200556762647409092009-10-16T11:19:36.060-04:002009-10-16T11:19:36.060-04:00William Farmer was one of the first to push back o...William Farmer was one of the first to push back on the ending of Mark. I'm not sure whether David Black is a Majority Text guy, but he also believes the ending of Mark is original and has an interesting website.Ken Schenckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09745548537303356655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355052.post-37970581580038383862009-10-16T11:17:43.011-04:002009-10-16T11:17:43.011-04:00"Certainly we have also seen a few scholars w..."Certainly we have also seen a few scholars who have applied their intellect to finding ways to reinterpret the evidence. One such attempt focuses on the "Majority Text" of the Greek New Testament, considering the reading that most manuscripts have as more likely original than the reading favored by "weighing" the manuscripts by age, tradition, and internal features."<br /><br />The only scholar I could think of was Theodore P. Letis (or at least I think he fits in that category). I am curious to know the other names you think might be at the top of such a list.Christopher C. Schrockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14649459385162811269noreply@blogger.com