From: Jim West (jwest@highland.net)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 12:34:37 EST
At 12:14 PM 12/7/99 +0000, you wrote:
>In my own experience I found the canons of TC to be subjective and
>contradictory. The only way I found to reduce subjectivity is to assume
>that God has a hand in preserving the text of the NT and that the majority
>of surviving manuscripts represents the best reading. Van Bruggen put it
>this way, "One could consider allowing the majority of manuscripts to
>decide the matter" (p. 17).
the reason that majority rule cannot work in TC is because a majority of mss
may simply be perpetuating an early error.
For example, lets suppose that Matthew had "oikos" in some verse (it doesnt
matter which- this is only an example). And lets suppose that the scribe of
P66 (for instance) read the verse correctly and copied it as he had it.
Further, lets suppose that another scribe, say of D, read "oikw" instead.
Who knows, maybe he had a hiccup and his eye wandered for a moment. At any
rate, now we have two readings- one supported by P66 and the other by D.
Now, lets suppose that P66 was kept locked in a monastary for 1800 years and
never saw the light of day, whilst D was used every month by one scribe or
another so that hundreds, indeed thousands of copies of D were made- all
perpetuating the error of D.
So now, in the 20th century, we have p66 with one reading againt D and 2000
mss with another reading. The fact is, P66 preserves the original reading
while D and all its followers preserves an erroneous reading. Using the
method recommended above, that mss be counted and a majority be declared
correct- results in an incorrect conclusion.
That is the simple reason why majority CANNOT rule in matters of TC.
Majority MAY be right; but it MAY NOT. That is the point of using more than
one simple and simplistic criterion for evaluating ancient textual traditions.
pericula latet in generalibus....
best,
jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
jwest@highland.net
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
"This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill
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