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b-greek-digest V1 #547
b-greek-digest Thursday, 19 January 1995 Volume 01 : Number 547
In this issue:
Camel or rope?
Pastoral epistles inquiry
Entry level Greek texts
Re: Entry level Greek texts
Re: Pastoral epistles inquiry
Re: Pastoral epistles inquiry
Re: Entry level Greek texts
Re: Camel or rope?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Arlen.P.Walker@jci.com
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 12:08 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Camel or rope?
In Matthew 19:24 we have the reference to the camel and eye of a needle. But a
footnote points out that some "inferior" manuscripts have kamilon instead of
kamelon, which would then refer to a ship's hawser, a very thick rope.
The pronunciation is similar, so I guess I have three questions here:
1) What, precisely makes those other manuscripts "inferior"
2) Is it possible that although they are inferior in other respects they have it
right here? (after all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day)
3) Does the phonetic similarity make this a transcription problem arising from
writing down an account which may have been traditionally oral?
Thanks for the help.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 24
Arlen.P.Walker@JCI.Com
- ----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
- ----------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: Greg Doudna <gdoudna@ednet1.osl.or.gov>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 10:52:38 -0800
Subject: Pastoral epistles inquiry
On Jan 17, 1995 David Meadland wrote:
>My forthcoming article using multivariate stats on the Pauline
>corpus shows 2 Tim to be less far out than 1 Tim or Titus. See
>JSNT later this year - title "Extent of the Pauline corpus".
I will definitely look for it. I'm not surprised that 2 Timothy
would turn out more "Pauline" than 1 Timothy. The problem is
first, why doesn't Marcion of c. 150 have it; second, there seems
to be redacted non-Pauline material in 2 Timothy among which may
be genuine Pauline notes (and if so, statistics for the entire
letter will be misleading if averaged together, but should be
distinguished if possible); and third, whether to interpret the
genuine material in 2 Timothy as from one original context (there
are internal difficulties with this) or as a collage of several
notes from divergent contexts in Paul's life.
Greg Doudna
Marylhurst College
West Linn, Oregon
- --
------------------------------
From: dturner@cornerstone.edu
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 14:40:04 EST
Subject: Entry level Greek texts
I've been unsubscribed for about a month so please bear with me if this area
has been discussed recently...
One of our alumna is pursuing a D.Min. in church education at another
institution. She is required to establish basic competence in Greek, which
seems to mean that she must know the alphabet, pronunciation, basic
terminology and tools, etc., so that she can do NT research with some basic
skills. It seems to me that using a standard Greek elements text like
Mounce which I am currently using in the classroom would be a bit of an
overkill with her. Do any of you know of resources designed for this type of
person? I seem to remember a book by Goodrick called _Do it yourself Hebrew
and Greek_ which might fit but I'm not familiar with it and I suspect it's
out of print.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, perhaps off-list would be best. Thanks.
David L. Turner, New Testament, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, MI
dturner@cornerstone.edu
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 14:25:17 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Entry level Greek texts
On Wed, 18 Jan 1995 dturner@cornerstone.edu wrote:
> I've been unsubscribed for about a month so please bear with me if this area
> has been discussed recently...
>
> One of our alumna is pursuing a D.Min. in church education at another
> institution. She is required to establish basic competence in Greek, which
> seems to mean that she must know the alphabet, pronunciation, basic
> terminology and tools, etc., so that she can do NT research with some basic
> skills. It seems to me that using a standard Greek elements text like
> Mounce which I am currently using in the classroom would be a bit of an
> overkill with her. Do any of you know of resources designed for this type of
> person? I seem to remember a book by Goodrick called _Do it yourself Hebrew
> and Greek_ which might fit but I'm not familiar with it and I suspect it's
> out of print.
In the "Teach Yourself" series of Hodder & Stoughton (U.S. David McKay
Co., Inc.) there is the Kinchin-Smith and Melluish text, Teach Yourself
Greek. While one might complain about the fact that the authors choose to
drop accents altogether, the book lends itself well to self-teaching
(there are self-correcting keys) and much of the reading material in it
is drawn from Biblical Greek texts. One could do worse.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
From: Stephen Carlson <scc@reston.icl.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 95 14:28:44 EST
Subject: Re: Pastoral epistles inquiry
D Mealand wrote:
> My forthcoming article using multivariate stats on the Pauline corpus
> shows 2 Tim to be less far out than 1 Tim or Titus.
>
> See JSNT later this year - title "Extent of the Pauline Corpus".
Can you share what kind of stats you used, or helpful bibliographic
references?
I've been toying around lately with several kinds of statistics on the
New Testament canon. 2 Timothy does seems to be closer to the rest of
the Pauline corpus. For example, this is true of Yule's Characteristic
(a measure of vocabulary repetitiveness: the percentage chance that any
two randomly selected words from a text will be the same).
Titus and 1 Timothy have the two lowest Yule's Characteristic of the
canon at 1.65 and 1.74 respectively. Jude is next at 2.06, followed
by the Petrines at 2.11 (2 Peter) and 2.17 (1 Peter).
Then we find 2 Timothy in a series of uncontested Paulines: Galatians
(2.27), 2 Timothy (2.29), 1 Corinthians (2.43), 2 Corinthians (2.49),
Philippians (2.58), and Philemon (2.66). 3 John (2.58), James (2.62),
and Hebrews (2.67) also loom nearby.
1 & 2 Thessalonians have similiar numbers (3.08 and 3.06). Romans is
at 3.15; compare 2 John (2.93), Acts (3.04), John (3.10), and Luke
(3.13).
Of the remaining books in the canon, Colossians and Ephesians (3.97
and 4.21) are most like each other considering Matthew (3.36), Mark
(3.47), 1 John (4.40), and Revelation (5.42).
I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn, but Yule's Characteristic
is supposed to be constant for the same author over time and over
different genres.
My own lexicostatistical studies seem to show close affinities
(a) among all the Pastorals, (b) between the two Thessalonians, (c)
between Colossians and Ephesians, (d) among the Johannine epistles
and with John, (e) a lack of contacts between Revelation and the other
Johannine literature, and (f) the existence of a Synoptic Problem.
2 Timothy does indeed show somewhat greater lexical contacts with the
Pauline corpus than either of the other Pastorals, and Yule's
Characteristic supports this as well.
Stephen Carlson
- --
Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc.
scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr.
(703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 15:58:31 CST
Subject: Re: Pastoral epistles inquiry
On Jan. 18th, Stephen Carlson wrote giving the Yule's Characteristic for 3 John
(2.58), 2 John (2.93), and 1 John (4.40). In that post he stated:
>I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn, but Yule's Characteristic
>is supposed to be constant for the same author over time and over
>different genres.
>
>My own lexicostatistical studies seem to show close affinities
> (d) among the Johannine epistles and with John
Stephen--
If percentages of 2.58 and 4.40 show close affinities, I'm having trouble
seeing that Yule's Characteristic shows anything about authorship. Those
figures strike me as rather diverse. Have you left something out or am I just
missing something?
- --Bruce
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
From: stcdc <stcdc@cais.cais.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 18:30:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Entry level Greek texts
On Wed, 18 Jan 1995 dturner@cornerstone.edu wrote:
> I've been unsubscribed for about a month so please bear with me if this area
> has been discussed recently...
>
> One of our alumna is pursuing a D.Min. in church education at another
> institution. She is required to establish basic competence in Greek, which
> seems to mean that she must know the alphabet, pronunciation, basic
> terminology and tools, etc., so that she can do NT research with some basic
> skills. It seems to me that using a standard Greek elements text like
> Mounce which I am currently using in the classroom would be a bit of an
> overkill with her. Do any of you know of resources designed for this type of
> person? I seem to remember a book by Goodrick called _Do it yourself Hebrew
> and Greek_ which might fit but I'm not familiar with it and I suspect it's
> out of print.
>
> Any suggestions would be appreciated, perhaps off-list would be best. Thanks.
>
>
>
> David L. Turner, New Testament, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, MI
> dturner@cornerstone.edu
>
David,
The very best I could recommend for your friend would be Jim Found's
"Basic Greek in 30 Minutes a Day" available from CBD for around $9.95.
I've recommended this book to others on this list with similar
requirements who replied that they selected it.
Regards,
Chuck Arnold
Upper Marlboro, MD
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 14:12:23 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Camel or rope?
On Wed, 18 Jan 1995 Arlen.P.Walker@jci.com wrote:
> In Matthew 19:24 we have the reference to the camel and eye of a needle. But a
> footnote points out that some "inferior" manuscripts have kamilon instead of
> kamelon, which would then refer to a ship's hawser, a very thick rope.
I will take a stab at this, although, for the most part, I'm answering
off the top of my head (perhaps not a very useful metaphor). I do,
however, have Metzger's Textual Commentary at hand, and he offers some
useful comment.
> The pronunciation is similar, so I guess I have three questions here:
> 1) What, precisely makes those other manuscripts "inferior"
Lateness relative to other witnesses is a major factor, and I would guess
that overall reliability in relationship to the MSS generally held to be
authoritative.
> 2) Is it possible that although they are inferior in other respects they have it
> right here? (after all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day)
Possible, but not very likely. On this passage and the parallel in Luke,
Metzger has this to say:
"Instead of KAMHLON several secondary witnesses, including 59L183, arm,
geo, read KAMILON. ..."
And on Luke 18.25:
"In an attempt to soften the rigor of the statement, the work KAMILON ...
was substituted for KAMHLON in several of the later witnesses (S 13 59
124 130 437 472 543 arm geo). The change was facilitated by the
circumstance that I and H came to be pronounced alike in later Greek
(both words were pronounced kah-mee-lon)."
That last sentence is unclear; there's hardly any doubt that the
pronunciation of the two words was already identical at the time of the
writing of the NT. The first sentence is pretty clear Metzger's judgment
rather than demonstrable fact, but I would think he's probably right here.
> 3) Does the phonetic similarity make this a transcription problem arising from
> writing down an account which may have been traditionally oral?
Again this is possible but not very likely. It might be possible that
scribes in a scriptorium who are writing down what they hear read aloud
to them might make the confusion. But that appears to be more a later
medieval method of copying MSS.
If one assumes Marcan priority, it should be noted that Matthew and Luke
both derive this text from Mark (10.25), and there is no such variant
indicated in the critical apparatus for the Marcan verse.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #547
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