From: Michael Haggett (michaelhaggett@onetel.net.uk)
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 12:17:45 EST
I'd like to thank Randall for the latest contribution in the
form of the Ben Kosiba letter. What I wrote yesterday
doesn't need repeating. I'd just like to comment
on one point:
RB wrote:
If someone wants to object to
the direction and tenor of this presentation, they would
do well to read a few hundred ancient documents first:
all the Dead Sea Greek papyri, and a sample of
inscriptions from Asia Minor, Greek writings in the
Roman catacombs, papyri from Egypt, and our major
NT manuscripts from the 2nd century and following.
----
MH: Yes I think the tenor of this post is very much better,
but the term major NT manuscripts from the 2nd century
might mislead some. There aren't many of these ... although
the scraps (and they are just scraps) of information we get
from them are certainly important.
However, the inescapable fact is that the later, more complete
manuscripts (which form the backbone of the NT texts we use)
as well as many of the earlier fragments, tend to use more
conventional spelling. That is why our NT texts are the way
they are.
Randall has expressed how surprised he is that the conventional
written form that we find in these documents persisted for so
long. I think that the existence of a conventional SPOKEN form,
used because it could be understood across a range of local
dialects, would answer this conundrum very well.
Michael Haggett
London
www.ntgreek.com
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