🚀 go-pugleaf

Jacob Love wrote:

> the fact is that "digitize" does mean something quite specific
> and necessary. The question is "Do we have a digital representation of
> the manuscripts such that we could run the same tests used by the Codes
> Quacks on other manuscripts?" The answer, as far as I understand it is,
> 'No'". The other types of texts are frequently representated as
> *images*, sometimes "digitized" by the sort of technology which creates
> a FAX, others are merely analog photographic images. In either case,
> they are useless for the experiments required.

Er--I'm a little confused, then. I've seen digital scans of Qumram MSS,
among others, as you mention. There is indeed a difference between
entering them in a word processor and scanning them.

> I believe the Samaritan Torah is indeed in digital format. I have no
> idea what you mean by "Textus Receptus" as there is no single document
> which can bear that name. I repeat that there are no other *Masoretic*
> manuscripts in digital format other than the one which formed the basis
> for the text which is in general electronic distribution.

The Textus Receptus is a conflation of a handful of Byzantine NT MSS. It
derives from the set of texts Erasmus used to publish the first Greek NT
in 14*mumble*, and was later revised into its current form.

KJV and NKJV proponents lean heavily upon the Textus Receptus as being
the best NT manuscript body available, but without much to go on except
that's it's been in use a bit longer.

It's nearly impossible, come to think of it, to draw many comparisons
between OT textual criticism and NT textual criticism. OT MSS are few
and far between, but so extremely reliable that only the photocopier you
mentioned could have been any more precise.

NT MSS, on the other hand, number in the hundreds of thousands and are
separated into several distinct families. The advantage there is that
the vast number of MSS to work with makes it (relatively!) easy to
reconstruct the autographs with confidence.

My confusion, though, stems from the fact that you seem to be saying
that some MSS are "digitized"--i.e., scanned--and not typed up. My
understanding is that ALL the manuscripts of both the NT and OT have
been so reproduced in BOTH formats, if for no other reason than that
they continue to decay and will not be available forever.

In fact, I recently saw a Bibliotheca Sacra article that talked about
using some rather esoteric methods to read manuscripts that had
blackened until they were illegible. I can't remember if they used
infrared, a PET scan, or what, but they were able to detect the ink
still on the scroll very clearly, even though neither the eye nor a
regular camera could see it.

I recently heard about a Greek Gospel of Luke (sorry, don't know the
publisher yet; it won't be in print till later this fall) that is
actually a conflation of _every single MSS of Luke extant._ (Faculty
here's all abuzz about it). I'm looking forward to seeing it.

But it seems to me such an endeavor couldn't even be considered if all
extant manuscripts weren't available electronically--that is, as text
files, not scans.

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