Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: [gothic-l] 2Cor cap.13 of Wulfila's Bible

Tue Oct 31 02:36:35 UTC 2000

OOps! A while back I asked a friend of mine abotuy this thread, then I didn't
even notice when he replied to me! This was because I couldn't keep up with
the thread... so excuse me if I'm repeating old ground here:

-IUSTEINUS

In a message dated 10/28/00 12:03:00 PM, jrblack at students.wisc.edu wrote:

<<You can post this to the list if you want to.

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>I notice that the KJV seems to be closer to the Gothic, as if the Revised
>Standard Version had been translated from a different source.

Bingo.

There are several manuscript traditions of the New Testament.  The
Gothic was translated directly from a Greek text of the Byzantine
tradition.  The KJV was translated from a handful of late medieval
manuscripts which lie close to that same tradition.  The RSV, on the
other hand, uses a more eclectic Greek text which draws on more than
one textual tradition, and hence diverges from KJV (and so also from
the Gothic) in many places.

KJV also tends to translate more literally and word-for-word, while
RSV aims at a more colloquial and intelligible translation.

The Greek of 2 Corinthians 13:2 literally says:

  I have previously said and I say beforehand, as being present the
  second, and being absent now [I write], to the ones having previously
  sinned and to the remaining all, that if I come again I will not spare.

Note the "I write" in brackets.  This was not part of the earliest
textual tradition and hence is omitted by RSV.  It was added (as were
many other similar additions) in the Byzantine tradition as a way of
smoothing out perceived linguistic or semantic difficulties.  KJV,
as usual, follows the Byzantine text.

The following comment from Aland's _The Text of the Greek New Testament_
(2nd ed., Eerdmans, 1989) may be helpful:

"The fact that the Gothic version was made directly from the Greek
text is unquestioned.  Nevertheless, the Gothic version is not cited
along with the Latin, Syriac, and other versions as a primary witness
in the critical apparatuses of editions of the Greek New Testament.
As a rule it is cited only casually, because the general character
of its textual base is rather precisely known:  for his translation
Wulfilas made use of a manuscript of the early Byzantine text differing
little from what we find in the Greek manuscripts.

"Naturally it would be of considerable significance for the history
of the text to determine precisely the form of the Greek text used by
Wulfilas, because this would reveal the stage of development of the
Koine text about 350 in a purer form than is available elsewhere.  But
unfortunately this is impossible because the Germanics specialists who
have reconstructed the underlying Greek text have not followed the
Gothic text as it stands, but proposed a hypothetical Greek text of
their own.  The standard edition by Wilhelm Streitberg differs from
the Gothic text (under the influence of Hermann Freiherr von Soden's
views among others) in hundreds of instances in a way that can only be
described as arbitrary.  Ernst Bernhardt's reconstruction has other
faults because of its assumption that Wulfilas followed an exemplar of
the type of Codex Alexandrinus.  For the Gothic version to make its
full contribution to New Testament textual criticism, what is needed
from Germanics scholars is a reconstruction of the Greek exemplar
based exclusively on the Gothic materials apart from any theory of
its textual history.  Wulfilas' version is, after all, quite literal,
attempting to render the Greek words consistently whenever possible.
While admittedly an element of Latin influence may be detected in it,
there is the question whether this was already present with Wulfilas
himself (certainly a possibility in Moesia), or whether it is a later
element due to textual transmission in a Latin environment (Codex
Argenteus is dated in the sixth century).  But this should be deter-
mined by textual criticism and not by Germanics scholarship--at least
not exclusively.

"The version was begun soon after 341 (if not earlier), when Wulfilas
came to Byzantium as a member of a Gothic delegation and was consecrated
'bishop of the Gothlands' by Bishop Eusebiius of Nicomedia.  Christian-
ity had already spread among the Goths (brought by Roman Christians
taken as prisoners of war), but it expanded vigorously in the years
following.  Although the Christians under Wulfilas were expelled in
348 (crossing the Danube into Moesia, where Wulfilas completed his
version), the triumphal advance of Christianity among the Goths and
other Germanic tribes could not be checked.

"For his translation Wulfilas devised a special alphabet of twenty-
seven letters, two thirds of which were derived from Greek, and the
rest from Latin and the Old German runes.  Apart from the Gospels
(in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark) and the Pauline letters
(incomplete), which are preserved in a total of nine manuscripts,
only about fifty verses from Nehemiah 5-7 have survived of the Gothic
Bible." [pp. 210-212]

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 James Roger Black                         jrblack at students.wisc.edu
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Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 13:04:18 -0500
To: <Jdm314 at aol.com>
From: James Roger Black <jrblack at students.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Fwd:  Re: [gothic-l] 2Cor cap.13 of Wulfila's Bible

>>

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