The Most Common Misconception about the CBGM

The CBGM, invented by Gerd Mink, is not the easiest method to understand. I think we would all agree on that. Various attempts have been made to explain it including mine and Tommy's. Given the learning curve it takes to understand it, misunderstandings are inevitable. I addressed some of these in my PhD thesis. But what is the most common one? And what does the inventor think is the most common misunderstanding of his own method? Here is Mink's answer from the recent Festschrift for Holger Strutwolf:

The most common misconception when using the CBGM is that the role of potential ancestors in constructing stemmata is not understood, and the connections in textual flow diagrams are read like connections in a stemma. However, one must resist the suggestiveness of these graphs. The textual flow diagram is not a stemma. (p. 579)

I would agree with Mink on this as I argued in my dissertation. Here is what I say there in my chapter on the Harklean text:

textual flow diagrams should not be used for the purpose of studying the text’s overall development. Their simplicity can have a mesmerizing effect. But their clarity can become a hindrance to their proper use when it tempts one to make more of the distinct relationships than is appropriate. Most importantly, they should not be treated as stemmata. (p. 88)

In our intro to the CBGM, Tommy and I have a subsection in ch. 4 devoted just to this point. There we say this:

The fact that there is always far more genealogical data than is shown in the textual flow diagrams brings us to our second caution: a textual flow diagram is not a stemma. Textual flow diagrams reduce and simplify the total genealogical picture, somewhat like a map of the London Underground. They are very good for studying coherence at a point of variation, but they are not good for studying the history of the text on a larger scale. Because a textual flow diagram usually connects each witness with one potential ancestor and does so by agreement whenever possible, we need to resist the temptation to interpret it as a traditional stemma, giving us a map of the text’s historical development. (p. 92)

And, back in 2019, I gave an example of the problem of confusing textual flow and stemma on this very blog.

So, heed the warning: Do not use textual flow diagrams as if they were stemmas. They are neither designed nor intended for use in making simple historical judgments about manuscript relationships. Along with that, do not use them to try to critique the CBGM as being non-historical. In short, do not use them for historical judgments in a box with a fox or in a house with a mouse, do not use them Sam I am!

First Use of the Term Ausgangstext

So far as I know, no one has written more trying to tease out the term Ausgangstext (translated as “initial text”) than Eldon Epp in his essay for J.K. Elliott’s Festschrift.

There (p. 54) he suggests that the earliest official definition is found in the second fascicle of the ECM1 in 2000. (The term is not used in the first fascicle on James published in 1997.) Later in the essay (p. 61 n. 61) Epp notes that J.K. Elliott reports having heard Barbara Aland use the term in a 1999 German broadcast they were part of together. If so, that would be the first recorded use (yes, we text critics can be pedantic).

What I was doing in 1993.

So for the two people who care, I can report that Gerd Mink defined the term way back when I was still watching cartoons. It’s in his 1993 NTS essay (p. 482):

The Ausgangstext is the text which the entire tradition originates from and which directly precedes the first relationship in various branches of the tradition. When textual criticism speaks about the original text, it typically means this Ausgangstext. It is only with this text that genuine text critical methods are dealing. Textual stages that may have been situated between the autograph and the Ausgangstext, are not accessible to text critical means. We would then be dealing with a linear path between the autograph and the Ausgangstext, which had left no trace in the manuscript tradition. (my rough translation)

After that, the next use I’ve found is in Klaus Wachtel’s 1995 dissertation (p. 45). There may be other early uses which I haven’t found.

I know you’ll all be able to sleep better this weekend knowing that.

Review of The Textual History of the Greek New Testament (eds. Wachtel & Holmes)

My review of Wachtel and Holmes’ The Textual History of the Greek New Testament has been published by RBL.

Leonard review of The Textual History of the Greek New Testament

A Comprehensive Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method

During the Münster colloquium last year, Gerd Mink presented the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM). The plan was to upload that presentation, but now the INTF announces that they have posted not only the original presentation, but a comprehensive step-by-step introduction to the Coherence Method.

You will find the download page here.

See my previous reports from the Münster colloqium here, here, here and here.