tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post5388088027765203458..comments2024-03-29T07:11:17.775+00:00Comments on Evangelical Textual Criticism: The CBGM in One (!) SentenceP.J. Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04388225485348300613noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-71649070689700281512021-10-25T19:39:29.016+01:002021-10-25T19:39:29.016+01:00Thats so cool!Thats so cool!Alberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05654785682467401608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-65324048308891287032017-12-29T00:34:11.471+00:002017-12-29T00:34:11.471+00:00Just curious if Maurice Robinson has any written ...Just curious if Maurice Robinson has any written works or opinions on this topic. I greatly respect you as a scholar, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)Micah Beaufordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02819563482576551749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-59990387389466307942017-08-05T23:40:07.623+01:002017-08-05T23:40:07.623+01:00The software is available on github with absolutel...The software is available on github with absolutely no documentation on how to set it up. I see nothing that resembles a test suite. As someone who worked on a C++ team at Microsoft for 20 years, I really get the sense that Gerd Mink led a small team (like 2-3 guys) to write set of python scripts that pull from a database, then transforms the data with graph theories and their TC rules. <br /><br />I cannot sign off on this method yet. I need to see real documentation, including design and functional specifications with exit criteria, written by the engineers along with acquisition and usage manuals and samples written by professional technical writers. <br /><br />And to all those who scoff at the idea that you still need to master the Greek and Hebrew and not just know how to run the tools, you better apply the same benchmark with this game changing textual critical method. You all have to go back to college and get computer science degrees so that you can definitely defend the tools. Oh and by the way, software is buggy. Again, just putting undocumented code on github does not really make it open source. Until they develop a community of users who can dogfood the software, contribute to the source, run and contribute to tests, file and fix bugs, do code reviews, etc., it IS just a black box. That 500 page deck that Gerd wrote does do a nice job of explaining the heuristic, but that deck I bet was mostly for the committee and I suspect that even their eyes glossed over. I suspect that there are like 2-3 guys (or gals) that know how the code works and that if they got hit by a bus, the whole thing would be on the floor. <br /><br />While I suspect that the software probably does what they say it does, I personally refuse to totally delegate to a magisterium of a elites until I can check their work like a good Berean. And sorry, but just running queries to evaluate the results is not enough. If we are supposed to master Greek and Hebrew and not just be able to run Accordance, Bibleworks, Logos, etc., then on that same principal, we need to understand how the software works and be able to defend each query on our own, not depend on a Metzger like commentary that does not scale with this methodology. <br /><br />Stephen MacKenzie<br />https://stevemac123.wordpress.com/ Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-21848952706967042552017-01-19T15:59:08.411+00:002017-01-19T15:59:08.411+00:00Yes, a commentary would be great. Hopefully for Ac...Yes, a commentary would be great. Hopefully for Acts. As for finding cases of possible multiple emergence, you can do that already with the coherence tools that are online.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-91818753913287947702017-01-19T12:58:12.759+00:002017-01-19T12:58:12.759+00:00Peter Gurry,
Of course both more information is va...Peter Gurry,<br />Of course both more information is valuable and the rationale for all 3000 + places of variance are not necessary, yet like Dr. Wassermann, a detailed explanation ( commentary) for any time a decision was made that a variant occurred multiple times independently would go a long way towards removing the air of mystery around the CBGM. <br />Maybe this information is available and I missed it?<br />TimTimothy Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06641788186736340533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-68996380949329337202017-01-19T09:25:46.404+00:002017-01-19T09:25:46.404+00:00Thanks, Peter. That's very helpful. It even ma...Thanks, Peter. That's very helpful. It even makes sense of your Maas quotation.<br /><br />It's clear that there's a live distinction between the two methods between finding direct ancestry between two extant texts (CBGM) and indirect or shared ancestry between two extant texts (stemmatics). I'll have to think about why doing it one way or another is important and what side effects of that decision is.Stephen C. Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12327519459656394690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-61536209804378635792017-01-19T03:08:34.008+00:002017-01-19T03:08:34.008+00:00Yes, agreement in error is a very important qualif...Yes, agreement <em>in error</em> is a very important qualification for the Lachmannianism principle. The CBGM has an analogous distinction in "connective" and "non-connective" readings, but since this distinction isn't used everywhere in the CBGM (it is not used in pre-genealogical coherence) like it is in Lachmannianism, I didn't want to apply it to the CBGM across the board. (So the imprecision was my way of being more accurate to what both methods share.)<br /><br />But where the CBGM is most unique is that disagreements determine the direction of witness relationships. Where witness A and B have variants in a -> b relationships, those <em>variant</em> relationships determine the directed relationship between A and B themselves. Lachmannianism does not do that because its genealogical principle is different. Lachmannianism works by finding <em>shared</em> ancestry by the principle that "shared agreement in error implies shared ancestry." The CBGM, on the other hand, works by finding direct (i.e., not necessarily shared) ancestry on the principle that the relationship of variants <em>is</em> the relationship of their attesting witnesses.<br /><br />I'm not sure grasping this distinction is terribly important to understanding the CBGM. I only brought it up because I think it shows the novelty of the CBGM's basic principle for determining genealogy. It's not the only valid principle. But it is new. That was my only real point in bringing up the comparison.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-88093275755564785562017-01-18T22:47:21.717+00:002017-01-18T22:47:21.717+00:00As a neo-Lachmannian, I wouldn't be doing my j...As a neo-Lachmannian, I wouldn't be doing my job without objecting to your statement that "Lachmannian methods ... work from the principle that agreement implies relationship." This is imprecise and, in my experience, misleading because it leaves off the key qualification of "agreement in error." If you are not measuring agreements in error, e.g., by measuring overall agreements (including agreements in true readings), then you are not doing Lachmannian stemmatics. It's really a key distinguishing feature of the method.<br /><br />It is not clear to me, and of interest to me, whether the CBGM also somehow under hood manages to count agreements in error somewhere along the line in its complicated processes. The fact that they input local genealogies into the process shows that this information is available. Whether and how it's used is another question.<br /><br />As for where two witnesses disagree, I don't understand your point. All editors, even Lachmannian ones, look at disagreements.Stephen C. Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12327519459656394690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-32923895427041879002017-01-18T15:03:08.372+00:002017-01-18T15:03:08.372+00:00Stephen, directed is only a qualification of disag...Stephen, directed is only a qualification of disagreement. Where two witnesses agree, Lachmannian methods and the CBGM both work from the principle that agreement implies relationship. (Lachmannianism goes further in assuming agreement implies shared origin.) But where two witnesses disagree, Lachmannianism is silent whereas the CBGM is not. In cases of disagreement between two witnesses, the CBGM asks the editor to relate the disagreements and then the CBGM aggregates those disagreements to determine the directed relationship of the witnesses.<br /><br />As I say in the article, "This is fundamentally different from the common error principle which, as Maas noted, can never directly demonstrate the dependence of one witness upon another but can only do so indirectly by excluding the possibility of independence" (see Maas, p. 42).Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-31809286319562300222017-01-18T01:30:01.363+00:002017-01-18T01:30:01.363+00:00Thanks, Peter. The term "directed" wasn&...Thanks, Peter. The term "directed" wasn't in your original post (haven't read the article, but I hope your post was meant to stand on its own). Is this a replacement now for "both agreement and disagreement"? How does "directed variant relationships in the aggregate" then differ from the old Lachmannian "agreement in error"?<br /><br />I have a rough idea of how the CBGM works and my impression is that it tends to resist simple, succinct characterizations.Stephen C. Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12327519459656394690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-90893203031276205062017-01-17T20:42:30.253+00:002017-01-17T20:42:30.253+00:00Well, you can see all the relationships online. Bu...Well, you can see all the relationships online. But, yes, the rationale for more would be helpful. I document all I've found in my article. But I don't know that anyone would want to read rationale for all 3,000+ places of variation.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-12730826735131793902017-01-17T20:38:23.326+00:002017-01-17T20:38:23.326+00:00Peter,
It is these 'directed' variant rela...Peter,<br />It is these 'directed' variant relationships that are so elusive in the articles and other materials available on the CBGM that makes some, many of us skeptical? Dr Wassermann's article you referenced was extremely clear but unlike Muenster, he provided the basis for his decisions.<br />TimTimothy Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06641788186736340533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-65044744547795734732017-01-17T14:55:20.681+00:002017-01-17T14:55:20.681+00:00Stephen, yes, I explain the CBGM's distinctive...Stephen, yes, I explain the CBGM's distinctive in relation to Lachmannianism a bit more in the article. Whether "deducing" and "aggregating" are the best terms to get at the difference is probably debatable. They were the best I could find.<br /><br />As for the question about Colwell and Tune, see my response to Mike Holmes below. The key is the addition of <em>directed</em> variant relationships in the aggregate. That is genuinely new to the CBGM.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-81096698194352463862017-01-17T14:52:28.672+00:002017-01-17T14:52:28.672+00:00Mike, your last sentence is interesting and one I ...Mike, your last sentence is interesting and one I will have to consider some more.<br /><br />As for Colwell, I think it is fair to say that he greatly sharpened the use of quantitative analysis for determining manuscript relations, but I don't think we could say he invented it. In any case, if the basic principle that he worked from is that manuscript agreement implies manuscript relationship, others had done that long before him. And, as I say, the CBGM has not innovated on this point. Or, if it has, it has only innovated in how it uses it and how much data it uses. What the CBGM does that is genuinely new is that it adds a second principle, namely, that directed variant relationships (NB: not just agreement) imply witness relationship. Did Colwell do that? Not that I'm aware.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-75450120418958215642017-01-17T14:45:35.111+00:002017-01-17T14:45:35.111+00:00Dirk,
1) I agree to a degree. The basic principl...Dirk, <br /><br />1) I agree to a degree. The basic principles can be done by hand, but it is hard to imagine those principles being of any practical value for editing 3,000+ variations without the computer. But pen and paper is essential to learning the method in my experience. I went through a lot of post-it-notes the last three years.<br /><br />2) Are you thinking of the global stemma here?<br /><br />3) I think the current tools can be used to challenge INTF's own results from using them, so I think it's fair to say the tools are available. At the very least, my point is that the tools are available for <em>learning</em> the method.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-566898260891233512017-01-12T16:09:06.122+00:002017-01-12T16:09:06.122+00:00A great post, Peter, and the idea of a "one-s...A great post, Peter, and the idea of a "one-sentence summary" as a way of focusing analysis is a great one. I would like to second Stephen Carlson's mention of the work of Colwell & Tune; I hear Colwell's ideas floating in the background of your analysis. I would also add, esp. re the role of the Byzantine tradition, the work of Zuntz (in Text of the Epistles). Over against the fundamentally Westcott-Hortian view of the history of the NT text that fundamentally shaped the editorial work on UBS 1-2-3-4/NA26-27, Zuntz championed the importance of the Byz. textual tradition for understanding the early history of the NT text. One could suggest that the CBGM makes it possible to carry out systematically and completely the kind of analyses of textual relationships that Colwell envisioned (but lacked the means to carry out), and that the view of the history of the NT text that has emerged from the work on the ECM was foreshadowed by Zuntz.<br />Mike HolmesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-64098142766033951792017-01-12T01:07:04.021+00:002017-01-12T01:07:04.021+00:00I would add, that it is only a new kind of evidenc...I would add, that it is only a new kind of evidence if you accept the premise that one can establish the priority of a witness based on a subjective method of determining which texts within a group of witnesses are earlier.Timothy Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06641788186736340533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-25919812711004416882017-01-11T23:12:33.613+00:002017-01-11T23:12:33.613+00:00I think I would take issue with Peter's senten...I think I would take issue with Peter's sentence on a couple of points. <br />1) That it is computer-based is totally irrelevant. Computers are handy to produce and play with large amount of data but the best way to learn the CBGM is by doing a restricted set of variants and witnesses by pen and paper. And the computer scripts that have been used so far are not public and are known to contain some errors (which are not part of the method).<br />2) It seems as if the goal of the method is radically diminished as well in this description. We know from the publications on the method till 2011 that its ambitions were much higher than bringing a 'new kind of evidence' to the table.<br />3) To say that the tools are available is as yet still quite an overstatement. The theory behind the tools is available and anyone could write (and publish!) their own scripts. Yet what is available on the website is only the interpreted data seen through the tools as used in the preparation of ECM1 and ECM2. No one could with the currently available tools create a text on different textcritical criteria whilst accepting the quantitative data. This is no criticism of the INTF, they made perfectly acceptable choices as to their priorities. Ironically though this has lead to a situation in which the most 'scientific' text falls faul of the scientific criterion of absolute perspicuity of method, data, and procedures.<br />Dirk Jongkindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06759927266909478390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-74222490403015818512017-01-11T22:27:20.560+00:002017-01-11T22:27:20.560+00:00Can you explain this sentence or is there a more d...Can you explain this sentence or is there a more detailed explanation in your article: "Lachmannian methods deduce witness relationships based on shared agreement in “error,” the CBGM rather aggregates relationships based on both agreement and disagreement."<br /><br />Colwell and Tune deduced relations based on overall agreement (and some cut offs). What does "aggregat[ing] relationships" mean? It's not a particularly clear term. Stephen C. Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12327519459656394690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-5570886898755195262017-01-11T19:29:36.643+00:002017-01-11T19:29:36.643+00:00Stay tuned.Stay tuned.Peter Gurryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10396444437216746412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-46873622526065904202017-01-11T18:32:11.278+00:002017-01-11T18:32:11.278+00:00Perhaps the photo should not have been Robbie the ...Perhaps the photo should not have been Robbie the Robot, but rather "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"?<br /><br />Maurice A. Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05685965674144539571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-49102113550002230852017-01-11T18:07:55.568+00:002017-01-11T18:07:55.568+00:00Thank you Peter. Your one sentence summary is very...Thank you Peter. Your one sentence summary is very helpful. Please keep the explanations comming! Maybe a "how-to" series on the blog might be good. In other words, a step by step simple tutorial on how to use these new tools and how to interpret the data.<br />Perhaps that is too tall an order. And I do understand that some of these articles you have referenced do attempt to do just this.Timothy N. Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10696299768205488795noreply@blogger.com