Response to Four Reviews of the James Volume of the Editio Critica Maior

Abstract

"It was particularly encouraging to hear Peter Davids, author of a commentary on James (Davids 1982), say that the edition meets the requirements of exegetes (Davids 1998: par. 12), because that's the group of users we primarily had in mind when we planned the setup of the edition. Response to D. C. Parker 3. We are also pleased to see that David Parker succeeded in using the edition for a procedure for which it was not designed, namely the reconstruction of the text of a manuscript (Parker 1998: par. 6). Improvements concerning the correctors of Sinaiticus are certainly possible (par. 4), but I think no ECM will ever preclude one from using special editions for special studies. 4. But the demand for an edition that refrains from distinguishing between variants and errors (pars. 7-8) shows an understanding of the tasks of an editor that is totally different from ours. Our aim is a critical edition, and this means, among other standards, that its critical apparatus should be the result of a critical sifting of readings that may be regarded as transmitted and readings that attest to nothing but scribal blunders. Quite to the contrary of David's opinion, I don't hesitate to state that it is one of the virtues of our edition that obvious scribal slips--that is, grammatically or logically wrong readings--are banished from the critical apparatus. The faults are meticulously recorded in the supplement. Thus, the verifiability of our decisions is guaranteed. Moreover, David's demand leads to another one: to include as well the most frequent kinds of vowel interchange (itacism and the like). The demand for "the physical evidence of what was written" may be met by transcripts or photographs. A critical edition is not an appropriate medium for that kind of display. And would it really be "the purely scientific treatment ... to present the material undifferentiated" (par. 8)? In my opinion, the opposite is true, and all that was praised about the edition was achieved by differentiating the evidence."(PG 1)