Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 6
The speaker argues that “scribes are more likely to omit text than to add text,” citing studies of singular readings in early papyri (including that changes often produced “nonsense,” “harder sense,” and “harder style” far more than “easier sense”). If scribal habits tend toward making readings harder rather than smoother, how should that reshape the instinct (common since Westcott-Hort) to treat “smooth” readings as suspicious and “hard” readings as automatically original?
Another way to ask: If scribes often left words out and sometimes made the text harder or even confusing, how should that change the rule that “smooth” readings are suspicious and “hard” readings must be original?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s data, the habit of automatically preferring “harder” readings (and distrusting smoother ones) should be weakened, because scribal changes frequently make readings harder, not easier. The transcript suggests “hard” does not reliably equal “original,” and “smooth” does not automatically signal later scribal polishing.
- He says scribes are “more likely to omit text than to add text,” which already challenges assumptions behind “conflation” (which requires adding).
- He explains Westcott-Hort’s internal principle: “prefer the harder reading,” because scribes supposedly wouldn’t make a text harder.
- He cites Andrew Wilson’s SBL study of “2,279 singular readings in the papyri” showing scribal changes often produced: “24% nonsense,” “11% harder sense,” “27% harder style,” but only “0.4% easier sense” and “8% easier style.”
- He concludes: scribal changes are “much more likely to produce a harder reading than an easier reading,” so “prefer the harder reading has very little merit.”
- He earlier notes Westcott-Hort criticized Byzantine because it “run[s] smoothly and easily,” but his evidence cuts against that inference.