Narkissos,
The only valuable interpretation of the critical signs both in the text and in the critical apparatus (or footnotes) is the one given by the authors (i.e. W & H's introduction which unfortunately I cannot check at the present time and place).
From my practice of Nestle & Aland I doubt [NWTetc] scale of rating is correct or even meaningful. Cf. N&A's introduction (27th ed.) p. 49*f (bold type mine):
Square brackets in the text ([ ]) indicate that textual critics today are not completely convinced of the authenticity of the enclosed words (...) Square brackets always reflect a great degree of difficulty in determining the text.
You are spot on. In their Introduction they say :
§377. Alternative readings are given wherever we do not believe the text to be certain, if the doubt affects only the choice between variations found in existing documents. It is impossible to decide that any probable variation, verbal or real, is too trivial for notice; while it would be improper to admit any variation to a place among alternative readings except on the ground of its probability. Nothing therefore is retained among alternatives which in our judgement, or on final consideration in the judgement of one of us, has no reasonable chance of being right. But no attempt is made to indicate different shades of probability beyond the assignment to the principal and the secondary places respectively: and all probable variations not in some sense orthographical are given alike, without regard to their relative importance. Nor would it be strictly true to say that the secondary or alternative readings are always less probable than the rival primary readings; for sometimes the probabilities have appeared equal or incommensurable, or the estimates which we have severally formed have not been identical. In these cases (compare § 21) precedence has been given to documentary authority as against internal evidence, and also on the whole, though not without many exceptions, to great numerical preponderance of primary documentary authority as against high but narrowly limited attestation. [page 291]
B. 378-392. Textual notation
§378. The notation employed for expressing these diversities of probability or authority will need a little explanation in detail. We have been anxious to avoid excessive refinement and complexity of notation: but, as variations or readings of which we felt bound to take notice are of three classes, which must on no account be confounded, we have been obliged to use corresponding means of distinction. Moreover every various reading belonging to any of these classes must by the nature of the case be either an omission of a word or words which stand in the rival text, or an insertion of a word or words absent from the rival text, or a substitution of a word or words for another word or other words employed in the rival text, or of an order of words for another order found in the rival text; and clearness requires that each of these three forms of variation should as a rule have its own mode of expression.
§379. The first class consists of variations giving rise to alternative readings in the proper sense; that is, variations in which both readings have some good ancient authority, and each has a reasonable probability of being the true reading of the autograph. To these the fundamental and simplest notation belongs. A secondary reading consisting in the omission of words retained in the primary reading is marked by simple brackets [ ] in the text, enclosing the omitted word or words. A secondary reading consisting in the insertion of a word or words omitted in the primary reading is printed in the margin without any accompanying marks, the place of insertion being indicated by the symbol T in the text. [page 292] A secondary reading consisting in the substitution of other words for the words of the primary reading is printed in the margin without any accompanying marks, the words of the primary reading being enclosed between the symbols < > in the text. Where there are two or more secondary readings, they are separated by v. in the margin; unless they differ from each other merely by the omission or addition of words, in which case they are distinguished from each other by brackets in the margin, enclosing part or the whole of the longer reading. Occasionally one of two secondary readings differs from the primary reading by omission only, so that it can be expressed by simple brackets in the text, while the other stands as a substitution in the margin. Changes of punctuation have sometimes rendered it necessary to express a possible omission by a marginal reading rather than by brackets (Luke x 41, 42; John iii 31, 32; Rom. iii 12). Changes of accent have sometimes been likewise allowed to affect the form of alternative readings; but only when this could be done without inconvenience. A few alternative readings and punctuations are examined in the Appendix: they are indicated by Ap. attached to the marginal readings. Where there is likely to be any confusion of marginal readings answering to different but closely adjoining places in the text, they are divided by a short vertical line.
They do talk about double brackets, but only in connection with certain specific "non-interpolations" :
§383. The first difficulty arises from the absence of any sure criterion for distinguishing Western omissions due to incorrupt transmission, that is, Western noninterpolations, from Western omissions proper, that is, due only to capricious simplification (§ 240): whoever honestly makes the attempt will find his own judgement vacillate from time to time. On the whole it has seemed best that nothing should at present be omitted from the text itself on Western authority exclusively. Those Western omissions therefore which we can confidently accept as, properly speaking, non-interpolations are [page 295] marked by double brackets [[ ]]; while those about which there is a reasonable doubt are marked by simple brackets [ ], that is, they are not distinguished from ordinary cases of ambiguous evidence. Western omissions evidently arbitrary are of course neglected. The omission of the singular addition to Matt. xxvii 49 has been treated as a Western non-interpolation, as its early attestation was Western, though its adoption by the Syrian text has given it a wide range of apparent documentary authority. The last three chapters of St Luke's Gospel (xxii 19 f.; xxiv 3, 6, 12, 36, 40, 5I, 52) supply all the other examples.
§384. The second consideration which has led to the adoption of an accessory notation for certain noteworthy rejected readings is of a different kind. It has been already pointed out (g 173, 239) that some of the early Western interpolations must have been introduced at a period when various forms of evangelic tradition, written or oral, were still current. There is accordingly no improbability in the supposition that early interpolations have sometimes preserved a record of words or facts not otherwise known to us. From a literary point of view such fragmentary and, as it were, casual records are entirely extraneous to the Gospels, considered as individual writings of individual authors. From a historical, and, it may be added, from a theological point of view their authority, by its very nature variable and indefinite, must always be inferior to that of the true texts of the known and canonical books; but as embodiments of ancient tradition they have a secondary value of their own which, in some cases at least, would render their unqualified exclusion from the Bible a serious loss. A rule that would for instance banish altogether from the printed [page 296] Gospels such a sentence as the first part of Luke xxiii 34 condemns itself, though the concurrence of the best texts, Latin and Egyptian as well as Greek, shews the sentence to be a later insertion. Yet single sayings or details cannot be effectually preserved for use except as parts of a continuous text: and there is no serious violation of the integrity of the proper evangelic texts in allowing them to yield a lodgement to these stray relics surviving from the apostolic or subapostolic age, provided that the accessory character of the insertions is clearly marked. Double brackets [[ ]] have therefore been adopted not only for the eight interpolations omitted by Western documents and by no other extant Pre-Syrian evidence, but also for five interpolations omitted on authority other than Western, where the omitted words appeared to be derived from an external written or unwritten source, and had likewise exceptional claims to retention in the body of the text (Matt. XYi 2 f.; Luke xxii 43 f.; xxiii 34), or as separate portions of it (Mark xvi 9-20; John vii 53--viii II).
You will note that "no attempt is made to indicate different shades of probability beyond the assignment to the principal and the secondary places respectively", and that it is not "strictly true to say that the secondary or alternative readings are always less probable than the rival primary readings; for sometimes the probabilities have appeared equal or incommensurable". Perhaps NWTetc could indicate his source for the "five markers for degree of certainty" in W&H.
NWTetc :
Your discussions above on Luke 10:1 and John 14:14 ignore the fact that (a) the alternative readings are just as much a part of W&H as the main text, and (b) that alternative readings are only provided where W&H do not believe the text to be certain, and that (c) both the main text and the alternative reading have a reasonable probability of being the true reading of the autograph.
You say :
I'm trying to refute your both having "a reasonable probability of being true" statement.
But that is the statement of W&H, not mine. And as you can see, your comments that "if both had a reasonable probability of being true, then one reading would be in the main text and the other in the footnote" is simply nonsense. They say
"A secondary reading consisting in the omission of words retained in the primary reading is marked by simple brackets [ ] in the text, enclosing the omitted word or words."
Why can you not be honest enough to accept you were mistaken, and that the NWT did follow the W&H text in the examples you provided ?
Earnest
