When can we say that a manuscript 'apparently' supports a reading?

Sometimes there is a certain amount of doubt what a manuscript reads at a particular point. If there is a variant reading and a manuscript has only a few of the letters but these letters fit with one reading and not with the other it is acceptable practice to cite this manuscript with the qualifier videtur ('apparently') in support of the reading that fits. A good example is P70 in Matthew 2:23 where the reading ναζαρα for ναζαρετ is accepted as the apparent reading of P70, even though only the final two letters are visible (I am trusting the transcriptions here). For all we know P70 could have read γαδηρα, but because of Eusebius and the comparable variant at 4:13 there is a good case to be made for ναζαρα in P70. I think that this example is more or less on the edge but fine as it stands.

But what about the following case in James 4:13?
πορευσόμεθα εἰς τήνδε τὴν πόλιν καὶ ποιήσομεν

There is a variant πορευσωμεθα and also ποιησωμεν. Most manuscripts have either twice the indicative or twice the subjunctive, an important few have first the indicative and then the subjunctive. There is none that has first the subjunctive followed by the indicative.

This is what P100 has:


αυρι]ον πορευσ[
]ποιησομεν[

As we can see, P100 reads the full ποιησομεν but in the line above we have only -ον πορευσ. I cannot see how anyone could argue for a following omicron over an omega. Still, the NA27/28 ECM1 all have P100 as πορευσομεθα ut videtur.

Is this justified? Yes, there is a case why in light of the following indicative ποιησομεν it is likely that P100 has also the indicative πορευσομεθα here (since there is no other manuscript with the subjunctive first and then the indicative). Or 'No', since this argument is only indirect and not based on any observation of letter shapes.
I am not sure about the correct answer, it just shows that it is important to check videtur whenever possible.

Galatians 2.20b reconsidered

The latest issue of Novum Testamentum has an interesting article:
J. van Nes, '"Faith(fulness) of the Son of God"? Galatians 2:20b Reconsidered' NovT 55 (2013), 127-139.

In this article van Nes argues for the P46 reading: EN PISTEI ZW TOU QEOU KAI XRISTOU and argues that these are both objective genitives ('I live by faith in God and Christ') which suggests that other Pauline pistis Christou references are also likely objective genitives.

This of course is not news to readers of this blog, since I argued for this reading in 2006 (here, with, as usual, some helpful discussion in the comments) [and the blog posting is noted on p. 132 note 17, and also on p. 137 note 38].

An easy-to-miss minor improvement in NA28 - James 1:21

The text of James 1:21 has not undergone any change between the NA27 and NA28, but it has been improved anyway.

This is how it is printed in NA27:

διὸ ἀποθέμενοι πᾶσαν ῥυπαρίαν καὶ περισσείαν κακίας ἐν πραΰτητι, δέξασθε τὸν ἔμφυτον λόγον τὸν δυνάμενον σῶσαι τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν.

And here as it is in NA28:

διὸ ἀποθέμενοι πᾶσαν ῥυπαρίαν καὶ περισσείαν κακίας ἐν πραΰτητι δέξασθε τὸν ἔμφυτον λόγον τὸν δυνάμενον σῶσαι τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν.

ESV:
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

The difference between the two Greek texts is the absence of punctuation after ἐν πραΰτητι, which leaves open the question whether 'with meekness' goes with 'putting away all filthiness and rampant wickedness', or, as per ESV and NRSV, with the reception of the implanted word. Though I think (rather strongly, actually) that the interpretation of NA27 is to be preferred over that of the two English translations, I also think that it is not necessarily the case that an edition of the Greek text has to decide this on behalf of the reader. NA28 made the right call not to force the issue. This is, therefore, a good case of 'less is better'.

Sponsor Peter Head in Swimathon 2013

Sponsor Peter Head in Swimathon, 26-28 April 2013 (click here)

As you may know, co-blogger Peter Head has a long sporting career behind him. He came in 42nd place in the Olympic racewalking in Beijing 2008, after somewhat unexpectedly having received a wild card from the International Olympic Committee to enter the competition.

Last year in connection with the London summer olympics 2012, his British colleague Steve Walton got the honor to run with the torch. 

  

Apparently, the torch made a detour to Tyndale House, so that Pete could once again celebrate his own Olympic memories.

Apparently, Peter Head is still a very active man. Now he has taken up a new challenge and will participate in the 2013 Swimathon starting today! The swim race is 5 km and Pete is aiming at under 1:30.00 (unless the pool is busy).

The Swimathon is actually the world's biggest fundraising swim, and we want to encourage all our readers to sponsor Peter Head and help him raise money for a very good purpose. I have already made my donation! Good luck Pete!

Join me, make your donation, and sponsor Peter Head!

Another review of The Early Text of the New Testament

Over at RBECS Edgar Ebojo has offered a careful review of Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger, eds., The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford: OUP, 2012).  
Among other things he pinpoints an interesting notion reflected in the work, in that 'scribal habits' tend to be identified with 'singular readings', with insufficient attention to describing the whole notion (let alone the broader range of phenomena which might go in to understanding the habits of a particular scribe). As a contributor I can see how that could have happened, but I think I must have lent my copy to someone, so I couldn't check this out. Further he adds an impressively humungous list of typos and other problems.  

SBL Northwest Regional Conference, Seattle, May 3-5

I am giving a paper on the “Outer Margins of Nestle/Aland 28” for the Pacific Northwest Regional meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at Seattle University in Seattle, Washington on Friday, May 3.  The following is a brief description of the paper:

“The Outer Margins of Nestle/Aland 28." The newly published edition of the standard scholars' New Testament has kept pace with the developments in New Testament Textual Criticism, as evidenced by the application of the Coherence Based Genealogical Method to the text and apparatus of the Catholic Epistles. But the outer margins—which provide parallel references to the Old Testament-- have not been revised to reflect advances in the study of the Old Testament in the New and the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, etc. I propose to suggest how the next Nestle/Aland outer margins might be revised so as to make this remarkable resource even more valuable.  A sample of proposals will be given dealing with the scripture citations in Acts.

Peter R. Rodgers

JETS Reviews of Recent TC/Canon Volumes

JETS Vol 56, No. 1 (March 2013):

1. Review of M.J. Kruger's CANON REVISITED: ESTABLISHING THE ORIGINS AND AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS (Benjamin Laird); 
2. Review of L.M. McDonald's FORMATION OF THE BIBLE: THE STORY OF THE CHURCH'S CANON (Ryan J. Cook); 
3. Review of Nestle-Aland 28th by Dan Wallace.

Bonus: vigorous discussion between Dan Wallace and Stanley Porter on Granville Sharp.

JML

Biblia Graeca – Septuagint and NA28

Jim Spinti of Eisenbrauns tells me that the German Bible Society is going to publish Biblia Graeca – Septuagint and NA28 this fall.







Description

This edition combines the Rahlfs-Hanhart Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) with the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. A one-of-a-kind, useful tool for pastors, scholars, and students.
- Includes critical apparatus, cross-references, and much more.

Product Details

Publisher: German Bible Society
Publication info: forthcoming fall 2013
Bibliographic info: 3126 pages
Language(s): English and Greek
   
Cover: cloth
ISBN: 1-61970-127-8
ISBN13: 978-1-61970-127-4

Link to Eisenbrauns' orderpage

IOSCS XV Congress in Munich

The program for the IOSCS Congress in Munich has been posted here. There is a very good lineup of presentations on the LXX for this congress. On day two I will present a paper for the section on Manuscripts. I list the three papers and their abstracts below. Time permitting I will also post on other abstracts of interest.

The Significance of RA 788 for a Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job
John Meade
Abstract: RA 788 (Tyrnavos 25) is a tenth century Greek catena manuscript containing the book of Job and the three Solomonic books. Dieter and Ursula Hagedorn were not aware of it and therefore it was not included in their magisterial work Die Älteren Griechischen Katenen zum Buch Hiob or the Nachlese. Before commenting on the hexaplaric fragments, it is necessary to determine the manuscript’s place in the stemma. This paper seeks to show that 788 is a member of oldest Greek catena (Hagedorns’ Γʹ) and in particular that it is the ancestor of the important RA 250. Once its place in the manuscript stemma has been determined, the paper will comment on the significant hexaplaric fragments within the manuscript in comparison with the recent dissertations on the hexaplaric fragments of Job by Nancy Woods and John Meade.


Did Origen Use the Aristarchian Signs in the Hexapla?
Peter Gentry
Abstract: Septuagint scholars have debated for over a hundred years as to whether Origen actually used Aristarchian signs in the Fifth Column of the Hexapla or whether the signs were first inserted into a recension of the Fifth Column. A definitive answer to this question can be given by carefully fitting together data from (1) colophons, (2) geography, (3) history, (4) analysis of use of Aristarchian signs and (5) analysis of the textual history of the materials in question.


A (Preliminary) Report on the Schøyen Exodus Papyrus
Kristin De Troyer
Abstract: In this report, I will first shortly present the codicological aspects of the manuscript; then, I will give a survey of the pluses, minuses and variants of the text of the manuscript in relation to the Old Greek text; next, I will evaluate some of the possible pre-hexaplaric variants in the light of the readings of the Early Jewish Revisors and finally, I will compare and contrast the variants with the Exodus texts as found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.


I look forward to attending this congress and also for sticking around for the first few days of IOSOT afterwards. If you plan to be in Munich in August, I would love to hang out.

How Many TC Errors in This Statement?

We've played this game before. Someone submits a statement about TC from the BBC or some other news media, and we count how many errors are contained therein. But this time, it comes from a Hendrickson publication entitled, Formation of the Bible: The Story of the Church's Canon  (Lee Martin McDonald). Extra credit points if anyone can help me understand how the statements could possibly be right,

As a result of the more recent discovery of many more ancient biblical manuscripts, all early translations, namely those produced before 1993, are essentially out of date--an unfortunate consequece of reassembling a text closer to the biblical original than was possible earlier. With the publication of the most recent editions of critical scholarly texts of the New Testament--the United Bible Society's 5th Edition of the Greek New Testament  (2013) and the soon to be published Nestle/Aland 28th edition (2012) of the Greek Testament--we draw closer yet to the original text of the New Testament, but it would be a mistake to believe that we have reached that goal. There are some challenging and difficult passages to unravel, to which biblical scholars can offer very tenuous, possible solutions, but certainty is not yet available.

Since almost all modern translations of the New Testament depend on these two modern texts of the Greek New Testament, translations dating before these editions are not as reliable or as accurate and do not accurately reflect the latest understanding of what the biblical writers wrote....  p. 134.

JML

Newly Discovered Leaves of a Greek Lectionary

When examining an Armenian manuscript from Bzommar (n° 509, a Mashtots from the 16th Century) on the HMML website, I was surprised to discover three fly leaves from a Greek lectionary of the Gospels. Folio 01r contains Mt 20:1-8, Folio 168r contains Mt 11:2-4 and Lk 2:39-40, and Folio 168v contains Lk 7:22-28. As far as I can judge, all three folios come from the same lectionary. Klaus Wachtel tells me that this lectionary is not yet in the Kurtgefasste Liste of Muenster. J.-L. Simonet

Birmingham Colloquium Report: The Leicester Codex (GA 69)

The 5th of March, 2013, the participants of the Eighth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament visited the Leicester Record Office in order to take a look at the famous Leicester Codex, minuscule 69.

David Parker lecturing on the Leicester Codex

The manuscript is very interesting. As a member of family 13 (the so-called Ferrar group, or φ), it links Britain to Southern Italy in mysterious ways. The manuscript was studied by Erasmus during his stay in Cambridge (1510-1515), in the years that Erasmus’ New Testament project still consisted of hardly more than critically collating and annotating the text of the Latin Vulgate with whatever Greek sources he could find. Some of the particular readings of min. 69 subsequently found their way into Erasmus’ Annotationes.

During our visit, we were drawn into yet another interesting aspect of the manuscript’s history, namely a set of marginal notes to the word Ἀντιπᾶς in Revelation 2:13 (f. 203^r).
First, an unknown annotator, in the decades before 1844, wrote the following (in ink!):

Originally written Αντειπας and the erasure and alteration of τιπ in blacker ink is obvious.

Tregelles, who studied the manuscript while preparing his own edition of the text of Revelation (published in 1844), reacted sharply:

There is no erasure or alteration. S.P. Tregelles.

One easily senses some irritation in the double underlining of “no”. In any case, O. T. Dobbin (did we already know that he studied this manuscript?) found the case important enough to add his own two cents:

Dr. Tregelles is certainly correct – O. T. Dobbin.

Scholarship in the margins?

After careful study of the passage, we (Tommy Wasserman and Jan Krans) could not but fully agree with Tregelles’ and Dobbin’s judgment. In fact, it is amazing to see with what ease people then and now cover the margins of manuscripts with such trifles. This post is published on both the Amsterdam New Testament Weblog and Evangelical Textual Criticism.

New Review of The Early Text of the New Testament (Kruger & Hill)

Over at his new website, Brice Jones has published a review of The Early Text of the New Testament (eds. Kruger & Hill).

I note with satisfaction that this reviewer "found the approach and format of Wasserman’s essay to be the most clear of all the essays." However, the most interesting aspect of the review is that Jones identifies a theological agenda behind two of the articles (Charlesworth and Kruger): "In sum, it seems apparent that there is a theological agenda behind both Kruger's and Charlesworth's articles. The conservative and apologetic undertones in their arguments are clear."

Kruger's co-editor C. E. Hill also gets his share in the summary:

Overall, this book is an important addition to our field and thus is to be recommended to anyone interested in the text of the New Testament, in spite of the apparent apologetic predispositions on the part of the editors. 

Go ahead and read the whole review here and welcome to comment!


Update: I just went through the typos that Brice Jones identified in my essay, and this makes me so disappointed with Oxford University Press – they are responsible for all the typos.

In any case, the most embarrasing thing is that OUP has managed to duplicate my chart for P77 and insert it under P70 (including a typo).

So, here is the correct chart for P70 (p. 97) which any owner of the book can print out and insert.

Textual analysis

Text	Var.-units in NA27	Extra var.-units	Ratio of deviation	Type of deviation	Singular readings
2:13–16; 2:22–3:1; 11:26–27; 12:4–5; 24:3–6, 12–15	6	4	7/10 (70%)	1 x O 6 x SUB	3 x SUB

At some point someone made a mistake. Unfortunately, I did not read the proofs as I should have! (why don't I learn the lesson).

Bits and Pieces

Brice Jones has a new web-site with a blog and papyrological resources. On his blog he reviews the recent book The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (although he mostly comments on only two chapters); he also discusses P. Oxy. 1151 and the text of the NT (it cites John 1.1 and 3).


Steve Caruso posts a picture of an interesting transcription

James McGrath offers a helpful visual showing how useful the KJV is compared with the original autographs (he seems to think it is silly, but I agree with every point).

Josh Mann has an interesting discussion about pagination (which links to my long awaited paper on 'Turning the Page and its impact on the NT textual tradition').

Michael Kruger begins a review/interaction (possibly involving critique) with the very interesting A New New Testament (sic)

Michael Patton posts a list of the top selling Bibles in America in 2012.

Ryan Wettlaufer's 2010 PhD has been published as No Longer Written: The Use of Conjectural Emendation in the Restoration of the Text of the New Testament, the Epistle of James as a Case Study

Birmingham Postgrad call for papers

Drew Longacre has a call for papers for the 3rd University of Birmingham Biblical Studies Postgraduate Day Conference Call for Papers on his blog. Given the location (Birmingham, UK, not Alabama) and the theme "Unity and Diversity in Text and Tradition", papers on TC will be very appropriate.

CSNTM: New Manuscripts On-line

News from the Centre for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (Robert D. Marcello):

In November of 2011 CSNTM traveled to the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML) in Florence Italy. This is a phenomenal library founded by the Medici family. Here, the old library, which was designed by none other than Michelangelo himself, can be seen in all of its glory. It now holds over 2500 papyri, 11,000 manuscripts, and 128,000 printed texts. Because of this trip, CSNTM is proud to announce the addition of new images of 28 manuscripts from the BML. This excellent collection contains papyri, majuscules, minuscules, and lectionaries. Among the many treasures we digitized was an eleventh-century lectionary, written entirely in gold letters (GA Lect 117). Another manuscript had Paul’s epistles after the book of Revelation—a very rare phenomenon GA 620). And we photographed a complete Greek New Testament manuscript—one of only sixty known to exist (GA 367). We thank the library and their staff for their graciousness and willingness to digitally preserve these manuscripts. The following manuscripts may now be found HERE.

P35, P36, P48, P89, P95, 0171, 0172, 0173, 0175, 0176, 0207, 198, 199, 200, 362, 365, 366, 367, 619, 620, 1979, L112, L117, L118, L291, L510, L604, L2210.

Who did what?

Sometimes it is a pain to get your head around what a manuscript actually reads, especially when there are corrections involved. The image below is from the Codex Ephraemi rescriptus 'C', though it is only 'rescriptus' here in Acts 23:6 because of the erasure.



The question is on νεκρων [εγω] κρινομαι.

A clear erasure is visible under the rewritten letters εγω κριν, and possibly also under the following ο. The next two letters -με (itacism for -μαι) seem to me written on virgin material.

1) The erased area is long enough to contain κρινομαι, but we don't know this for sure.
2) Initially I thought that this must have been a correction in scribendo, but this is not clear at all - the space after the original reading is likely to have been blank anyway, leaving room for the corrector to rewrite as εγω κρινομαι.
3) The letters -με may not have been written by the original scribe. I do not know the hands in this manuscript well enough, but there seems to me enough difference to assume this. (Knowing the spelling patterns of the scribe and correctors would help).
4) That the original scribe wrote κρινομαι instead of εγω κρινομαι, is a likely guess (since there are few alternatives), but this is not visible enough to make this a Cvid reading.
5) NA27 had Ephaemi supporting εγω κρινομαι as follows C(*), while NA28 has C2. The latter does not give us an idea what C* wrote, and this is probably correct. How to represent this in a full critical apparatus, is a tricky problem, I don't think you can avoid putting in a note that the erased area matches the length needed for just κρινομαι. And that might help Vaticanus 'B' (the only Greek witness that justifies the square brackets in the NA texts) getting out of its isolation at this point - Ephraemi might have read simply κρινομαι, with Vaticanus.

Shape-Shifting Jesus

M 610

Owen Jarus of Live Science begins his article, "A newly deciphered Egyptian text, dating back almost 1,200 years, tells part of the crucifixion story of Jesus with apocryphal plot twists, some of which have never been seen before." (full article)  Surveying the newly published book by Roelof van den Broek (Utrecht), the journalist mentions references in the sermons of Pseudo-Cyril in which shape-shifting abilities are attributed to Jesus and Pilate has Jesus over for a pre-crucifixion dinner.

In my opinion, the article is well-written with clear caveats from van den Broek concerning the historical value of the stories.  One significant fact, however, is ignored.  These texts have been known since 1922, when Henry Hyvernat published the facsimile editions of the Archangel Michael Coptic codices.  Likewise, I am not sure that the book is actually publishing one Pierpont Morgan Coptic manuscript (i.e. M 610), but rather various manuscripts from the Archangel Michael find. (Cf. prior post on the Hamuli find here.)

I should mention that some of the wild-eyed scholars with the International Greek New Testament Project are publishing gospel fragments which suggest that Jesus miraculously changed water into wine, healed the blind, walked on water and resurrected someone from the dead. ; )

PapPal: New Resource for Ancient Paleography

In a comment to the previous post on a reassessment of the date of the early NT papyri, Christian Askeland mentioned a new resource for the study of ancient paleography, PapPal, which certainly deserves to be mentioned in a main post. 

Here is the announcement by one of the developers, Rodney Ast of the Unveristy of Heidelberg: 

We are pleased to announce the launch of PapPal (www.pappal.info), an online resource for the study of ancient paleography.  The site currently gathers thumbnail images of over 2500 dated Greek documentary papyri from collections around the world, which can be displayed either in gallery or slideshow mode.  Links direct users to full images and further information at the host sites and to metadata and transcriptions at papyri.info.   At the moment, there are only a handful of ostraka included.  In the coming months we will be adding more of them, as well as dated Latin documents.   I hope that you will take some time to explore the site and send me your comments.
Work on this project has been made possible by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the context of the University of Heidelberg's Cultural Research Center 933.  Material Text Cultures: Materiality and the Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies, with further support from the Institute for Papyrology. 

Kind regards,
Rodney Ast

"Theological Palaeography"? Reassessment of the Dating of NT Papyri

A very controversial issue is the date of the early papyri of the NT. On his blog, Larry Hurtado summarizes a very important recent article on the subject of "theological palaeography":

Pasquale Orsini & Willy Clarysse, “Early New Testament Manuscripts and Their Dates:  A Critique of Theological Palaeography,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 88 (2012): 443-74. 

Abstract :The date of the earliest New Testament papyri is nearly always based on palaeographical criteria. A consensus among papyrologists, palaeographers and New Testament scholars is presented in the edition of Nestle-Aland, 1994. In the last twenty years several New Testament scholars (Thiede, Comfort-Barrett, 1999, 2001 and Jaroš, 2006) have argued for an earlier date of most of these texts. The present article analyzes the date of the earliest New Testament papyri on the basis of comparative palaeography and a clear distinction between different types of literary scripts. There are no first-century New Testament papyri and only very few papyri can be attributed to the (second half of the) second century. It is only in the third and fourth centuries that New Testament manuscripts become more common, but here too the dates proposed by Comfort-Barrett, 1999, 2001, and Jaroš, 2006 are often too early.

I have compiled a small table demonstrating that the critique for a general tendency to date early in "theological palaeography" is not applicable to the Nestle-Aland edition. In spite of some significant differences, we see that seven papyri or uncials are still dated potentially to the second century. However, now three papyri in the second-century range in NA, are dated to the third century by Orsini and Claryssee (P77, P98 and P103). Conversely, the latter assign one papyrus and two uncials in the second-century range (P4+64+67, 0171, and 0212) which NA has dated later. Perhaps the most significant difference here is 0171 which Orsini and Claryssee think is 125 years earlier!

GA no.	P30	P52	P4+64+67	P77	P90	P98	P103	P104	0171	0189	0212
Nestle-Aland date	200-300	100-150	200-250	150-250	100-200	100-200 (?)	150-250	100-200	300-350	150-250	200-300
Orsini-Claryssee date	175-225	125-175	175-200	250-300	150-200	200-250	200-300	100-200	175-225	300-400	175-225