Ten New Manuscripts – One Seventh-Century-Majuscule

As we have reported previously, a team from CSNTM led by Dan Wallace has recently come home from an expedition to Greece and Romania. In a special newsletter they report that at least ten new MSS have been discovered ("new" in the sense of not being registered in the official registry of Greek New Testament MSS, the Kurzgefasste Liste).

One of these MSS is a seventh-century majuscule, which is something quite rare!

Do not miss Dan Wallace's story, The Road Less Traveled - for a Good Reason! – about the team's adventures on a "road" in Romania, where there were more animals than vehicles filling the lanes, and with potholes as deep as six to eight inches and as wide as four or five feet. Apparently, the bumper on their rental SUV fell off at some point.

Now, the CSNTM does have a good reason for making such hard efforts on their travels in order to find and photograph both known and unknown manuscripts. To continue with this endeavour they will need our support – one way is to join the "Circle of friends."

Karrer & Kraus on the Septuagint (LXX 1)

For general orientation to this series of posts see here.

Martin Karrer & Wolfgang Kraus, ‘Umfang und Text der Septuaginta: Erwägungen nach dem Abschluss der deutschen Übersetzung’ in Die Septuaginta - Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten: Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 20.-23. Juli 2006 (ed Martin Karrer & Wolfgang Kraus; WUNT 219; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 8-63.

Several modern translations of the so-called "Septuagint" are underway and others have recently been completed. It was the German translation which gave rise to research projects on Septuagint related issues. Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus discuss how the popularization of the "Septuagint" brings to the fore some "open questions" such as that of Christian Theology. The authors argue that Christian theology is restricted when one is dependent on the Hebrew canon alone, since NT authors did not reject the "apocrypha and pseudepigrapha" but regarded it all as Scripture. This is an erroneous position inherited from Luther's reformation of the canon, according to Nikolaus Walter, one of the initiators of the Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), the German translation. (p.10)

Hanhart assumes a Jewish canon already in the 2nd century BCE, but others like Heinz-Josef Fabry question this position (pp. 12-13). According to Fabry, the idea of text-groups, as seen in mss from the Judean desert, throws into question the concept of one authoritative canon for all groups (pp. 14-15). In the light of these, the authors suggest that the statement in Sirach's prologue (vv. 24-25) is representative of only one group. Moreover, the Letter of Aristeas seems to be defending the authority of the translation of one particular community, the Alexandrian community, as derived from the Hebrew text in Jerusalem, and equally inspired, not subservient to the Hebrew (pp. 19-20).

A discussion of the LXX collection and whether it represents an older form than the MT follows. Various LXX passages and their reception in the NT are also examined. Finally, the authors note how different canons and orders in different church traditions today leave open the question on how a published Septuagint should look like, as well as the question of how double versions for single books should be represented.

In my opinion, while the authors succeed in drawing out the implications of how modern translations of the "Septuagint" may affect the understanding of Christian Theology, no clear distinction is made between the discussion of textual variations and the discussion of canon. Often the two are treated as one and the same.

One wonders whether Christian theology would be significantly affected by the availability of apocryphal/deuterocanonical books to the public — perhaps contemporary theology, but not NT theology. A variety of literature may have been influential on the thinking of NT writers without necessarily possessing the status of Scripture in their mind. The task of the NT scholar has always involved the recognition of such influences from both Jewish and pagan writings regardless of canonical status.

Moreover, modern readers of the "Septuagint" should not be fooled into thinking that what they hold in their hands was what the NT writers had access to. The multiplicity of Greek versions available at the time, as well as Aramaic versions (oral or written), would have been just as influential in Palestine and elsewhere.

Finally, while Qumran has revealed a variety of textual readings, one should not downplay the ancient concern for accuracy and uniformity in translation and copying, reflected in Aristeas' propaganda, in Philo and increasingly in revisions of Greek mss towards a proto-Masoretic text, culminating with Aquila. The modern Septuagint reader should be aware that what they hold in their hands is a still disentangled collage of ancient Greek readings from various times and places which remains to be sorted. Sadly, knowledge of these complexities will not accompany most purchases of modern "Septuagints".

Myrto Theocharous

Recent Septuagint Research coming to ETC

Martin Karrer & Wolfgang Kraus, Die Septuaginta – Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten: Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 20.-23. Juli 2006 (WUNT 219; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
This 772 page book publishes 45 papers from a conference in 2006 which marked the completion of a German translation of the Septuagint (the Septuaginta Deutsch). These papers, from many of the leading scholars in the field, cover a wide range of state-of-the-art topics under several broad section headings: The Septuagint as a text collection; the milieu and context of the Septuagint, lexicography and grammar, writings and groups of writings (the broadest and vaguest section title), the influences of the Septuagint.
In coming weeks I am hoping to bring regular blog posts on some of the papers published in this book from Myrto Theocharous, a devoted follower of this blog, who is finishing up a PhD on the Septuagint here in Cambridge and has kindly agreed to offer some summaries and reflections on papers from this book. I hope it will be informative for all of us, stop us from being (really only) an ENTTC blog, and perhaps attract some interesting discussion about the perennially fascinating issues concerning the Septuagint.

Advices and Resources: Syriac NT Bibliography

I have just added Peter William's Syriac NT bibliography under "Advices and Resources" in the right sidebar.

Stephen Carlson: CE on the sly

Stephen Carlson has an interesting post on Conjectural Emendations on the Sly citing Gal. 5.1 as an example. Carlson notes that whereas most reject Hort's emendation of Ἐπ’ for Τῇ at the head of Gal. 5.1, nonetheless, most translations of Gal. 5.1 commit a "sly" conjectural emendation by translating the clause as if they were adopting Hort's reading. My only qualm is that I think that Τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ fits quite well as a "dative of interest" (see Dan Wallace, GGBB, pp. 142-43). If we take the dative as something like for the benefit of or in the interest of, then it makes good sense as "for the benefit of freedom" or "in the interest of freedom" that "Christ has set us free". In addition, I wonder if the expression is perhaps a contracted version of epi te that Paul uses in Phil. 3.9 to indicate "on the basis" and if that can shed light on Gal. 5.1.

Kreinecker on Coptic resurrection accounts

Our fellow blogger Jim Leonard has reviewed Christina Kreinecker's book on the Coptic accounts of the resurrection (4 gospels and 1 Cor. 15) in RBL. This is the published version of her Salzburg doctoral dissertation. Kreinecker has also been involved in preparing transcriptions of Sahidic mss of John for the IGNTP.

Codex Bezae Digitization

As we reported several years ago (here), a transcription and translation of Codex Bezae is already on-line at this site compiled by Sylvie Chabert d'Hyères (I don't know about the quality of this material), but now, due to a large donation, we can hope for a digitization of the codex following the paths of Codex Sinaiticus.

The Telegraph now reports that the former businessman Dr Leonard Polonsky has donated a neat sum of £1.5m that will be used by Cambridge University Library to first create an infrastructe and then start digitising the vast collection of 600-year-old institution.

The first stage of the digitization project is called "Foundations of Faith" which, as the name suggests, will focus on the religious collections, among which we find some of the world's most ancient Qur'ans, the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection (some 193,000 fragments of MSS), and Greek New Testament MSS, including Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis.

Perhaps the excellent scholars at Tyndale House could offer the library their expertise in this process. Speaking about the Cambridge scholars, I recall when I went with Peter Head on a racewalking tour to see Cambridge, and we passed the university library, he told me that the staff there were not to keen on letting people see Codex Bezae nowadays (although they had a good eye to Pete). Apparently, a former professor in Cambridge has left his physical marks on the manuscript, as he has intimately showed the manuscript to his classes during many years (Pete can fill in the details).

HT: Paleojudaica.

CSNTM Expedition 2010 to Greece and Romania

This year's CNSTM expedition when four people, Jeff Hargis, Peter Gurry, Dan Wallace and Noah Wallace, travelled to Rome and Greece to photograph Greek NT MSS in Romania and Greece is just over. Although it started with serious problems with cancelled flights due to the Islandic volcano, and continued with the riots in Athens, it apparently turned into a great success in the end. The community of textual criticism is now eagerly waiting to hear about the new findings. We have already learnt about one previously uncatalogued lectionary, and a bird just whispered in my ear that we can expect many more such MSS, including more news about the pericope of the adulteress, which has been discussed recently on this blog.

If you want to follow and support the important work of CSNTM you can join its Circle of Friends – read more here.

SBL Atlanta Preliminary Program

The Blog world is alight with the news that the preliminary program book for SBL is now available here. Someone will probably make a list of all the TC options.

Theses in Textual Criticism

In this post I would like to collect information about doctoral theses in New Testament textual criticism. My plan is to continuously update the post to become a useful resource, to which there will be a link in the right sidebar under "advice and resources" (we will see if we can update the other resources there too). Therefore I invite collaboration in the comment section to this post (which will help me edit this post in the future).

So I am looking for information about (1) ongoing dissertation work; (2) completed theses in New Testament textual criticism (priority to more recent ones, e.g., from the 90's and onwards); (3) availability (preferably with links). If this is successful, we will end up with a "Virtual Thesis Room" for textual criticism.

In the first "release" of the post I would like to bring the attention to British theses online. It is important to bear in mind the specific character of this thesis system, where the subsequent publication of a thesis is usually in a vastly-improved version taking into account the comments and suggestions of various qualified readers and editors, correcting errors and making the thesis much more considered, readable and accurate. From this aspect, it is not desirable to go back to the original thesis. On the other hand, I can think of several advantages of accessing the original thesis:

1) It may be available online free of charge and so widen the access to research considerably (whereas the published version may be very expensive);

2) It may be identical to the published version (not so usual, but it happens);

3) It may contain much more material, not entirely necessary for the argument, but yet very valuable for other purposes;

4) It may take many years before the thesis is published (e.g., James Royse's work, where the very signficant thesis was published after 25 years).

EThOS – British Theses Online
Already last year ("Freebies Online") I mentioned EThOs, a service from the British Library providing access to British theses online. There are several interesting theses in New Testament textual criticism available for immediate download (after registration). These include:

"The contribution of discourse analysis to textual criticism : a study of the Bezan text of acts."
Author Heimerdinger, J G.
Awarding Institution
University of Wales.Bangor,
Year of Award 1994

"The New Testament Text of St. Cyril of Alexandria"
Author Cunningham, Arthur
Awarding Institution
The University of Manchester
Year of Award 1995

"Codex 1582 and Family 1 of the gospels : the Gospel of Matthew"
Author Anderson, Amy Sue.
Awarding Institution
University of Birmingham
Year of Award 1999

"Codex Sinaiticus, its correctors, and the Caesarean text of the Gospels"
Author Myshrall, Amy Catherine.
Awarding Institution
University of Birmingham
Year of Award 2005

"A textual commentary on Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians"
Author Kloha, Jeffrey John.
Awarding Institution
University of Leeds
Year of Award 2006

"Augustine's citations and text of the Gospel according to John"
Author Houghton, H. A. G.
Awarding Institution
University of Birmingham
Year of Award 2006

eTheses Birmingham
The theses from Birmingham are also available from the eTheses Repository of Birmingham University (e.g., Houghton's dissertation here, where the theses are introduced with a more elaborate title page than EThOS).

Edinburgh Research Archive
Theses from Edinburg University are available in Edinburgh Research Archive. For example:

"Jesus Began to Write: Literacy, the Pericope Adulterae, and the Gospel of John"
Author: Keith, Chris
Issue Date: 2008

In this archive you can also find several online articles and essays in New Testament textual criticism by Larry Hurtado.

Thanks to Hugh Houghton for valuable advice on this post.