New ICC Volume on 1 Peter

I don't know if anyone's seen a copy of the new ICC volume on 1 Peter by Travis B. Williams and David G. Horrell. I haven't, but I know its expected to be a major contribution. What caught my attention in a recent review was this comment:

The introduction alone is monograph-length and exhaustive on its covered topics (1:1–297). From the beginning, the scholarly value of this commentary is apparent. Williams and Horrell first survey cutting-edge text criticism to establish their method for determining the text of 1 Peter for their commentary (1:2–20). They adopt the recent Coherent-Based Genealogical Method (CGBM) of text criticism, and they critically engage the Editio Critica Maior (based on the CGBM), which distinguishes this 1 Peter commentary from others. Indeed, one of the many strengths of this commentary is its lengthy discussion of text critical matters in each text unit of 1 Peter. This commentary is the most thorough resource for people conducting text criticism of 1 Peter to consult.

I generally find textual comments in commentaries disappointing and redundant if one has read Metzger's commentary. But this sounds like it could be a genuine and welcome exception. Anyway, if anyone has put eyes on it and has thoughts, I'd be happy to hear what you think of its text criticism. 

Peter Rodgers Reviews James Voelz on Mark

In a recent Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the blog’s own Peter Rodgers has reviewed the first volume of James Voelz’s commentary on Mark. It’s not often that a commentary review mentions textual criticism (or has warrant to!), but when the commentary is by Voelz and the review is by Rodgers, we get lucky. Here’s the relevant portion:

Textual critics will welcome Voelz’s full treatment of variant readings for each section. His “spiral method” for making judgments on readings (p. 25) appears to give equal weight to both external and internal criteria in making judgments on textual matters. His preference for manuscript B (Vaticanus), however, leads him to prefer this manuscript as “a strong witness to the characteristics of Marcan Greek” (p. 25). This procedure normally serves well but must not be followed slavishly. For example, Mark’s use of “immediately,” a persistent Marcan peculiarity, should have overridden V.’s omission of the particle on the strength of B and allies (see 7:35). His commendable willingness to depart from NA28 should have allowed him to entertain or at least mention the conjecture in 8:26, “don’t say anything into the Village, which alone honors another strong feature of Marcan usage: the use of “into” (εἰς) where “in” (ἐν) is expected. Moreover, the recently developed “Coherence-based Genealogical Method,” together with the salient features of Marcan usage, should give pause to anyone who wishes to emphasize one manuscript (even one so excellent as B). To do so is ultimately to neglect the complexity of the whole manuscript tradition.

You can read the rest in CBQ 80 (2018): 540–542.

Birmingham Colloquium Programme

The History and Text of New Testament Commentaries

The provisional timetable is now available for the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium, to be held on 2nd-4th March 2015, and is included in this message below.

Booking continues to be open for a couple of weeks: please use the form which can be downloaded from:
http://arts-itsee.bham.ac.uk/itseeweb/conferences/9Coll-booking.pdf

We hope to welcome you to Birmingham in March.
Hugh Houghton (here via an email)


Monday 2nd March

From 2pm:  Registration
2.30pm   Welcome
2.45pm   Ronald Heine, “Origen’s Gospel Commentaries”
3.40pm   Carl J. Berglund, “Quotation practices in Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John: How dependable are his quotations of John, Paul and Heracleon?”
4.30pm  Christina Kreinecker, “The Biblical Text in Rufinus’ Translation of Origen’s Commentary on Romans”
5.00pm  Rory P. Crowley, “Justin’s Dialogue 88 and His Commentaries on the Baptism Material: Implications for the Variant Form of the Heavenly Voice in Luke 3:22”
5.30pm  Rosalind MacLachlan, “The Context of Commentary: Non-Biblical Commentaries in the Early Christian Period”

Tuesday 3 March

9.00am   Lukas J. Dorfbauer, “The Rediscovery of a Supposedly Lost Fourth-Century Work: Bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia and his Commentary on the Gospels”
9.45am   Susan Griffith, “Sources and texts in Ambrose’s Commentary on Luke”
10.15am  Thomas O’Loughlin, “Capitula as commentary in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-7:28): the implicit exegesis in Latin division systems
11.15am  Shari Boodts & Gert Partoens, “The critical edition of Florus of Lyons’ Expositio epistolarum beati Pauli apostoli. State of the art and new results.”
11.45am   Maria Valeria Ingegno, “Patristic Sources for the Pauline Epistle Commentary of Gilbert de la Porée”
12.15pm   Alexander Andrée, “Peter Comestor and the Glossa 'ordinaria' on the Gospels”

Afternoon excursion to Worcester

Wednesday 4 March

9.00am   Gilles Dorival, “Biblical catenae”
10.00am  Klaus Wachtel, “Coherence and History: Commentary Manuscripts in Acts and the Catholic Letters”
10.30am  John Gram and Bruce Morrill, “Parsing Paul: Layout and Sampling Divisions in Pauline Commentaries”
12 noon  Will Lamb, “Catenae and the Art of Memory”
12.45pm  Dora Panella, “Jesus’ Post-resurrection appearances in 1Cor 15:5-8 and their interpretation in the catenae of Oecumenius, Theophylact and Zygabenus.”

2.15pm  Matthias Schulz, “Catena Manuscripts in the Coptic Tradition – An Overview”
2.45pm  Carol Downer, "A consideration of some texts from de Lagarde's Coptic Catena"
3.00pm  Carla Falluomini, “The citations of the Gothic New Testament in the Skeireins commentary” 
4.00pm  Garick V. Allen, “The Scholia in Apocalypsin: The Edition of P. Tzamalikos (2013) and Scriptural Interpretation in Manuscript 2351”
4.30pm  Agnès Lorrain, “Theodoret’s text of Romans”
5.00pm  Jan Krans “Romans in the Hands of Radical Commentators”
5.30pm  Concluding round table

7.00pm  Colloquium dinner with address by Prof. Gordon Campbell.

This timetable will also be available at:
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/itsee/news/2015/birmingham-colloquium-2015-programme.aspx

Free Baker Commentary on James by Robert H. Gundry

Bryan Dyer notified me last week that Baker Academic offers some free commentaries (9, 16, 23 January):

New E-book Shorts from Robert Gundry’s Commentary on the New Testament

Baker Academic is proud to announce new ebook shorts from Robert H. Gundry.

In these verse-by-verse commentaries taken from Commentary on the New Testament, Robert Gundry offers a fresh, literal translation and a reliable exposition of every book of the New Testament.

Students and scholars will welcome Gundry’s nontechnical explanations and clarifications, and readers at all levels will appreciate his sparkling interpretations. Priced from $1.99 to $5.99 these affordable and convenient resources are available wherever ebooks are sold.

As we celebrate the release of this series, Baker Academic will be making selected entries from this commentary series free for one day only.

On Monday January 9th, Gundry’s commentary on Ephesians will be free to download for 24 hours on Amazon, CBD, and Barnes & Noble.

This will be followed by other selections made free to download on January 16th and 23rd.

Today's commentary is on the Letter of James (Amazon).

New Commentary on Hebrews

Finally, my new commentary on Hebrews is out (in Swedish), With Eyes Fixed on Jesus: The Epistle to the Hebrews. Tomorrow we will have a release party at Örebro Theological Seminary, when I will present the commentary, be interviewed, and hopefully sign some copies.

The commentary is the fifth in the Swedish commentary series Nya testamentets budskap (The Message of the New Testament). I would characterize it as an intermediate level commentary.

For Scandinavian readers who want to order the book, go here (Sweden); here (Norway); here (Denmark); here (Finland).

A Commentary on Hebrews

Right now I am working on a commentary on Hebrews in the series Nya Testamentets Budskap (NTB). I have just entered chapter 11. It is a brief popular level commentary with focus on the message ("budskap"=message) and theology of Hebrews and its application today. The scope and format is something like New International Biblical Commentary but without the notes. To some degree I deal with issues of translation, but the basis is the official Swedish translation Bibel 2000 (completed in 2000). There is practically no room for text-critical discussion – the scholar who wrote on the Gospel of John (the book to the left in the image) did include two brief paragraphs on the Pericope of the Adulteress. Perhaps I should double his amount and pick two passages then; after all, textual criticism is my thing.

If you were to choose one text-critical problem of exegetical signficance in Hebrews what would you pick?