Bird reviews Swanson

A new review by our co-blogger Michael Bird has just been published in Review of Biblical Literature (here).

Bird reviews Reuben Swanson’s New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines against Codex Vaticanus: 2 Corinthians. The review ends with the following lines:

“The vast amount of work and detail that has gone into this book on the text of 2 Corinthians is quite breathtaking. Swanson’s New Testament Greek Manuscripts have been around for quite some time and are a resource that benefit scholars and students who are interested in the textual history of the New Testament and the sociology of that textual history as well. His volume on 2 Corinthians is a commendable addition to that series.”

British Library Conference on Illuminated Manuscripts

The British Library in partnership with The Centre for Manuscript Studies, Institute of English Studies, University of London and The Research Centre for Illuminated Manuscripts, Courtauld Institute, present

Treasures (British Library Conference Centre)

2 - 3 July 2007 KNOWN AND UNKNOWN

2 July The Bedford Hours: Owners and Illuminators
14.00 Speakers: Eberhard König, Catherine Reynolds, Patricia Stirnemann, Jenny Stratford and Roger Wieck, followed by a panel discussion

18.00 Keynote address: John Lowden, Researching Illuminated Manuscripts in the Digital Era

3 July Treasure: The British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
10.00 Speakers: Michael Gullick, Sandy Heslop, Mara Hofmann, Anne Korteweg, Philippe Palasi, Stella Panayotova and David Rundle

REGISTRATION FEE: £35 Standard £15 Students
To register, contact Teresa Harrington (teresa.harrington@bl.uk)
British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

New update to the Kurzgefasste Liste

On the web-page of the INTF (see "links" on the sidebar) another update ("Fortführung") of the Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (ed. Kurt Aland et al.) was posted in December, which reveals several newly registered manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

Included are:

Papyri: P100-118
Uncials: 0307-0318
Minuscules: 2857-2880
Lectionaries: L2404-L2436

One of the recently registered MSS is the uncial lectionary L2435 which I happened to discover in the binding of L1126. I was going to collate Jude in L1126 when suddenly I saw on the first frames on the microfilm some obscure but visible majuscule text. Then I had to leave Jude for two days... With some deciphering, concordance-work, etc, I could identify the texts found both on the first and last pages in the binding of L1126, and see how the texts from Matt, Mark and Luke belonged in the same period of the ecclesiastical calendar.

Extended Desktop

Windows has a feature called Extended Desktop which I think is a must-have for people working with the texts of the Bible in general, and Textual Criticism in particular. The feature allows you to view applications on an additional monitor. Digital photographs of manuscripts can be viewed at the same time as digital transcriptions. The setup is ideal for cutting and pasting, developing databases, and writing papers and emails in situations where there is a second digital document involved. The switching between applications which is otherwise necessary only serves to multiply errors and make these processes more arduous. Microsoft has an information/setup page here. Secondary CRT monitors are readily available with the advent of the cheap flat screen, so you can probably do this for free.

More TC 12 (2007)

Jan Krans announces here further additions to TC 12. Good to see more OT material.

Caesarean discussion example, Mt 27:46

The Caesarean discussion in this week's blog opens up an interesting 'bubble' in textual history. Something is there, and early, even if not a full-fledged family like the Alex-Newtons or the Westerleys. For the meantime, this 'group' raises interesting readings at times. Gergesenes, et al., of Mk5:1, Luke 8:26, Mat 8:28 has been raised. Here is another interesting text with potential local colour.

Mathew 27:46 ηλει ηλει λαμα σαβαχθανει
HLEI HLEI LAMA SABAXQANEI [theta, fam1]

The Alex family is usually rejected as an assimilation to Mark, 'cepting WH.
The West family is usually rejected as an assimilation to Psalm22 Heb.
UBS/NA go with Byz/Majority as the only family preserving a Marcan//Matthean distinction. It is not commonly pointed out that they are following Byz, here. (Yes, you're welcome, Maurice.)

But the 'Caesarean' group may be preserving an earlier form of this reading in Matthew. It preserves the form of LAMA that is more fitting with HLEI. It also preserves the uncial-age spelling criterion that Pete Williams might be developing (Yes?), -EI in HLEI and SABAXQANEI. Additionally, the first 'A' vowel in SABAXQANEI is recording a shortened 'shva', which could support reading LAMA as לְמָה 'lema Aramaic'. The textual point is simply that LAMA is distinct and potentially old/original. (As mentioned, לָמָה lama Hebrew is the most fitting with HLEI אֵלִי.)

Do we credit the 'Caesarean Group' with a priority reading here?
(Too bad P45 Matthew didn't have chapt 27! And we need to remember that theta and fam1 are late artifacts.)

Anyway, I went that way in my November 2006 ETS paper. It may not be published for 2-3 years. So I have time to equivocate.

[[Of course, I read HLEI as Hebrew, not Aramaic, on the grounds that its appearance in the later targum tradition is likely a midrashic signal and not natural Aramaic in any case. Similarly for an Aramaic magic incantation. Such environments do not show that HLEI was a natural option in Aramaic. (For different reasons I argued that Mark was raising a midrashic allusion in his ELWI אֱלָהִי version.)]]