Three new verses in Romans 14

In a recent conversation with Bruce Morill on the indexing of a Romans manuscript (GA 1506), he pointed out that I had indexed a particular page as Rom 14:23-15:8, though the correct indexing is Rom 14:23; 16:25-27; Rom15:1-8. Of course he was right, but it made me think about how just this way of numbering verses is.

It is a well known textual issue that most manuscripts have the verses that are numbered 16:25-27 in our modern editions at the end of Romans 14. And just by numbering them as part of chapter 16 we are making a judgement call.

The solution is obvious. We need Romans 14:24-26. Not just so because it is easier to index all those manuscripts that have text at this place, but also because this reflects the Bibles that were used for hundreds of years. And if I wanted to sound a little more contemporary, I could say things such as that we need these verse numbers as a matter of respect to the actual artefacts we are working with. Or, Why impose our theories on these documents?

On checking this phenomenon in some editions, I found, not unsurprisingly, that there is at least one edition out that contains Romans 14:24-26, the Byzantine Textform edition by our own Maurice Robinson (congratulations, you beat me to it). And for a moment I thought we had something similar in von Soden as well. Look at this page, where we have a note on a verse 24:

But alas, this is a wandering note that got lost here and perhaps should have been placed at Romans 8:26.

Still, we need Romans 14:24-26, regardless whether we believe that the words found also in 16:25-27 should be there. Time to end this colonial nonsense and give a home back to the dispossed.

NT.VMR 2.0

All great movies have a sequel.  Like a Terminator returning from the future to change the course of history, the Virtual Manuscript Room has now officially reappeared with a new scholarly edge.  The old VMR (1.0) was like the musuem that you visit to gawk at the manuscripts.  The new VMR (2.0) is a laboratory, designed to house scholarly activity online.  Whereas earlier scholars relied upon technical support to upload images and transcriptions, the newer version allows even the slowest of us to manage our own digital editions.  (I will launch my own edition of the Sahidic Apocalypse in the Fall).

The new VMR offers extensive possibilities for discussing and sharing manuscripts.  It's Facebook meets a cyborg-reanimated Bruce Metzger robot.  You want to show your friend a page of Sinaiticus.  No problem.  A page with a transcription -- easy.  Has a paragraph break got you all riled up, and you need to tell the world about it? You can learn more from the following instruction video or visit the VMR and experience the raw power for yourself. You will need to create an account to gain full access. Do not forget to check out the Coptic Apocalypse manuscripts.



Here is the official announcement from the VMR nerve center in Münster:

NTVMR 2.0 Announcement

The New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR) from the Institute for New Testament Text Research (INTF) is a community portal for scholarly research of New Testament Greek manuscripts.  For decades, the INTF (producers of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament) has housed the most comprehensive collection of manuscript resources for Greek New Testament studies, and now this resource is finally coming online for public access.  Over 2.1 million pages have been cataloged with nearly half a million images published in cooperation with holding institutes around the world, including P45, P46, and P47 from The Chester Beatty Library and University of Michigan, The Freer Gospels from the Smithsonian Institute, and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus reordered from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

This is the first public invitation to join this portal, make use of these scholarly resources, and contribute to this public repository of New Testament manuscript research.

Where to find ancient manuscripts?

Some recent examples confirm Head's rule - that the best place to look for ancient manuscripts is in a library (previous examples include P52, Luther's lectures on Romans, the Archimedes Palimpsest):

The discovery of an ancient Torah scroll in an Italian university library (mis-catalogued)

The discovery of a letter by Robert the Bruce in the British Library

Up-date: Ben Witherington III finds Lightfoot's notes on Acts (in a library!)

When a correction is perhaps not a correction

Today I hit two places where the CNTTS apparatus claims that a manuscript has a correction, but where I had severe doubts in both cases. Not that I disagreed that the 'extra' words were written in between the lines, but not every interlinear addition is a correction.

The first is in minuscule 424, now helpfully accessible on the VMR (image of relevant page here).
The CNTTS apparatus gives for Galatians 3:19 μεσιτου] μωαεως 424cor. When I look at the actual image I think I can see μωσεως written above μεσιτου rather than μωαεως, which would save the addition from being nonsense. But is this really intended to be a correction? First of all, 424 is a commentary manuscript with lots of interesting things going on and with lots of scholarly material (explanation of the Hebrew names and other things I haven't had time to have a look at). It is not uncommon in such manuscripts to gloss certain words, and 'Moses' might be just such an explanatory gloss. There are two other glosses nearby. At 3:18 we find εχαριστο above κεχαρισται; and at 3:19 επηγγειλατο above επηγγελται, and according to Swanson this is both times the reading of minuscules 6 and 1739. Still, within 424 it is possible that we are dealing with a gloss that has made it into the main text of these manuscripts.

The second case was Galatians 4:18 where the CNTTS database has this: τεκνα] τεκνα θεου 1739cor (image here). Again the 'correction' in the shape of a nomen sacrum is there, but again, something different may be going on.



This time I suspect that it has to do with the start of the lectionary reading.
This is the main text of 1739 ὑμεῖς δέ, ἀδελφοί, κατὰ Ἰσαὰκ ἐπαγγελίας τέκνα ἐστέ. However, the start of the lectionary reading is indicated at κατα.



With our little addition we would get a perfect reasonable start for a lection. Κατὰ Ἰσαὰκ ἐπαγγελίας τέκνα θεοῦ ἐστέ.
I am not sure at all about this one, and would welcome anyone (preferably with some knowledge of lections) to shoot this idea down.

A note on a spelling issue in Philippians 4.3

There are three spellings in the manuscripts:  

• suzuge: P16 (suz[uge); )^* B D¹ E P Y (gnhsie kai suzuge) 075; and (with the word order: suzuge gnhsie): K L 049 056 0142 0150 0151;  
• sunzuge: P46 )^2[=ca] A D^*.c [text for Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott & Hort; Nestle 1st & 2nd ed.]; 
• sunzugai: F G 

(evidence from Tischendorf and Wachtel & Witte, Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus. II Die Paulinischen Briefe Teil 2, 120). 

It is now customary to regard suzuge – with the assimilation of a n to the following consonant - as the original spelling (so NA27&28); and sunzuge  - involving the removal of such assimilation so as to make clear the force of the sun- compound – as characteristic of tendencies within the NT manuscript tradition (see BDF §19; cited approvingly by e.g. Reumann, Philippians, 608; the early Nestle editions printed sunzuge which was changed at some point [before the 25^th edition] to suzuge – on the other hand Moulton, Grammar vol. 2, 104f is more cautious, based partly on Westcott & Hort: ‘the best MSS usually concur in retaining sun and e0n unchanged before p, y, b, f, k, g, x, z, s, l, m’, ‘Appendix 2. Notes on Orthography’, NTOG, 156); the F G reading would on this view be a phonetic variation from the non-assimilated spelling. An update to Gregory, Prolegomena, 73-76 (and more generally) in light of the NT papyri would be a desideratum, noting especially Moulton’s comment: ‘How far the oldest uncials in this matter represent the autographs must be left an open question.’, p. 105).

Scrivener 1859

The pursuits of Scriptural criticism are so quiet, so laborious, that they can have few charms for the votary of fame, or the courtier of preferment: they always have been, perhaps they always must be, the choice employment mainly of those, who, feeling conscious (it may be) of having but one talent committed to their keeping, seek nothing so earnestly as TO USE THAT ONE TALENT WELL.

Ephesians 6.21 in Sinaiticus and NA28

Eph 6.21 in the NA28 has probably one of the most complex things ever seen in an apparatus. Whereas NA27 simply cited Sinaiticus in support of the txt at the word order variant: PANTA GNWRISEI UMIN TUXIKOS; NA28 now has: ALEPH in support of the same reading, but qualified with: '(*.2a).1.2b'. This, while entirely accurate, is possibly over-kill - offering four different slices of the history of the manuscript all ostensibly in support of the same variant; but the situation is interesting.

It is pretty clear that the original of Sinaiticus [labelled * in NA28] had PANTA U (which was caught as a mistake in the act of writing and dotted or crossed through [labelled 1 in NA28; S1 in SinProj]) then GNWRISEI UMIN. A subsequent corrector [labelled 2a in NA28; Ca in SinProj] added MIN between the lines (correcting the text towards the Maj. text, but leaving the following UMIN in place, resulting in PANTA UMIN GNWRISEI UMIN TUXIKOS). A further corrector [labelled 2b in NA28; CA in SinProj] rubbed out the MIN, and either dotted or crossed through the U.

It seems to me likely that the exemplar of Sinaiticus had the word order GNWRISEI UMIN, if it was otherwise there would have been no reason to stop and self-correct. Thus Sinaiticus shows the type of word order variation originating independently. So Sin* is rightly cited in support of the NA28 reading. Possibly Sin2a really meant to correct the text towards the Maj. reading, and could possibly have been cited on the other side (but within brackets). But probably the simplest solution would have been to leave it as it was in NA27! It is certainly one that will now take a bit of explaining to students.

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).