Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Another Manuscript Quiz: NT Majuscules

39
1.


source


2.




source


3.





source


4.





source


5.




source


6.






source


7.







source


8.



source


9.





source


10.





source

Rules: 1 point for identification of passage; 1 point for identification of manuscript; 1 point for good observations about unique scribal characteristics
Please only three point-scoring attempts per person per day (leave some for others to have a go at).
Up-date: The identifications are listed in the comments. I have added links to the sources (normally fuller pictures).

39 comments

  1. 9. Codex Bezae (D 05), the well-known variant at Luke 6:4; a remarkable form of upsilon; the Latin of the verse shimmering through; use of sense-lines but not consistently; etc.

    <shameless plug>See the Amsterdam NT Blog for a handy resource which gives you direct access to the Ebind images of D (05).</shameless plug>

    ReplyDelete
  2. 7 looks like Codex Sinaiticus (aleph 01) to me, but I'm blowed if I can identify the passage.

    ReplyDelete
  3. #1 is Romans 7:7. I don't know what manuscript. But it does not vary from NA27. I notice that it starts a new line after eroumen, perhaps indicating what the scribe interprets as direct discourse. It also has a puncuation mark at the same point, maybe a semicolon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The same manuscript also appears to have accent marks, unlike the rest.
    Ok. I think I'm only at an attempted 2 points so far (as long as all my observations about the ms count for one point altogether).
    So for my 3rd for the day I'll say that #6 is Matt 1:1-2; and I'll also cheat and make an illegal observation about it, which is that it doesn't spell the article "ton" or (as far as I can tell) give any clear indication how it is to be inflected. But I can't identify this ms either.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 5. Freer-Logion, i.e. Mk 16,15 in 032. Script: sloping pointed majuscule, dated to the 4/5th century by Sanders, still (though surprisingly) suported by Cavallo/Maehler. Despite their palaeographic authority - IMHO - this dating needs to be reconsidered!

    ReplyDelete
  6. It is a new day here in Amsterdam, so I give it another shot.
    #6 is Codex Vaticanus (B 03), indeed at Mt 1:1-2. Accents are a later addition. To the left (not visible on the image) is a large letter B, which doubles somehow the first letter of "BIBLOS". The N of TON is abbreviated (end of the third line).
    #7 is indeed Codex Sinaiticus (01), at Num 24:2. There is a nice small letter E squeezed in at the end of the second line.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Everyone is doing well so far:

    1. Rom 7.7; but what manuscript?
    5. is W/032, soon to be redated by Ulrich. Look forward to that. I find the sloping majuscule pretty hard to pin down, and as currently understood it is hard to track the development of the hand over about four centuries. So perhaps Ulrich will pioneer a new schema for the sloping majuscule. [I presume that you may be pushing W a couple fo centuries later?]
    6. is B/03; Matt 1.1; yes.
    7. is Sinaiticus; bit of the new finds; Numbers.
    9. is Bezae at Luke 6.4: 'on that day having seen someone working on the sabbath, he said to him "man, if you know what you are doing you are blessed; but if you do not know [what you are doing] then you are accursed and a transgressor of the Torah." Wild eh?

    So you've got most of the easy ones.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Here is my only interseting tidbit: 3, 6, 7 have iron-based ink, the rest appear to be carbon. Sorry, not that interesting...

    3 Rev 4:10 (note the "24")
    7 Num 24:2
    8 Matt 20:16
    9 Sneaky Trick

    ReplyDelete
  9. 10. The interesting and non-canonical introductory formula, "For the Lord says in the Gospel", found here at 2 Clem 8.5 in Codex Alexandrinus. This manuscripts's enlargement and placement of beginning letters in the left margins may make it the first known manuscript to do so, from what I can tell.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Wild eh?"

    Eh mate - Aussie

    ReplyDelete
  11. #4 = Sangallensis = Delta/037; Phm.1:20; Greek with (Old) Latin interlinear.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ahhhhhh. So that's what's going on in #4.
    Could #8 be enlarged?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Peter Head:
    I find the sloping majuscule pretty hard to pin down, and as currently understood it is hard to track the development of the hand over about four centuries. So perhaps Ulrich will pioneer a new schema for the sloping majuscule. [I presume that you may be pushing W a couple fo centuries later?]

    I'm afraid, Peter, no new schema for the sloping majuscule, yet. B. L. Fonkič and F. B. Poljakov, “Paläographische Grundlagen der Datierung des Kölner Mani-Kodex,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 83 (1990): 22–30 has caught my attention. They've offered a radical redating of W by means of comparison with dated 9th century examples of sloping majuscule (e.g., Uspenskij-Psalter). After closer inspection, however, I was not convinced by their radical approach.

    Curiously enough, again after closer inspection I've realized that the original dating by Sanders isn't convincing either. Even more perplexing appears the elaborate discussion of the three different types of sloping scripts by Cavallo/Maehler. They keep the early dating, i.e. early 5th (perhaps late 4th) c. for W but in subsequent discussions of other sloping hands they effectively demolish Sanders' case for an early date without substantially substituting it, IMO.

    That's were I ended up thus far. I simply point out the inconsistencies of the cases for early dating as well as for late dating. If I were to venture a guess as to the date of W, I would say that so far I've found nothing in the two hands of W that strongly calls for a date prior to 6th c.

    Generally, I must confess, I find it hard to compare sloping scripts written on papyrus with those written on parchment. I can only gues, but I think that problem causes a lot of confusion when trying to elaborate a convincing schema for the sloping majuscule which is said to be the most common book-hand from (late) antiquity throughout the (early) Byzantine era.

    ReplyDelete
  14. You guys are doing well so far.

    10. Yes. Alexandrinus, from 2 Clement (a bit of a trick I know, almost the last page).

    4. Maurice is right only for 2 out of 3. [#4 is a mess by the way; but there is a project out there studying it even at this moment ... well maybe]

    Re. 8. I might be able to enlarge the photo, but I can't provide any more of the photo or it would give things away (big clue here).

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for the bibliography Ulrich. It is very relevant to the dating of 0311.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Christian is definitely right in matching #8 with Matt 20:16 (although I can't see how he got it, I never would have been able to read it unless he had already suggested that and I could compare the letters in #8 that I can make out with what's in NA27).
    But I can only match up the first line of the image with that passage. The second line doesn't seem to match Matt 20:17. I also checked all the similar passages with protoi and eschatoi in case this might have been an assimilation. But I can't find anything in any of them either that matches the second line of image 8. I think the line starts with the final "toi" from the last eschatoi of the previous line. And I think I can make out a "gar" shortly after that, with about 8 characters in between.

    ReplyDelete
  17. #2 is John 20:29. It spells eoraka with an omicron instead of omega.
    The manuscript is not completely preserved in this section. The only uncial manuscripts I can see in the table from the Alands' book that contain John 20, but only partially preserved, are C, H, and N. From the table in the back of NA27, apparently C does not contain verse 29 at all; H says nothing specific about which verses are preserved--only that it contains the gospels; N does include v. 29, and from the breakdown in NA27 it looks like N is pretty patchy in what it does and doesn't have.
    Since this picture looks like it came from a pretty patchy uncial, I'm going to guess it's N.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oops. I just realized that N is codex Petropolitanus Purpureus, on purple parchment. Pity that it's also pretty patchy.
    I guess I'll change my guess for #2 to H 013.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I cut and pasted 8 into Microsoft Paint, and then zoomed. It was fuzzy, but better.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Eric,

    you may need to check something more recent than Aland & Aland.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "you may need to check something more recent than Aland & Aland."

    OK. I just finished checking the Kurzgefasste Liste. I still can't find any more uncials that would contain John 20:29 in a poorly preserved state. I'm stumped.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I come out of hiding to offer the following:

    If I knew anything about textual criticism, and felt I could ever be justified in attempting to correct an expert, I would say that #4 is Codex Boernerianus.

    Now back to my hole.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Sorry Eric,

    You need the up-dates to the Liste. Follow the links to Munster INTTF from the side bar of the blog.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Well done Daniel Buck. On the money.

    ReplyDelete
  25. But only hard ones are left now.

    ReplyDelete
  26. OK. 24 hours in, here is the summary of solutions so far:
    1. Unknown; Rom 7
    2. Unknown; John 29
    3. Unknown; Rev 4:10
    4. Boernerianus; Phile
    5. W/032; Mark 16
    6. B/03; Matt 1.1f
    7. Aleph/01; Numbers 24
    8. Unknown; Matt 20:16??
    9. Bezae (D/05); Luke 6.4
    10. Alexandrinus (A/02); 2 Clement

    ReplyDelete
  27. And the scores:
    Jan Krans: 6 (capped)
    Steve Walton: 1
    Eric Rowe: 4 (should get extra for effort!)
    Ulrich Schmid: 4 (bonus point for bibliography)
    Christian Askeland: 3 (I like the ink point)
    Ivan Yong: 3
    Maurice Robinson: 2
    Daniel Buck: 1

    ReplyDelete
  28. It is past midnight here in Amsterdam, so I feel free to try yet another one:
    #3 is not Rev 4:10 (nor 5:8 or 19:4) but Rev 11:16; it is two lines of the recto/flesh side of fragment 0308 (P.Oxy. LXVI 4500). You can find the entire image online at the Oxford Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project site; the manuscript itself is indeed listed in the additions to the Kurzgefasste Liste at the INTF site). The (usual) abbreviation of '24' has already been mentioned. Isn't this a prime example of a crisp 'biblical uncial style' (pace Thiede)? Hence 4th century.
    PS: I already identified #2, but I will not post the information till tomorrow, unless of course someone else is quicker.

    ReplyDelete
  29. "You need the up-dates to the Liste. Follow the links to Munster INTTF from the side bar of the blog."
    This is too big of a clue! But it's also a great tip in general anyway. I knew that Dan Wallace had mentioned an online version of die Liste in something he said about his recent book Reinventing Jesus. But I didn't know where it was.
    This tip is sufficient to identify the subject of image #8 as 0309, which includes only two small fragments of John, one of which is 20:28-30.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Ok, #8 is Matt 20:16. This verse includes the addition "polloi gar eisin klhtoi oligoi de eklektoi" in uncials C, D, W, and theta (how I missed this variant earlier I don't know). By comparison with the scripts of those mss in the plates included in Aland and Aland, it appears that it is, in fact, D. And since it turns out that #4 was not D after all, that means surely this one is (after all, Peter wouldn't exclude D from an uncial quiz, since you can't spell "down under" without it).

    ReplyDelete
  31. I take it that Eric means #2 as two lines of fragment 0309 (actually the verso/flesh side), showing part of Jn 20:29.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Yes
    3 = 0308; Rev 11; not so convinced about 'biblical uncial' perhaps.

    2 = 0309; well done Eric, got there in the end.

    But: 8 is not D (yet you are not far from the kingdom)

    So only two left:
    1. Unknown; Rom 7
    8. Unknown; Matt 20:16

    I shall post larger pictures in about 12 hours if they remain unidentified.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Well then, in flagrant violation of the rules:
    #1 is D/06 at Rom 7:17; note the special way a new section begins;
    #8 is C/04 at Mt 20:16, two lines just above the text of Ephraem; the palimpsest aspect explains why the text even here is not easy to read.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I just deleted a rather stupid comment of mine. Blame a lack of sleep.

    ReplyDelete
  35. So Jan,

    How does acknowledging that you are flagrantly disobeying the rules justify such a flagrant disregard for the rules?

    The whole point of the rules was to restrain clever and knowledgeable people like you so that others (just as clever of course, but perhaps still with things to learn about mss) could have a go.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Summary:
    1. Claromontanus (D/06); Rom 7.7
    2. P. Köln, Inv. 806 (0309); John 20.29
    3. P.Oxy. 4500 (0308); Rev 11.16
    4. Boernerianus (G/012); Phile 20
    5. Washingtonianus (W/032); Mark 16.15
    6. Vaticanus (B/03); Matt 1.1f
    7. Sinaiticus (Aleph/01; Numbers 24
    8. Ephraimi Rescriptus (C/04); Matt 20:16
    9. Bezae (D/05); Luke 6.4
    10. Alexandrinus (A/02); 2 Clement 8.5

    ReplyDelete
  37. And the scores:
    Jan Krans: 10 (capped)
    Eric Rowe: 6 (should get extra for effort!)
    Ulrich Schmid: 4 (bonus point for bibliography)
    Christian Askeland: 3 (I like the ink point)
    Ivan Yong: 3
    Maurice Robinson: 2
    Daniel Buck: 1
    Steve Walton: 1

    ReplyDelete
  38. I've up-dated the blog with links to sources if you want to see more of each of these manuscripts.

    ReplyDelete