Friday, March 31, 2006

Anniversaries

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Dave Black dbo notes that we are not far from the five hundredth anniversaries of the Complutensian Polyglot (NT printed 1514; but not published until maybe 1521 or 22) and Erasmus' first edition (Novum Instrumentum, 1516).

Larry Hurtado is working on a project with SBL/BYU/Freer (mentioned here) to mark the centenary of the purchase of the Freer manuscripts in Washington (Freer site & byu page). Scheduled for SBL 2006.

Closer to home we have Mill's edition of the GNT published in 1707 (also the year of his death, exhausted after 30 years of work on the book). Someone in Oxford should really organise a conference to mark this.

I am waiting until 2013 to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of S.P. Tregelles with a series of books and conferences (well, maybe a nice dinner).

What other anniversaries are coming up in the next ten years or so?

14 comments

  1. Is it better to celebrate someone's birth or his death? Or the date of the publication of his major work?
    Or does it really matter?

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  2. This comment uses an inappropriate male pronoun. Blogger software will automatically post a non-offensive version of this comment in 12.5 nanoseconds.

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  3. Is it better to celebrate someone's birth or their death? Or the date of the publication of his or her major (or minor) work (or home-based family supporting activity)?
    Or does this really matter?

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  4. What sort of imperialistic, politically-correct software runs this blog site that won't let you use a masc pronoun when referring to men???!!! The owner should protest to the management (IMHO!).

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  5. That was the best post I think I've seen on this blog. It must have been a prank, surely - I mean, 12.5 nanoseconds?

    Please do not delete it, PJW - it deserves providential preservation.

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  6. Anonymous asked,
    Is it better to celebrate someone's birth or his death? Or the date of the publication of his major work?

    Acc. to Metzger (4th ed), Tregelles's edition of the NT was published in six parts between 1857 and 1872, with a final vol. published posthumously on his behalf by Hort.
    So in this instance, does one celebrete the inauguration or the completion? I suggest dodging the question by celebrating, as Peter proposes, the bicentenary of his birth--if only because I am more likely (deo volente, of course) to be around for that occasion than any of the anniversaries of publication. ;)

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  7. Whoever did this... Well, he should be ashamed of herself.

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  8. If one plans to commemorate text critical births of the year 1813, why stop with Tregelles?

    Make it a triple treat and celebrate the birth in that same year of F. H. A. Scrivener and J. W. Burgon as well.

    We're gonna party like its 1813.

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  9. Brian Walton's Polyglot, 1657 (but was its publication delayed to 1658?). Anyway, it should be celebrated soon.

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  10. The birth of Abraham Lincoln in 1809, whose one and only work of NT textual criticism was snatched out of his hands and thrown in a stove by someone who favored Abe's political prospects, which would have been doomed had his work ever been published.

    OK, so maybe it was literary cricism of the NT rather than textual criticsm, but we'll never know for sure, will we?

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  11. The death (a few months later) of Deistic Creationist Thomas Paine, whose only foray into textual criticism (usually confining himself to a more general criticism of all things Biblical) consisted of an attribution in The Age of Reason (part II, Section 16) of Mark 16:12 to the author of the entire gospel (who, rest assured, he did not believe to be Mark).

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  12. Maurice,

    If 1813 is the birth date of Tregelles, Scrivener and Burgon then we really should have a conflab.

    Pete: what have you got scheduled for ETC blog in 2013? Can we squeeze something in?

    Others: how did they party in 1813? Some of these old guys always seem a little dour in photos. And perhaps these three wouldn't quite have got along.

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  13. Pete: after we've done 2013 we can begin planning for 2057: the anniversary of Walton's Polyglot (we are too late for his birth, which was 1600).

    Soon after that I'll be able to celebrate my own centenary (I'd say d.v. only it must be pretty unlikely that He does!).

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  14. A big cause for celebration: the thousand-year anniversary of Codex Leningradensis coming up in 2008 (or 2009 etc, whichever people prefer)

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