Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Georgian mss piccies

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There are beginning to be photos of Georgian biblical mss on the web. There is a great page here, which includes images of various biblical manuscripts including some images of the Adishi (Adysh) Gospels (AD 897). There are also a few images here. The sites seem to focus more on the art work than on the text.

I'd be interested to learn of any more images.

4 comments

  1. Interesting how much more angular Old Georgian is than the modern script, which almost looks like it was designed to be written on palm leaves (as some S Asian languages were).

    There's one thing that has really bugged me for years: hat is a country in Asia doing being named after some guy named George? As near as I can figure out the Georgian name for the country is Sak'art'velo, and the language is called Kartuli. So why does everybody else call it Georgia and Georgian?

    It bugs me. I'd think it would really bug the Georgians.

    And I'm not even Southren.

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  2. Apparently the name Georgian has absolutely nothing to do with St George (the Libyan who became patron saint of England). According to 'The Georgian Language: Quick Facts' file on the excellent site www.armazi.com the name comes from the Old Persian designation of the people there as 'Gurj'.

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  3. Here is a link to Georgian National Center of Manuscripts that has few pictures of Georgian manuscripts:

    http://www.manuscript.ge/index.php?m=15&gid=44

    The director of the center is Buba Kudava. They house a large portion of old Georgian manuscripts.

    Can you point me to some sources that would orient me to the current state of research in this area in the West? I have not been able to find anything beyond brief mentions in Bruce Metzger's book on early versions of NT. I am aware of Arthur Vööbus' books, but have not been able to check it out yet.

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  4. Bacho,

    You should look up Neville J. Birdsall's publications in the field. There is now a collected volume from Gorgias Press.

    Moreover, he gives a good overview in the volume The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: The Status Questionis (eds. Ehrman and Holmes; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995).

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