Saturday, July 29, 2006

Novum Testamentum Patristicum

by at 6
Friday was the last full day at SNTS and I bought about one shelf-worth of books (apologies to my wife, Kathryn). Anyway, on the last evening I got talking to Prof. Martin Meiser, presently at Münster but not at the INTF, and thereby became aware of the project Novum Testamentum Patristicum whose homepage is here. Meiser is preparing the volume on Galatians which should be one of the first to appear (next year). The project does not appear to be particularly directed towards textual criticism, but, nevertheless, its study of Patristic citation of the NT might well provide textual critics with useful information. For some parts it appears that we will have some time to wait. Andreas Merkt, one of the editors, is projected to produce a volume on John 18-21 in 2015, but the rest of John is unassigned. It looks therefore unlikely that the IGNTP will be able to benefit from Novum Testamentum Patristicum for its own edition of John.

6 comments

  1. Anonymous7/30/2006 12:33 am

    If doesn't appear to be the same project that I became aware of about 3 years ago, if it's homepage is in German. There was a Patristic Bible Commentary project going in English, beginning with Mark, that was using the RSV as its base. That being the case, they wouldn't be able to give any Patristic evidence for any uniquely Byzantine readings--an a priori choice that ensured I'll never have any interest in the project.

    Burgon already collated all the patristic citations, but no one appears to be interested in publishing them. Has anyone here dropped by the British Museum to look them over?

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.J. Williams7/30/2006 3:05 pm

    Yes, I've seen Burgon's volumes. I think that I called up 3 of the 16. They're the size of Vaticanus and read like telephone directories. The curator volunteered the comment that they were very rarely consulted. Burgon seems not to have chosen the optimum way to ensure that his work was used.

    ReplyDelete
  3. P.J. Williams7/30/2006 4:35 pm

    Also, they're now in the British Library, not the British Museum.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous8/03/2006 4:07 am

    Obviously Burgon wasn't finished with this project when he died, but it appears to have been too much for anyone to take over, yet.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Peter M. Head8/03/2006 10:25 am

    Isn't part of the point that Burgon collected these citations from inadequate editions, where the cited texts may have been assimilated towards the Majority type text in transmission (both scribal and editorial)?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous8/04/2006 3:08 am

    That point has been raised, but has it ever been addressed specifically to any one of Burgon's 60,000+ citations?

    I for one have never seen a quotation of this work in any text-critical publication or discussion.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )