SBL in San Diego VI: IGNTP Presentation

My next report is from the IGNTP project presentation, led by David Parker. The most significant change in the IGNTP in recent times is of course the collaboration with the INTF in Münster. This collaboration started with the so-called Principio project focused on the Gospel of John (some of the publications are already out/on-line, as reported on this blog). Now this fruitful collaboration will continue in other parts of the New Testament as well and within the framework of the Editio Critica Maior. In addition to volunteering collators in the US and UK there are currently 25 co-workers (not counting the committee). All this also means that the IGNTP is no longer an exclusively American/British undertaking, but international, better reflecting the name.

Klaus Wachtel from the INTF in Münster announced some very good news in the session. Looking back, he stated that it took the INTF 10 years merely to edit the Catholic Letters. Now, however, given the co-operation with IGNTP and funding for 23 years (sic) by a grant from Academy of Sciences in Germany, the plan is to get the whole work done in these 23 years!

Naturally, the work will proceed through several stages:

Stage 1: INTF+IGNTP, Gospel of John (to 2013);
Stage 2: INTF+IGNTP, Pauline (to 2026);

Unfortunately, the presentation went so fast that I did not have time to note stage 3, but it included Revelation (2031). (I know that Jan Krans took a picture of the slide so he can fill in [PMH: see now here]). During this time the INTF will also complete the ECM for the rest of the Gospels and Acts (the latter I believe is another collaborational project). Wachtel also took the opportunity to announce that there will be a colloquium in Münster after the SNTS, 2008 (which, BTW is in Lund, Sweden). The colloquium will focu on the CBGNT, and other notions such as the "initial text", Ausgangstext, etc. The editors of the ECM are very aware that the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), that plays a vital role in the new edition needs to be explained and evaluated by other text-critics and scholars, hence the colloquium. Wachtel also mentioned a few words about the NT transcripts on-line. The number of transcriptions on-line is constantly growing, and the website will eventually include both Greek MSS, versions and patristic evidence.

Then David Parker presented "The virtual manuscript room" which will provide an environment for working with manuscripts (far wider than just the NT, it will contain MSS of any text in any language), i.e. images, digitized microfilm, transcriptons, fully searchable databases with bibliography (something like a virtual Kurzgefasste Liste), paleographical and codicological data, textual data and analyses, discussions, etc. It will be possible to go directly from the eletronic edition (like the NT transcript prototype) into the virtual manuscript room.

Anyone can participate! It is a collaborative concept (cf. Wikipedia) where areas of manuscript research will be "colonized". But some areas will need some kind of ackreditation. The initial structures of the "colony" are being created in Birmingham and Münster. The INTF has funding for two posts for two years to develop the GNT manuscript content.

Thus, primary resources will become available everywhere in the world. This will give opportunity to develop collaborative projects which will catalogue large populations of MSS, e.g. the Latin Vulgate, MSS of John Chrysostom. It will provide a common forum for full-time manuscript scholars.

Then presentations followed from a number of scholars working with various areas of the IGNTP of John. I will just list them shortly below:

Ulrich Schmid: the majuscule book and website
Jon Balserak: Vetus Latina Iohannes (=the Verbum project).
Christina M. Kreinecker (an associate of Karl-Heinz Schüssler at the University of Salzburg: Transcription of some 20 Coptic MSS containing the Gospel of John
Peter Williams: Old Syriac; Andreas Juckel: Peshitta, Harclean with retroversion

Further research on the Greek material
Alison Welsby: Family 1 in the Gospel of John
Jac Perrin: Family 13 in the Gospel of John
Chris Jordan: the lectionaries in the Gospel of John (focus on 8-11th century)
Rod Mullen: Greek Patristic Evidence
Bruce Morrill: methodological questions like comparison of the Claremont Profile Method, with the Teststellen-method.