Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Earliest consistent witnesses to NT accents
If I were looking to make a top ten list of witnesses to the NT accentuation and breathings, which witnesses should I include? I'm guessing that the accentuation in 03 would be important. What is the witness with the earliest complete accentuation of an NT book?
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Accents are secondary in B. But may be a useful base text since it is accenting a primitive text and covers most of the NT.
ReplyDeleteLater majuscules have accentuation and pretty much all the minuscules, so there is plenty of choice.
One option would be to choose good representatives of the different types/families.
Of course we all know that the accents in 03 are later than the text, but my guess is that 03 paratext is earlier than most.
ReplyDeleteHerein lies the problem. I can easily find a list of mss according to age, but I cannot find a list of accents in mss according to age. What would I do if I wanted to identify the 10 earliest witnesses to accents?
To which century does our earliest accentual paratext belong?
The problem with 03 is that we don't know when the reinforcement/accentuation of it happened. It could be anywhere between say the 10th and 15th CE.
ReplyDeleteIs an "accentual paratext" the same thing as "a text with accents"?
ReplyDeleteBased on a quick look through Hatch:
Claromontanus (accents added by later hand)
Coislinianus (H 015) (accents added by later hand)
0105 (VII acc. Hatch; Aland has X): accents present but not consistent
0106 (VII) (accents added by later hands)
E 07 (VIII): accents and breathings
L 019 (VIII): accents and breathings
Wa 0115 (VIII): accents and breathings
from this point they mostly have accents, lack of accents becomes exceptional (e.g. Koridethi, Augiensis, 0211
Presuming that the introduction of accentuation is coincident with the retracing of the letters of B. Tischendorf proposed that this was earlier rather than later on the basis of the type of minuscule lettering occasionally used.
ReplyDeleteExamples of this (from Tischendorf, p. xxvii) include MOU at Luke 1.34; ESTI TO ONOMA at Luke 1.63; TOU at Luke 2.22; additions at Luke 2.36; NAZARET at Luke 4.16.
I'm not sure whether this is really conclusive. Granted these all come from the same corrector (taken on trust for the moment); then it is not clear what proves that it is the same as the one doing the re-tracing; although the re-tracing of the letters is unlikely to have preceded these changes (because the corrector is easily able to write over the top of the text, esp. clear re Luke 1.63 and 4.16 (at least)).
BUT, the style of accent introduced at Luke 1.63 is most unlike the style of the other accents around (which are generally attributed to the same scribe!).
Thanks. There is clearly a lot of work to be done to identify the approximate dates of 'later hands'.
ReplyDeleteBy 'accentual paratext' I mean the accents of the text with accents, not the text.
If I were looking to make a top ten list of witnesses to the NT accentuation and breathings, which witnesses should I include? I'm guessing that the accentuation in 03 would be important
ReplyDelete