Jan Krans has posted a notice about funding (600,000 Euros) for this project (which includes two PhD students - so get onto Jan if you are thinking about a PhD).
Two PhD students will participate in the project. The first will investigate the second half of the eighteenth century, when the problem of the New Testament text becomes fully visible for the first time. The second will investigate the second half of the nineteenth century, during which many radical proposals for textual emendations were made, especially in the Netherlands. A post-doc researcher will write a general history of New Testament conjectures and conjectural criticism. A database of thoroughly documented important conjectures will be connected to the standard edition of the Greek New Testament (Editio Critica Maior) which is currently being prepared in Münster and Birmingham.
This is awesome!
ReplyDeleteJan told me about the application at the SBL in November. He then had good hopes since it had received the highest possible ranking from external referees.
Uh . . . research about research? Not to be the Eeyore, but doesn't this seem like a lot of money to spend on a rather trivial and dead-end project?
ReplyDeleteYours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
I understand your skepticism, and would encourage you to read Krans' excellent monograph Beyond What is Written. His research offers crucial insight into the history of methodology in New Testament textual criticism. Hopefully, his anticipated database will be the final word on the subject for years to come and will be the basis for a more holistic understanding of the key figures in the field and their approach to the text.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of advantages of studying this kind of material, not only proposed conjectures (which may give new light to a passage regardless of whether one accepts the conjecture or not), but also because these scholars sometimes had access to and collated material that is no longer available to us, whether lost MSS, or parts of MSS now damaged.
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