The H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies (CNTTS), New Orleans, happily announces its receipt of Gordon Fee’s personal textual criticism library. The specialized volumes and other materials have been designated The Gordon D. Fee Collection on the New Testament Text.
The collection is comprised of rare and newer books which Dr. Fee amassed in his half century as a text critic. The collection also includes extensive documentation supporting his work on textual criticism projects.
Noteworthy is Dr. Fee’s collation files on Luke and John, including his signature graphic depiction of the textual variants. The quality of the graphic depiction of the variants in Luke and John is such that the center hopes to digitize the data, make them freely available, and to use them for the center’s own research. Also included are Dr. Fee’s files on the text of various church fathers.
In 2005, Dr. Fee was honored with Evangelical Textual Criticism blog’s Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005 (award; cf. nomination).
In donating his collection, Dr. Fee was passionate that his materials be made available for the advancement of the discipline. In this regard, CNTTS is particularly suited to receive the collection. There are currently nine students working toward a textual criticism PhD at the center’s home at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and 10 part-time researchers at the center. CNTTS has produced its own extensive apparatus of the variants of the Greek New Testament (Bible Works, Accordance), and has commenced a ten year exegetical commentary project on the meaning of the (non-original) variants; the project will be made accessible on the web in due course. CNTTS also cooperates with the International Greek New Testament Project and with the Virtual Manuscript Room project sponsored by the Institut für neuetestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster.
The acquisition was coordinated by James M. Leonard (PhD cand., Cambridge) who is the current recipient of the CNTTS’ post-doctoral research grant as Visiting Scholar. Leonard served as Dr. Fee’s teaching assistant and worked under him in the capacity of Exegesis Assistant at Regent College (1991-1993). Both Leonard and 2008 recipient of the center’s post-doctoral grant Michael Theophilus (PhD, Oxford) studied with Fee at Regent College, Vancouver.
Well done Jim, that sounds like great news all round.
ReplyDeleteHow much information is there in Fee's notes that are not available in the CNTTS module for Accordance and will that information be incorporated into the CNTTS?
ReplyDeleteExcellent news! Thank you Dr Fee for such a forward-looking act of benevolent generosity!! Let's keep textual criticism alive in North America.
ReplyDeleteSo . . . shouldn't the books have gone to Regent College?
ReplyDeleteSure, they could have gone to Regent, or they could have gone to Gordon-Conwell (where he taught before that) but I think they'll do the most good at a school that emphasizes textual criticism and has students who want to study it, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteThe bulk of Dr. Fee's library was given to Regent, an institution which he dearly loved. It will be well used there.
ReplyDeleteNOBTS only received his tc collection. We currently have 9 students doing a PhD in tc who will avail themselves of his resources.
Christian's comment is pertinent. We hope to make premature any pronouncements of the death of a discipline in North America .
Timo, I suspect that almost all of the manuscripts which GDF collated have already been included in the CNTTS apparatus (Accordance, Bible Works).
ReplyDeleteWe may have the collation of one manuscript that is not generally available. I forget its GA designation, but it was a Byz ms that was found at Gordon College (the seminary?).
The CNTTS apparatus contains every variant--even orthographical variants--of all the manuscripts that have been used for the collations, and not just the variants important for establishing the text.
ReplyDeleteOn average, the apparatus for each book is derived from 60 different manuscripts. Thus, if you'd like to find out the 14 different ways Jerusalem is spelled in a given verse, you should check the CNTTS apparatus.)
Thank you, James. I suspected as much.
ReplyDeleteJust to add a bit to what Jim has already said, Jim did most of the work for getting the collection donated to us here in New Orleans, so major kudos go to him on this. We'll put out some more info on this in the near future.
ReplyDeleteOn how the info might be incorporated into the CNTTS Critical Apparatus, we will definitely go through the materials and make use of all that we can, including especially the work that Gordon Fee did on the variation units in Luke and John. As an aside, we are adding quite a number of additional manuscripts to the module for the fall SBL update and are going to bring some more changes within the next 2 years that should enhance it quite a bit more. Some details of what we're working on will be shared at the Birmingham Colloquium on Wed., so I'll post a bit more after that presentation.
Bill, can you tell us how many new manuscripts will be added? Minuscules?
ReplyDeleteTimo, since we're still collating, I can't give a total number at this point. I know we will have at least 20 more, but many only cover a book or two, so that is not 20 more per NT book.
ReplyDeleteChristian Askeland said...
ReplyDelete> Let's keep textual criticism alive in North America.
I think NA could use a few new freshly minted Coptic Studies professors...;)
Thanks Bill. Just one more question. Do you have plans to incorporate fathers and versions at some point in the future? I still dream of a digital database that would have all the relevant information available in one package :)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Tommy's work on Jude could be incorporated to the CNTTS.
ReplyDelete