Check out this slideshow with selected items (including P39) from the Green Collection published on the webpage of Foxnews.
More on the current exhibit, Verbum Domini, in the Vatican on CBN news recently.
A forum for people with knowledge of the Bible in its original languages to discuss its manuscripts and textual history from the perspective of historic evangelical theology.
Wow! In the video, the collection is cited as being valued at 500,000,000$!
ReplyDeleteIt's an exceptional collection, alright.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting if someone with a bit of knowledge of Armenian could examine the Eusebian Canons in that Armenian copy of Mt and Jn (slide #8) and see what Canon 2 looks like toward the end.
Also: in the description for Codex Climaci Rescriptus, the caption states, "Scholars have uncovered this earliest surviving New Testament written in Palestinian Aramaic - the language used in Jesus' household - found on recycled parchment under a layer in this rare manuscript. They did this using a new technology developed by The Green Collection in collaboration with Oxford University."
A similar claim was made previously. But what exactly has been read that was older than what was read by Agnes Lewis? There are a few pages in Codex Climaci Rescriptus that Lewis thought were blank, but Moir affirmed to have very very faint underwriting -- so Scott Carroll very well may have found some additional text, or tidied up some earlier misreadings. But . . . well, does anyone reading this think that what this caption claims has been done, has been done?
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Yes it does seem that the caption for the CCR is a bit misleading* and not as clear as it could be.
ReplyDeleteI would also think the following claim in the news story is a bit over the top, making this MS almost equivalent to Aleph or B:
ReplyDelete"Codex Climaci Rescriptus, one of the earliest-surviving, near-complete Bibles."
Yet cf. the Wikipedia entry for detail about actual contents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Climaci_Rescriptus
Image 14 is clearly from Genesis 32:4-6 (http://oldtestamenttextualcriticism.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/identifying-unknown-manuscripts.html), but I cannot connect it with any manuscript in Lange's Handbuch on the biblical texts. Does anyone know if this is a new fragment, or did I miss something?
ReplyDeleteThe DSS Genesis frg. in image 14 is of Gen.32:3-7, has been known of since at least as early as 2006, subsequently in the collection of Michael Sharpe, and in the Green Collection since about early 2010
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Matthew Hamilton
sideshow
ReplyDeleteThanks Matthew!
ReplyDeleteI saw a news article (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-04-01-Bible_Museum_01_ST_N.htm) claiming that the collection has the earliest known Genesis manuscript!? Is this the same one?
Also, I see on the Passages website that the collection boasts "the second-largest private collection of Dead Sea Scrolls, all of which are unpublished and expected to substantially contribute to an understanding of the earliest surviving texts in the Bible." Two questions:
1) Is there a published catalogue of their DSS holdings?
2) Do you know their publishing timeline, since they claim that all are unpublished?
Drew,
ReplyDeletedetails on the Green Collection's DSS are hard to come by and so unfortunately I don't know the answer to most of your questions.
The Genesis fragment has been dated variously between Herodian to late 1st century AD - so either they have another Genesis frg. or they have exagerated the date of the frg. with Gen.32:3-7
There is no published catalogue but the number of frgs. is less than the Schoyen Collection (that has over 115 frgs. from 33 MSS) but more than 10 - the number at SWBTS. An indication of the number of frgs. they have may be found in an early facebook posting by Scott Carroll (before 3 May 2010) where he stated "Success in Jerusalem--got 7 more unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls (more coming), and tons of other stuff researched some 1-3c silver and gold amulets of great importance with a colleague at Hebrew University. Spent time with a student, too. NOW, off to London for a day to see some manuscripts at Christie's and to pick-up a Gutenberg Bible to carry back to the museum. Now that's a carry-on!!" In early 2010 the collection was still in its early stages so I wonder how many more have been acquired since then.
No ideas on publishing timelime, don't even know who is working on them.
Regards,
Matthew Hamilton
Or perhaps the article misstated their claims... Perhaps they said it was the oldest manuscript of that passage of Genesis, which would be true (Mur1 is probably 2nd century). It wouldn't be the first time someone was misquoted in a news story. :)
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know anything about image #10? The slideshow states, "One of the smallest Greek gospels and one of the earliest written in this script, it was commissioned by and for a non-cleric."
ReplyDeleteI've been examining a miniature NT manuscript so I'm really curious about this in comparison. I searched the passages website and the INTF's VMR trying to find any info... unsuccessfully. Any help is appreciated, even a simple GA number.
Thanks in advance,
--Jeff
By and large as I understand the situation the Green Collection has done a lot of collecting, but the scholarship on their collection is basically at an early stage (you can't study 40,000 items very thoroughly in a couple of years!). So there just aren't any scholarly discussions of the parts of the collection yet (except for scholarly discussions of the manuscripts from before they were purchased by the Greens - which are obviously important when available and identifiable). I'm sure they will come, but it will take time.
ReplyDeleteIn general there is a kind of Tendenz among the descriptive comments (first, earliest, best, biggest, most important, etc., etc.) which is interesting but which seems to reflect an entrepreneurial rather than a scholarly context-of-discourse.
Maybe I am old fashioned. Cf. this from 1904: "It is with many misgivings that this little volume is committed to the press. Its author claims no special importance for it. ..." http://addenda-errata.ivpress.com/2012/03/its_author_claims_no_special_i.php#more
ReplyDeleteWe've come a long way from, "I, who am unworthy of heaven or earth, beg the reader to pray for my poor soul."
ReplyDeleteIt says of Venezia's Commentary on the Apocalypse that it was written in vernacular Italian and translated into Greek. I understand that by "Italian," which had not really developed yet as a single literary language, "Venetian" is meant. But I wonder which dialect of Greek it was translated into, as Koine would have been rather obsolete by then as a vernacular language.
ReplyDeleteIt was probably an error of the local curators, but when the Passages exhibit had its first showing in OKC, I had to inform the museum that the identification cards were switched on a Dutch Bible and a German vernacular paraphrase Bible. As someone with two Bachelors but not yet any Graduate degrees, I was pleased with myself.
ReplyDelete