Wednesday, December 10, 2014

NT Textual Criticism Signs

17
The following list was first posted on the website Four Senses by Erwin Ochsenmeier in 2009. I repost it here, as the information is no longer available. Below you will find the various TC sigla with their Unicode hexadecimal numbers and explanations. Thanks to Erwin Ochsenmeier and Luc Herren for these lists. I recommend Gentium and Cardo for display of the Sigla. If you can not see the sigla in the left column below, then you need to download one of these fonts.

Sigla

Siglum
Code
Description
˸
02F8
Alternative punctuation (or : 003A)
[
005B
Authenticity questioned opening
]
005D
Authenticity questioned closing
*
002A
Original reading when correction has been made
|
007C
 Instance of variation separation within a verse
¦
00A6
Alternative readings within an instance of variation
°
00B0
One-word omission
0085
Text of edition same as variant
2020
Mutilated codex Dagger
2022
Apparatus section
271D
Change in NA from NA25 (Latin Cross)
27E6
Early addition authenticity denied opening
27E7
Early addition authenticity denied closing
2E00
Following word replaced
2E01
Following word replaced recurrence
2E02
Following words replaced opening
2E03
Following words replaced closing
2E04
Replacement recurrence opening
2E05
Replacement recurrence closing
2E06
One or more words inserted
2E07
Insertion recurrence
2E08
Transposition as indicated in apparatus
2E09
Transposition in quoted witnesses opening
2E0A
Transposition in quoted witnesses closing
2E0B
Words, clauses, sentences omitted opening
2E0C
Words, clauses, sentences omitted closing

Groups

Siglum
Code
Description
ƒ
0192
Family
210C
Hebrew Bible
2135
Codex Sinaiticus
ϛ
03DB
Stephanus in Eusebius’ letter to Carpian
𝔊
1D50A
Septuagint (PUA E316 In SBL BibLit)
𝑙
1D459
Lectionary
𝔐
1D510
Majority Text
𝔓
1D513
Papyrus

17 comments

  1. 2E00 through 2E0C in your chart, I'm getting a garbage character in Firefox. ⸌

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  2. You probably do not have a font with the Unicode characters.

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  3. Christian, I think it has to be Gentium Plus to get 2E00–2E0C to display properly. Other fonts that should work are SBL BibLit and Brill which I've added to this post's HTML.

    For some reason I still can't get the last four sigla in your second table to display for me. But it's also possible to get these by searching for their unicode number at unicode-table.com.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Pete. Blogger does not handle 32 bit Unicode well, and I had the last characters duct-taped into place with html entities for the 32 bit Unicode. You must have shifted out of the html editor to the compose view. When you do this, it corrupted the 32 bit characters and turned them into trash (the last four characters). I will fix them later today, but I would suggest that we not cater to those who can not read the characters. Too much lies with (1) the browser and its settings and (2) the version of the font, here. I tried using a webfont which is the only real answer to this problem, but could not make it happen. Incidentally, I do not have Gentium Plus, only Gentium, and all the characters displayed fine on my computer both online and in a MS Word DOC. My understanding was that Gentium had all of these Unicode characters.

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    2. Ah that's what it was. I knew it was something to do with switching from HTML and back but couldn't figure out what. I tried using a webfont at one point too, but the problem is that most webfonts are stripped down to bare essentials to save on file size. So very few special glyphs are preserved in most webfonts. I thought the loss of characters in Gentium was odd too but there are so many versions of Gentium floating around that it's hard to keep track.

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  4. "Stephanus in Eusebius' letter to Carpian."

    What?

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  5. See, maybe, NA28 p. 85* n. 17…

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  6. Hello,

    I am somewhat curious as to why we need textual criticism? Also, what text is inspired in the manuscript tradition? Is it the original autographs or even the variants that were later added like John8?

    Is textual criticism used by Protestants to undermine the apostolic authority Catholics were given?

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  7. Dear anonymous, there are thousands of manuscripts of the Greek NT and not one MS is identical to another (if we discount fragment). It has nothing to do with Protestantism/Catholicism. In fact, the committee that edited the widely used United Bible Societies Greek New Testament was ecumenical including the late Cardinal C. M. Martini. As for inspiration, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (extant witnesses to the inspired text), and it is our task to pay attention to all those witnesses and neither take for granted the text of any textual witness(es) nor any printed edition.

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    Replies
    1. If they are not identical, why didn't the printing press print all the manuscripts seperately instead of trying to construct what an initial text (apparently the phrase "original text" is being phased out due to the late attestation of the manuscripts) looked like?

      What motivated scholars to find the initial text? Did they not trust accounts that Peter had lived in Rome and the apostolic succession? Why not trust Rome as the authority over scripture?

      One textual variant I have come across is Matthew 27:16. I thought Barabass was a separate human being who was released. However, upon investigation it appears there was evidence for variant where the prisoner released name is Jesus the Barabass. Can you comment on this variant? And how does the lack of any historical documentation for any prisoner being released during this festivity impact variant you select as more authentic?

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    2. What are you talking about? Peter living in Rome, apostolic succession, etc. has nothing to do with manucripts. Is Peter a manuscript? No. Are people who supposedly succeed the apostles manuscripts? No. As for Jesus Barabas, some manuscripts give Barabas the first name Jesus but it doesn't make him the same Jesus. Jesus is just Greek for Joshua, and it was a common name in Israel back then.

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    3. I think what OP questions why Protestants invest so much time on scriptural analysis, textual criticism, verifying authorships, etc.

      If Peter really had been in Rome, then why should people abandon the Church's authority given by Peter. However, I think it's clear Peter was never in Rome so it's important to figure out what the New Testament said so we can know what Jesus said (assuming Jesus spoke Koine Greek and scribes did not purport words into his mouth).

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    4. The issue is a red herring. The Latin Vulgate has variants. Trent put out the "Old Latin Vulgate" as the inerrant text. And then two popes later you've got Clement putting forward a new Vugate, the Clementine Vulgate, to correct it. And in the 70s the Vatican put out a Nova Vulgata, New Vulgate. But isn't Trent still on the books? So the Vatican can't solve this problem any better than anyone else. Quit dreaming.

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  8. Thanks very much for this! It is very helpful indeed.

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Thanks for this! Apparatus SIL is also a useful font for this: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=ApparatusSIL

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