Friday, September 01, 2017

Lists of Greek New Testament Manuscripts on Wikipedia

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One of our readers, Darrell Post, has made a magnificent update of the Wikipedia articles for the Greek New Testament manuscripts divided into papyri, uncials and minuscules (three parts). These pages promise to be great resources.

Papyri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

Uncials
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_uncials

Here Darrell has indicated the manuscripts also photographed in UV light.

Minuscules (three articles)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_minuscules_(1%E2%80%931000)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_minuscules_(1001%E2%80%932000)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_minuscules_(2001%E2%80%93)

Updates to the minuscule page include an additional pass through the column for digital images, adding light grey shading for microfilm images, tan color for high-resolution color images hosted locally but not available online, and then gold color for links to new high resolution color images available online.

The highest GA number is now 2936.


Some numbers have been stricken from the K-Liste. By Darrell’s count there are 2,847 distinct manuscripts numbered. Of those 2,847, nineteen have been classified as destroyed, and 53 are described as either lost or with an unknown owner. 

The new total is 2,775 minuscule script manuscripts that could be available for modern color imaging.

By Darrell’s count 553 of the 2,775 (or 20%) have now been color digitized (roughly 20%). A large number exist on microfilm, and these are available online now at the INTF or other hosting locations like the National Library of France or the Vatican Library.

In the course of his work, Darrell further reports that he has found two manuscripts shown as “owner unknown” on the K-Liste. The first is GA 2324, known as the Hoffman Gospels. Darrell found it among the Yale University collection here.

The other is 2771, which is Lambeth Palace Library MS2795 here.

Darrell has notified the INTF. 

Thank you Darrell for your hard work on this!

17 comments

  1. My color image count of 553 of 2,775 on the minuscule page is now a few weeks old. I have since located a few dozen more.

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  2. I also updated many of the institution names on the wiki pages so they would be more meaningful to those newly interested in NT manuscripts. For instance, 'Joannu' is replaced with 'Monastery of Saint John the Theologian.'

    Similarly I translated into English many of the institution names, providing brevity and clarity.

    I have also sought to update the shelf numbers with more precise information as given by the institutions.

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  3. Good work, Darrell. It's always good to correct and clarify to prevent misinformation, especially on a website so popular as wikipedia. The problem with wikipedia is that there is so much information in there that it's almost impossible to fact check all of it... and if some of it is incorrect, it's hard to know which parts are reliable and which aren't. For example, the information of 0243 is only partial and misleading. It correctly describes the 7 leaves of 1 & 2 Cor at Biblioteca Nazionoale Marciana in Italy... but it fails to mention the 2 leaves of Hebrews 1-4, 12-13 in Hamburg, Germany. Or at least, I assume the info on the INTF VMR is correct about this, not wikipedia. (Occasionally, even the VMR has some incorrect info... but more so about location of mss and such... not so much the leaves or text.) Nonetheless, good work. But for scholars, wikipedia should not be a source for reliable information... just general information. Just my 2 cents worth.

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  4. Thanks Jeff, I totally agree. My aim with this update to the wiki pages was to provide an attractive entry point for students and the curious who may then be drawn deeper into study. By providing so many direct links to images and institutions, my hope is increased interest and traffic at the INTF, CSNTM, and other hosting web pages.

    Could you double-check 0243? My check just now indicates that I had updated it to show the 2 leaves in Hamburg.

    But I welcome any corrections. I am still finding things that could be fixed.

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    1. Oh, ok. Yes, it's correct on the wiki page listing all the NT majuscules. But the individual page of Uncial 0243 still has no mention of the leaves of Hebrews.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncial_0243

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    2. Ok, I see what you were saying. I have not touched any of the pages dedicated to individual manuscripts, only the pages of lists.

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  6. 2579 is one where I don’t know what “fixed” would count as for Wikipedia’s purposes. It’s been an unfortunate game of Chinese whispers in terms of cataloguing. Sickenberger (Titus von Bostra, p70f) identified Milan D 466 Inf. (Mt), D 161 Inf (Mk), D 298 Inf (Lk), and D 282 Inf (Jn) as having been copied from 138, and noted that the John volume is dated by colophon to 9 June 1612. Scrivener had previously numbered the Mark, John, and Luke volumes as codices 458, 459, and 460 of the Gospels respectively, but neither he nor Miller assigned a number for the Matthew volume, and Gregory marked all three as “zu tilgen” when he reformed the list. Gregory did, however, summarize Sickenberger’s conclusion in his Prolegomena to Tischendorf, grouping the four volumes with a brace and the note “Evv saec. XVII ex codice aliquo Vaticano exscripta”. Aland re-added 2579 to the Liste, or rather he added the Matthew and Mark volumes, paleographically redated them as XVI, and noted (as “Vgl.“=cf!) the Luke and John volumes in a footnote citing “Tischendorf” (really Gregory). It’s easy to see how this ended up being not quite right in the Liste, but it’s hard to know how Wikipedia should record it – base the article for the manuscript directly off Sickenberger (who gets it right), but repeat the official Liste’s Chinese whispers in the list article (even though it’s patently wrong)?

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    1. James, Wikipedia done well should be laced with footnotes and links to good sources. As such, I have added about 1000 such references to the manuscript pages, and am planning to add more. For instance, I will add a reference to any hosting institution with a web page providing information about a manuscript they own. If I can find all the articles for the issue you raised regarding 2579, I would certainly be interested in presenting the wiki information based on the most accurate information available. By default I followed the K-Liste information unless I found something more accurate that I could reference (like I did with 2324 and 2771).

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  7. Excellent job. I would say that 647 == 2371. Please check it.

    With kind regards,

    Jairo Cavalcante Filho

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    1. Jairo, you are correct. Good catch. The two GA numbers have the same shelf number at the Walters Art Museum, same page count and same height/width. I marked the wiki entries for each showing the equality between the two. If the INTF merges them, then I will blank out the entry for the number they dropped.

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  8. Darrell, will you notify the INTF?

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  9. One thing I've noticed about wikipedia listings is that they often refer to "a manuscript of the New Testament" without ever listing the actual contents.

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    1. I believe I have updated the wiki page for all of the papyri to show exact content, as well as most of the majuscules. The minuscule manuscript listings display at least what is displayed on the K-Liste, and for many of them the content is more specific. This is still a work in progress, but I invite you to click on the links and see the updates.

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  10. Thank you for this work. An amazing amount of labor, for you Darrel and all the scholars documenting and archiving this info. It is helpful for all of us.

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  11. Someone should add to Wikipedia pages for Minuscules 1010, 1175, 1704, 1780, and 1881. They seem pretty important to be without.

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