Symmachus and the Text of Job 24:25b

In preparation of my critical edition of the Hexaplaric fragments of Job 22-42 for the Hexapla Project, I am noticing again some of the gems among the texts of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion that Origen once assembled in full parallel columns but now come down to us mainly in fragmentary, marginal notes in Christian MSS. The text of Job 24:25b is such a text. Here are the relevant readings:

Hebrew Text: וְיָשֵׂם לְאַל מִלָּתִי׃

And (who) will make my word as not/nothing?

Theodotion (not Old Greek): καὶ θήσει εἰς οὐδὲν τὰ ῥήματά μου

and (who) will set my words as nothing?

Symmachus: καὶ τάξει τῷ θεῷ λόγον ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ

and (who) will deliver a speech to God on my behalf?

Unfortunately, we do not have the text of Symmachus for 25a, but it was probably close to the Old Greek and Hebrew, which is a question on the lips of Job asking, “Who is the one who says that I speak lies?” The Theodotion version (in lieu of the Old Greek) continues the question: “and who will set my words as nothing?” The wording of this line matches the Hebrew closely, except Theodotion must have read מלתי as a plural, not the singular of the later MT. According to this reading, Job appears to be asking who of his three friends will contradict him or show his word to be nothing or of no validity.

The Symmachus version reveals a different reading of the same consonantal text of MT. Symmachus read אל as אֵל “God,” not as later MT’s אַל “no, not.” Furthermore, Symmachus interpreted the final word in the Hebrew “my word” as a word on Job’s behalf (speech on behalf of me), not as a simple possessive pronominal suffix as the Hebrew would be normally construed and as Theodotion read it plainly. Symmachus has read the text differently. He appears to have understood Job’s question not as directed to his three friends but to someone else who could deliver a speech to God on his behalf.

At first blush, this seems like an odd reading. But when we remember that in the so-called witness passages (Job 9:32-35, Job 16:18-22, and Job 19:20-27) that Job has already perceived something of the role of the heavenly court introduced in chs. 1-2 and that his advocate is in heaven (“if not he, then who is it”), perhaps Symmachus read the text of Job 24:25b in light of this understanding. In the midst of the third speech cycle and at the end of Job’s speech, plausibly, Symmachus has read the Hebrew text as Job once again making an appeal to his heavenly advocate who can make his case to God. Of course, all of this reasoning probably indicates that this reading is secondary to the one in MT and Theodotion, but it is still interesting to consider from an exegetical point of view.

One more interesting piece of context comes from reception history. This reading of Symmachus is only preserved beside Job 24:25b in the margin of a relative few Christian manuscripts of the Job catenae, sometimes without an attribution to him. That means Christian scribes continued to find this reading of some exegetical value for this text. We can’t know for sure because I can’t find an explicit comment from a church father that uses this wording exactly (I haven’t attempted an exhaustive search), but perhaps it’s worth speculating that early Christian interpreters found a Christological reference in Symmachus’s version of Job 24:25b, for in it they found Job asking a question to a heavenly advocate who could make an appeal to God on his behalf.

List of Conjectures Accepted in Nestle Editions

Nestle 13th edition (1927)

Reading through a recently acquired Nestle 13th ed. I was surprised to find that the NA28 is not the first in this venerable edition’s line to use the diamond symbol. The current edition uses them, of course, to mark places where the editors couldn’t decide on the initial text.

In the 13th edition (and for some time beyond) it marks places where Erwin Nestle (son of Eberhard) thought that the majority principle used by his father had not led to the original text. In those cases, he marked his preferred reading with a diamond, explaining its use thus: “Some of these [places of textual difficulty], which must be considered original, are distinguished with the prefixed symbol ◆ in the apparatus, as Rom 5.1” (p. 12*).

A number of these diamond readings also happen to be conjectures and thanks to help from Jan Krans, I can present here a list of all the conjectures accepted by various Nestle editions. You can click on the link in parentheses to see more detail at the Amsterdam Database.

1. Matt 2:6 (link)
2. Matt 6:16 (link)
3. Matt 12:33 (link); according to us not a true conjecture
4. Matt 15:5 (link); actually only the omission of a iota subscript; 
5. Mark 7:11 (link; = cj15781)
6. Acts 7:38 (link)
7. Acts 16:12 (link)
8. Rom 13:3 (link; actually attested)
9. 1 Cor 2:4 (link)
10. 1 Cor 6:5 (link)
11. 1 Cor 14:38 (link)
12. 1 Cor 16:22 (link; just an editorial alternative)
13. 2 Cor 3:3 (link; actually attested)
14. 2 Cor 7:8 (link; also attested)
15. 2 Cor 8:12 (link; just an editorial alternative)
16. 1 Tim 4:3 (link)
17. 1 Tim 5:13 (link)
18. Rev 2:13 (link)

One of the reasons for noting this is because its easy to think that the conjectures printed at Acts 16.12 in NA27/28, 2 Pet 3.10 in NA28, and now Acts 13.33 in the ECM show a trend toward greater willingness to print a conjecture. But actually, these changes should be seen as a return to an earlier Nestle tendency and not an innovation or move away from it. In fact, based on the list here, the Nestle(-Aland) editions have grown more reticent to print conjectures since 1927 not less.

Maurice Robinson and Chris Keith on 284 and the PA

Over at the Jesus Blog, Chris Keith has posted comments from Maurice Robinson on 284 and the PA. More importantly, Chris Keith has christened him the the “Silver-Haired Assassin,” a perfectly fitting title in my view. Henceforth, I require all blog commentators to address Dr. Robinson by this title! Now, go read the Assassin’s blog post.

Here is the link to the page in 284 under discussion.

Plan to Review and Revise the New Revised Standard Version

News from the SBL annual report this week is that SBL is planning to oversee a review and revision of the NRSV translation. What really surprised me about this was how prominent textual criticism is in the explanation. From the report:

SBL to Provide a Review and Update to the New Revised Standard Version

At the 2017 SBL-AAR Annual Meeting, the National Council of Churches (NCC) announced an update of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), an English translation of the Bible owned and licensed by the NCC. This update will be managed by the Society for Biblical Literature, following a partnership approved by Council earlier in 2017. Scholars have produced a considerable amount of work in text criticism since 1989, the year the NRSV was published. The last three decades have provided significant new discoveries, including new manuscript witnesses, developments in textcritical methodology, and philological insights. A thirty-year review is not only necessary in the light of this scholarly work but will result in an English translation that is based, without exception, on the most up-to-date textual analysis. The update will focus on three areas:

• Text-Critical and Philological Advances: The primary focus of the thirty-year review is on new text-critical and philological considerations that affect the English translation. The philological review will draw upon the fruits of historical-critical scholarship that affect expressions in English. For the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, text-critical developments in the last thirty years have been especially significant. The publication of the Judean Desert biblical texts and fragments has revealed a number of readings that differ from the medieval Hebrew traditions in the Masoretic Text, which was the basis of the NRSV.
• Textual Notes: SBL’s initial review of the NRSV suggested that the current text-critical footnotes are neither complete nor consistent. There are cases when the translation silently adds words not conspicuously in the sources or does not indicate when a reading is not following the sources. To address this deficiency, reviewers will be asked to identify text-critical issues that should have been documented in the notes but were not.
• Style and Rendering: The translation philosophy of the NRSV will be maintained, including its overarching commitment to being “‘as literal as possible’ in adhering to the ancient texts and only ‘as free as necessary’ to make the meaning clear in graceful, understandable English.” That being said, when a reviewer judges a particular translation awkward, inaccurate, or difficult for general readers to understand, the reviewer may suggest a more elegant rendering.

The SBL editorial board includes Sidnie White Crawford (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Ronald Hendel (University of California-Berkeley), Michael W. Holmes (Bethel University), Robert S. Kawashima (University of Florida), Jennifer W. Knust (Boston University), Judith H. Newman (University of Toronto), and Eugene Ulrich (University of Notre Dame). In addition to the editorial board, more than fifty scholars will contribute to the review, which will be conducted over the next three years.

Participants will draw upon new tools developed after the NRSV was published, including The SBL Greek New Testament, edited by Michael W. Holmes (2010); SBL Press’s The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition, edited by Ronald Hendel (2015–); and the German Bible Society’s Biblia Hebraica Quinta (2004–), The Greek New Testament, Fifth Revised Edition (2014), and twenty-eighth edition of Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece, as well as volumes from GBS’s Editio Critica Minor [sic] produced by the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung and based on recent New Testament methodological developments reflected in the INTF’s Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (see Tommy Wasserman and Peter J. Gurry, A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method [SBL Press, 2017]).

Non-enclitic indefinite τίς again

In THGNT the editors have accepted non-enclitic indefinite τίς in a number of instances. I’ve mentioned this type of indefinite here and its appearance in GNT has generated discussions here and here.

One case where we vary accentuation is Matthew 21:3:

καὶ ἐάν τις ὑμῖν εἴπῃ τί

In our edition τις is always enclitic after ἐάν, not that we ever observed that pattern until we’d finished editing. We also notice that the accented form is clause final, which might be a reason for greater prodosic prominence.

Now for some manuscripts. I start with 478 (C10). This is nice because it shows us the use of the grave for the indefinite. This is less common than the acute for the indefinite, but it shows that when Erasmus, Stephanus and others printed grave indefinites in their editions, they weren’t just making things up.

Vaticanus (03) is hard to read but I reckon the acute is faintly there for the second indefinite.

G (011) is beautifully clear with the second acute.

So is K (017).

115 has no acute.

560 does for the second.

As does 788, with a correction on εαν.

And 1424, with what I would count as an error on εαν.

What I would conclude from this (which is a pattern we typically found in editing) is that the accents in the more carefully accented manuscripts were reasonably consistent with each other as to which instances of indefinite τίς they accented. Therefore either they inherited a common accenting tradition or they had a common feel about the language and did it independently. Either way, that gives us access to an earlier form of the language. The fact that consistency on these matters can be found in manuscripts already in the 9th century points me to an earlier period.

The accentor of Vaticanus in particular is learned and, I believe, gives us a window into debates which simply do not survive in the epitomes of grammarians. Compare Herodian with B’s accentor’s treatment of the different cases of ιχθυς, οσφυς and οφρυς.

Origen’s knowledge of (multiple) manuscripts of Mark

It is often noted that Mark’s Gospel is not well represented among our early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or in citations and comments in the Early Fathers (see e.g. Head, 2012).

So I was interested in reading through Origen’s Contra Celsum (as one does - actually for a reading group here in Oxford) to come to the discussion of Celsus’ accusation that the followers of Jesus were all wicked tax-collectors and sailors (Book 1, #62). Origen explains that of the twelve only Matthew was a tax collector. He then says (reading Chadwick’s ET): ‘I grant that the Leves who also followed Jesus was a tax-collector; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to one of the copies of the gospel according to Mark.’

I thought it was interesting to see that by the time he wrote Contra Celsum (late in his life according to Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. VI.36.2, post AD 245) Origen could note such a divergence in the manuscripts at Mark 3.18, and could know this variant reading which we know as existing only in Codex Bezae among Greek witnesses (Lebbaion is read in place of Thaddion in Codex Bezae and a good number of Old Latin witnesses). [With Donaldson’s main point, but against her question as to whether this might relate to Mark 2.14, I think this must relate to the passage which numbers the twelve apostles, i.e. Mark 3.18 (as also Koetschau’s notes in the GCS edition)]

When I got back to the office, I thought I should check the Greek text (generally this is a good policy - and ideally before opening one’s mouth in an Oxford seminar):

Ἔστω δὲ καὶ ὁ Λευὴς τελώνης ἀκολουθήσας τῷ Ἰησοῦ· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτι γε τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ ἦν εἰ μὴ κατά τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων τοῦ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου.

Now it seems that Chadwick’s translation is quite faulty in its definiteness (‘according to one of the copies ...’) and we should think that Origen’s comment is that a reading which includes Levi within the number of the twelve is found ‘in some of the copies’. Even more interesting.

Bibliography

• A.M. Donaldson, Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers (PhD; Notre Dame, 2009)
• P.M. Head,‘The Early Text of Mark’ in The Early Text of the New Testament (eds. Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 108–120. 
• B.M. Metzger, ‘Explicit References in the Works of Origen to Variant Readings in New Testament Manuscripts’ in J.N. Birdsall and R.W. Thomson (eds.), Biblical and Patristic Essays in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 78–95. Reprinted in B.M. Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, New Testament Tools and Studies 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 88–103. [I couldn’t find my copy of this, but Donaldson notes that Metzger mentions this passage.]

Canon as an Authoritative List of Books or a List of Authoritative Books?

There has been some good discussion of canon on the blog of late, and as usual, the matter of the meaning of canon arises. Does “canon” apply to particular text forms of books (e.g. the Gospel of Mark with or without the longer ending; or the longer and shorter versions of Daniel)? Note the results of the recent poll here. Should we translate the term “canon” as “list” and describe books as “listical” rather than canonical (per Peter Williams)? Does canon refer to an authoritative list of books or to a list of authoritative books (à la Bruce Metzger)? What is the relationship between the ontological canon and exclusive/historical canons?

Discussion of Canon and Text at the G3 Conference

Yesterday morning, at the G3 conference in Atlanta, GA, James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Michael Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte held a good discussion of the canon of scripture (mostly the New Testament canon), and often times their conversation drifted toward matters of textual criticism. I would encourage you to watch the video (link below; sorry, it’s currently available only on Facebook), and if you are interested, please comment on some of the more salient points. For example, around the 45:00 minute mark, there is a good discussion of the relationship between the canon and individual text forms of books, which will probably interest many of you. Also, I would be interested to know what you all think about the distinction between the “ontological” canon and the “exclusive” canon (Kruger) or White’s Canon 1 and Canon 2. If I remember correctly, this topic arose near the beginning of the discussion on the video. Here is the link to the video: The Canon (G3 conference).

Justified Commitment Issues in Dating P.Egerton 2 + P.Köln VI 255 (and Other Literary Papyri)

P.Köln VI 255 (inv. 608) →
(Image courtesy of the Kölner Papyrussammlung website) 

One of the helpful trends in more recent palaeography has been marked by a more explicit recognition of virtually impossibility to assign narrow, ‘precise’ dates to undated literary manuscripts, lest one runs the risks of arbitrariness. As a result, scholars have preferred to assign broader date ranges, spanning hardly ever less than 100 years. I say ‘more explicit’ recognition, because there have always been voices that called for greater caution such as E. G. Turner or after him P. J. Parsons, but the problem does seem to be recognised much more widely nowadays (with Comfort’s problematic undertakings in this area being something of an exception). In my view a less helpful trend amongst recent scholarship has been an abandonment of classic palaeographical method, which is characterised by the comparative analysis of graphic background, style, and typology. For this reason (and despite occasional minor disagreements), I’ve found particularly the work of Pasquale Orsini to be of great pedagogical value. (N.B. Orsini is a pupil of Guglielmo Cavallo’s, probably the most important living palaeographer.) For methodological purposes, I’d recommend especially the article he co-wrote with Willy Clarysse (ETL 88 [2012] 443–74), which deals specifically with the palaeographical problems pertaining to the NT MSS. The comparative method they follow is neatly summarised in the following quote from the said piece:

Palaeographical comparison may lead to chronological results when an undated manuscript is compared to an explicitly dated or to a datable one ... Such parallels may lead to different results. They may: 1. connect an undated script with the same general graphic background to one or more dated and/or datable examples; 2. bring an undated manuscript into the context of a “stylistic class,” whose chronological range can be reconstructed thanks to various dated manuscripts; 3. link an undated script to a “style,” whose history and main distinctive aspects can be reconstructed thanks to dated and undated manuscripts; 4. connect an undated script with a “canonical” or “normative script” for which a system of internal rules and a history can be reconstructed; 5. attribute an undated manuscript to the hand of a scribe, known by other manuscripts, dated or undated. (p. 448)

I utilised a similar method in my work on P47, and assigned a date in 250–325 CE. (Incidentally, the range could be extended as far as to 350, if I allowed for a Coptic comparandum [P.Lond. VI 1920 (TM 44659)]). 

Especially owing to the prolific output of Brent Nongbri, a number of other NT MSS have received fresh scrutiny, often resulting in later assignments. On the one hand, I’ve not been inclined to agree with Nongbri’s take on P66 and P75: I think both articles begin to lose force precisely when he undertakes to suggest alternative (in some cases graphically inappropriate) parallel scripts with later dates. In general, however, I’ve found Nongbri’s call for caution—reflected in his broader (and typically later) suggested datings—helpful. 

So much for the NT MSS. But what about other early Christian papyri? For quite some time, I was bothered by how texts, particularly the Egerton Gospel (P.Egerton 2 + P. Köln VI 255 [LDAB 4736]), were repeatedly invoked as instances of ‘earliest’ Christian literature, all the while ignoring the same palaeographical difficulties loom large over them as well. So I took a closer look at the Egerton papyrus and became quite dissatisfied with its traditional dating (early second century, based solely on palaeography), while not being particularly impressed by the rationale for the alternative suggestion (early third century, based on the presence of apostrophe). As one does, I then spilled out my frustration in a Facebook status, upon which Lorne Zelyck PM-ed me (being more sensible, I reckon) expressing his own misgivings. Long story short, we then concocted an article (ZPE 204 [2017] 55–71), where we survey the history of the debate (there’s a good measure of nonsense involved, especially in the recent years) and suggest that, at the very least, the possible date should be extended to 150–250 CE. Interestingly, the closest parallels, in fact, come from the turn of the third century, hence it is plausible that our papyrus is of the early-third century date. But since that palaeographical inquiry cannot yield very narrow results, keeping the assigned dating broad seems the best way forward.

Moral of the story, then: When dating literary manuscripts, it is too firm a commitment that may be an issue.

[UPDATE:] I'm very pleased that Brent came across this post and swiftly wrote, as one might expect, a most eloquent response. In particular, he called for clarification on my own part concerning my specific objections to some of the comparanda he adduced in re-dating P66 and P75. This I did in a comment under this post as well as under his (in a slightly revised form). Brent then wrote another post where he clarified the differences between his argument in P66 and P75, which I found very helpful. We still disagree about the applicability of his comparandum in P66 and the nature of typological classification in the case of P75, but we are also very much on the same page concerning the need for caution in dating manuscripts palaeographically as well as the limits of such undertaking. Above all, it was so refreshing to have such an amicable back-and-forth whose outcome is, as it seems to me, greater clarity and understanding of each other's views. Thanks very much, Brent!

Poll: Text as Corollary of Canon

Let’s take a poll on this statement from Carl E. Armerding: “Moreover, the development of an authoritative text is a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books.”*

Is the development of an authoritative text a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books?

*The Old Testament and Criticism, 101

Peer-reviewing the peer review—why not?

The seeming dullness of our subject area inevitably limits the number of books a typical text-critic writes in their lifetime. Article-writing, then, is one of the fundamental ways in which we unleash our groundbreaking ideas onto unsuspecting scholarly public. Fundamental to scholarly publishing is the notion of peer-review, and for a good reason. Having a layer (or two) of formal feedback before one’s work goes to print has a great potential to improve the work and eliminate, or minimise the number of, embarrassing errors (been there, done that). But peer-review often takes bizarrely long: anywhere from 2 (which is great) to 12 (which is unreasonable) months. Sometimes the review process is not very transparent. And some journals don’t care to send any formal feedback to the author, apart from the letter of acceptance and rejection. I have a handful of examples for each of the above, but won’t mention any names. The good news is that there now seems to be a formal tool to review the way journals review our articles and it’s called SciRev. I’d encourage all of you with publishing (or at least submitting) experience to register for free and write a few reviews; it’s a matter of filling out a simple questionnaire, but I think it’s well worth the 15 or so minutes of your time.

Trismegistos Words: New Tool for seaching Documentary Papyri

There is a new tool in town for searching morphological analysis of 5 million words in the Duke Database of Ducmentary Papyri. I’ve only been able to have a brief play around so far (on αὐθεντέω which has only five occurrences [4 of which are very late]), but I thought you might be interested to hear about this and try it out.

Trismegistos is pleased to announce a new database: TM Words (www.trismegistos.org/words). It contains the just under 5 million words contained in the Duke Database of Documentary Papyri. The new database is the result of work by Alek Keersmaekers, who started from the XML-version available on GitHub on 19 September 2016. He used a stochastic machine-learning approach for tokenisation, part-of-speech-tagging and lemmatization [I had to look all of these up too ;-)]. The accuracy is about 95%, which seems high, but also means that there are still about 250,000 errors of morphological interpretation in the database, some of which very obvious for humans. We would be very grateful if you would communicate errors you notice by giving us a ’thumbs-down’ and clicking the 👎 icon after each attestation. On the basis of that feedback we can improve the database further.

We have made the online version as user-friendly as possible, with many possibilities for filtering and automated weighed-dates charts. This obviously is very demanding for our server, and we hope that the system won’t crash as a result. In any case for some large datasets (very common words) you may need to wait half a minute or more.

A special feature is the possibility to look for attestations of words in specific genres of texts. This is only possible through cooperation with Joanne Stolk, who has undertaken a rough classification in the margin of her work on TM Text Irregularities.

Finally: all of this is only possible thanks to the existence of the DDbDP and papyri.info. In the future we hope to work together with them to share all information and make the lemmatisation available there as well. This will be a non-trivial matter, because of the dynamic nature of the text in the DDbDP. Nevertheless it is an urgently needed effort to prevent the creation of multiple versions of the same text. For that reason we will share all corrections as much as possible, and new readings should of course continue to be entered through the Papyrological Editor.

Nothing new under the (skeptical) sun

The Swiss Protestant divine,
Louis Gaussen (1790–1863) 

Sometimes it’s useful to remember that most of objections to the Bible have been raised before. It provides some perspective, especially to those just made aware of some sensational objection and now feel they’ve been duped or had things hidden from them. In fact, most criticisms of the Bible have been raised (and answered) long before we came along.

Today I found one pertinent to this blog from a 160 years ago that bears remarkable similarity to a now well-known criticism leveled in our day.

From 2005: “What good is it to say that the auographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.” (Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 7)

From 1841: “What matters to me (it would have been said [by one objecting to the Bible’s inspiration]), the assurance that the first text has been dictated by God, eighteen hundred years ago, if I have no longer the assurance that the manuscripts of our libraries contain it in its purity; and if it be true (as we are assured,) that the variations of these ancient transcripts are at least in number, thirty thousand?” (François Samuel Robert Louis Gaussen, Theopneustia: The Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, 86.)

Noting the similarity does not answer the objection, of course. For that, you’ll have to read more of Gaussen’s book linked above. But for some, just knowing that an objection is not new and earth-shattering can help calm a person down.

Why Westcott and Hort gave special treatment to the woman caught in adultery

Not long ago, we discussed on the blog whether or not the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53–8.11) should be read and taught as Scripture. I remain somewhat torn myself though I lean toward a negative answer. Regardless of that larger question, one of the issues that came up in the discussion was whether Mark 16.9–20 and John 7.53–8.11 raise distinct canonical questions that are not warranted for other widely-attested variant texts like John 5.4.

The Pericope Adulterae
in Westcott and Hort’s GNT

Regarding this question, I was intrigued by how Hort explained his and Westcott’s unique handling of the Pericope in their edition. As you may know, they printed it in double brackets just like Mark 16.9–20 but then went a step further by placing it after John’s Gospel with its own separate heading. (Note, however, that it is not listed in the table of contents.)

In a letter to his good friend A. A. Vansittart dated May 4, 1865, Hort explained this decision as follows:

I firmly adhere to the Pericope so treated, though conscious that it may cause scandal. Let me repeat more clearly than before. This is one of many passages which belong in a sense to the New Testament, and which we feel we cannot expel from it, and yet which do not belong to the originals of its component books. The other such passages or clauses we leave (in at least one case, Mt 27.49b we insert) in their proper places for two reasons: those passages could not stand independently from their very nature, and the contexts are little or not at all injured by the interpolation, which of course is plainly marked. Here both conditions are reversed: the Pericope can very well stand by itself, and St John’s narrative is miserably interrupted by its insertion. To put it in the appendix would be to expel it from the New Testament: we can therefore only place it as an omitted chapter of the ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ. It will, I trust, like the other passages stand within ⟦ ⟧.

Thus, Hort explains why the Pericope could neither be expelled from the NT altogether but could and should be left out of the Gospel according to John proper, even with its double brackets. Hort, of course, was well aware that this might cause scandal which itself is interesting given that on theological matters, the two editors typically eschewed public controversy.

Applying CT scans to a Coptic manuscript of Acts

A few years ago I blogged about the work of W. Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, who has found a way to read manuscript texts using CT scans. Back in 2015 he used it to read the 6th century Ein Gedi scroll of Leviticus.

Morgan Library MS M.910. (Photo by Nicole Craine for NYT)

Now he is applying it to a New Testament manuscript, this one being Morgan Library MS M.910 which is a Coptic codex of Acts that is too fragile to open. The New York Times reports the details here and says Seales and his team hope to have readable text later this month.

Dr. Seales has developed software that can model the surface of a contorted piece of papyrus or parchment from X-ray data and then derive a legible text by assigning letters to their proper surface.

The site for the Morgan Library doesn’t give a date for the manuscript, but the Times article says it was written sometime between 400 and 600 A.D. From the Morgan Library site we learn this too:

According to Petersen, “the text ... is substantially that of the standard Sahidic version found in the Beatty codex and also ... [M.664B.8] ... The present new text differs from the published texts only in a few individual spellings ... The recension of the text is the ‘Alexandrian’ one, which eventually supplanted a variety of different readings which were current in Egypt before the time of Origen.”

I wonder if any of our Coptologist readers or bloggers can tell us more about this codex. If the dates are 400–600, it will probably not shed a great deal of light on canonicity as the Times suggests, but this is still very exciting technology.

A simpler yearly Bible reading plan

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but I do like to set concrete goals from time to time. One that I started several years ago was to read through my Greek New Testament at least once a year. I had tried before but failed. One reason is that other yearly reading plans are based on chapters (e.g., Denny Burk’s and Lee Irons’s).

The problem with chapters is that the lengths are all over the place. Just compare Matt 27 with Matt 28 and you’ll see what I mean. I always found it discouraging to get through a short chapter and then face one two or three times longer the very next day. Besides the mental hurdle, it can be hard to fit into a tight daily schedule.

So, I have come up with something that works much better for me. Instead of chapters, I now count the pages in my preferred edition, divide by 300, and then read that number of pages each day. Using 300 gives me some room for missed days or just gets me ahead if I stay on track.

By doing my reading by the page I get into a nice, maintainable rhythm. It also keeps me from giving up when I get behind since it’s really easy to adjust. If October hits and I’ve missed 40 days already, I just count the pages left and divide by the number of days left in the year. This year I got stuck after Acts because of class prep but the last two years it’s worked great. I had to increase my rate at the end each time, but I made it all the way through on time.

This simple per-page method also works great if you’re switching to a new bible for the year (which I recommend doing). For the new THGNT, for example, it comes out to just over a page and half per day. Read two a day and you’ll be way ahead come the fall. For the RP2005, it’s just a little more. For NA28, you’re looking at about three pages per day. If you’re just finishing your first year of Greek, pick something you find manageable like the Gospels. Or get a reader’s edition, do the same math, and you’ll be on your way.

As you can see, the per-page method is simple and flexible. It works with any Bible in any language. So give it a try. It’s not too late to start.

Summer Course in Papyrology

SUMMER COURSE IN PAPYROLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OSLO, 18–22 JUNE 2018

The Dept. of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo and the Papyrus Collection of the University of Oslo Library invite applications for participation in the summer course in Papyrology to take place in Oslo 18–22 June 2018. The course gives 5 ECTS credit points. Coursework includes lectures, supervised work with papyri from the collection, and a written assignment (see details below). The focus will be on Greek and Coptic papyrology in keeping with the holdings of the Oslo collection.

The course is designed for advanced bachelor, master, and early PhD students of Classics, Ancient History, Egyptology and related subjects. Participants will hear lectures on the contents and classification of papyri, editorial method, and the socio-historical and linguistic context of papyri from Egypt from Hellenistic times to late Antiquity. They will also work with an unpublished papyrus (Greek or Coptic depending on their linguistic competence), the edition of which constitutes the written assignment (work with the edition will begin in Oslo under supervision and will be continued after the course; if the academic quality of the submitted work is satisfactory, a revised version of the edition may be included in forthcoming volumes of Oslo papyri). A session will be dedicated to the basics of papyrus conservation and will be followed by practical exercises in papyrus conservation.

Lecturers:

• Anastasia Maravela (University of Oslo)
• Joanne Vera Stolk (University of Oslo/Ghent University)
• Ágnes Tothné Mihálykó (University of Oslo)
• Jens Mangerud (University of Oslo)
• Jörg Graf (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig)
• Jenny Cromwell (University of Copenhagen)

Formal requirements: a minimum of 30 ECTS credits in ancient Greek or an introductory course in the Coptic language. Full participation in the lectures and the supervised work is required to be eligible to submit the written assignment and receive the creditation.

Please submit your application by March 1st, 2018 to anastasia.maravela@ifikk.uio.no

The application should include:

• A letter of motivation (including the preference for working with a Greek or a Coptic papyrus)
• CV including relevant exam results
• A letter of recommendation by an academic teacher/tutor, which describes the candidate's academic record, knowledge of the relevant language (Greek and/or Coptic) and previous acquaintance with papyrology.

Expenses

• There is no course fee. 
• Course materials will be sent to successful applicants in electronic form.
• Accommodation in Oslo will be covered for successful applicants.
• Participants must pay their travel expenses.

The organisers

Anastasia Maravela Joanne Stolk Ágnes T. Mihálykó

Professor of Ancient Greek/ Co-editor of Symbolae Osloenses
Dept. of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas
University of Oslo
Pb. 1020 Blindern
0315 Oslo

Website: http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/people/aca/classics/tenured/anastasm/