My monograph The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission is now available as an e-book for the first time through Amazon (Kindle).
Since the publisher went out of business and the dsitributor Eisenbrauns became an imprint of PSU Press many years ago it has been difficult to get the paperback but now it is possible to order the book in three different formats through Amazon:
E-book (Kindle) $9.99
Paperback $19.99
Hardback $29.99
The study treats the textual tradition of the Epistle of Jude. The
nucleus of the study is an exhaustive critical apparatus presenting the
evidence of 560 Greek MSS, including dozens of lectionaries. The major
part of these textual witnesses have not received the attention they
deserve. Now, for the first time, all these MSS have been collated in a
complete book of the NT. The complete collation has brought many new
readings to light, some of which were only known through ancient
versions, and previously known and important readings have gained
additional support.”Very
few doctoral studies can claim to be magisterial, however, Wasserman’s
study rightly deserves such a title. He presents an exhaustive study of
the manuscript tradition of the Epistle of Jude. What this means in
practice is assembling and collating the readings from 560 Greek
manuscripts of this letter. The evidence is drawn from familiar papyrus
and uncial texts, but the ground-breaking aspect is the integration of
evidence from hundreds of minuscule manuscripts and lectionaries."—Paul
Foster, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh in Expository Times, 118, 2007
"This
is obviously essential reading for those engaged in textual criticism
of the NT, and particularly of Jude. It is also very important for
anyone with a more general interest in Jude and, to a lesser extent, 2
Peter. Finally, it provides a helpful update on the current state of
textual criticism for all scholars of the NT who may (like the author of
this review) attend to the subject less than they should."—Terrance
Callan, The Athenaeum of Ohio, in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 69, 2007
"Wasserman's
thesis is unsurpassed in accuracy and completeness. . . . W. gives the
reader the information necessary for checking the reliability of his
text-critical presentation of Jude. In fact, he gives accurate and
compete information about most text-critical problems. . . . I can only
congratulate the young doctor on a good piece of scholarship."—René
Kieffer, Uppsala University, in Journal of Theological Studies, 68, 2007
"Wasserman
has made available to the text critic a massive amount of manuscript
evidence for the book of Jude. The manuscript evidence is exhaustive and
the textual commentary thoughtful. Commentators and text critics must
deal with Wasserman’s evidence and textual conclusions in any future
work on this little epistle. One may apply the same criteria and arrive
at different conclusions, but no scholar can afford to dismiss
Wasserman’s thoughtful and measured text decisions. "—Stephen D. Patton,
North Greenville University in Review of Biblical Literature, April 2008
"It
cannot be said of many doctoral theses that they have made a major and
permanent contribution to human knowledge, but it can be said of this
one. what has been achieved in the course of this published version of a
doctoral dissertation at Lund University is quite incredible. The
author has examined and collated the text of Jude in 560 different
manuscripts, that is, in virtually all the continuous-text manuscripts
of the epistle. Thus a work has been done that has considerably advanced
our knowledge of the text of the New testament and will not need to be
repeated. such full collations previously had existed only for the
Apocalypse.”— P.J. Williams, Tyndale House in Themelios, 33: 1, 2008
"Wasserman’s
presentation of evidence as completely as possible is really laudable,
and the caution and reason of the author’s argument and the aim to
encourage the readers to decide independently point in a direction in
which textual criticism may get out of its ‘esoteric’ corner, and
textual history can also become an important aid for exegesis." — Jörg
Frey, University of Zurich in TC: A Journal of Biblical Literature 15, 2010
This is great news! Did you also publish the transcriptions as TEI-XML files or in a similar format? Are they freely available?
ReplyDeleteYes, I did. They are available in the DANS repository.
DeleteCould you switch the DANS-files from restricted („request“) to open access?
DeleteDANS is a fine thing because of the permanent-filing but this „request“-system is a bit annoying.
Jean Putmans
For a second there I thought this was a brand new work titled “The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission as E-book” . . .
ReplyDeleteI could do that one later :-)
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds very interesting, I wonder if it would be possible to make it available on Logos bible software. I imagine it would make it even more useful and also much more convenient.
DeleteI have just signed an agreement to make the e-book available on Logos, but I do not know how integrated that will be.
DeleteThe apparatus information on Jude 1:3 is especially interesting.
ReplyDeleteJude 1:3 (AV)
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Sinaiticus has an unusual conflation reading:
κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας και ζωης
“our common salvation and life.”
(This is also in Codex Athous Lavrensis, GA 044, curiously from Mt. Athos, so perhaps the 044 manuscript has a connection with Sinaiticus?)
For one of the two elements of the conflation, ζωῆς (life) extant evidence for the reading is late.
This leads to one of many Sinaiticus textual puzzles, how does a theorized 4th-century text conflate a later reading?
Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, p. 247
"A few witnesses, including the nucleus HK group, replace σωτηρίας with ζωής (1505 1611 2138 S:HPh), whereas a few important MSS attest a conflation, τής κοινής ήμών σωτηρίας και ζωής (01 (א) 044 2627Ζ). The attestation of ζωής by 01 (א) shows that the substitution is early. Sakae Kubo suggests that a scribe made the change “because σωτηρία did not cover the things which the scribe wrote" (A textual commentary on P72 at p.226)"
However, this does not really solve the chronology difficulty, the conflation anachronism!
This types of quirks are rather abundant in Sinaiticus studies.
You cited Wasserman’s explanation which makes it cler that it was in Thomas of Harqel’s Greek Vorlagen of his translation in the early 7th century. What is the problem? It happens every now and then that an early reading attested in papyri or the great uncials then turns up in a late minuscule. It is not a conspiracy you know.
DeleteThanks, Anon!
DeleteTo clarify an important point, the Syriac Harklean (c. AD 600) did not have "salvation and life", the Harklean line was split between "salvation" and "life" (with additional words.)
And thus it is highly unlikely that the Harklean Greek vorlagen had the conflation, since you would then expect the conflation to show up in Syriac manuscripts. Afawk, the conflation variant only exists in Greek manuscripts.
And very few manuscripts in Greek have the conflation, it is rare.
Putting aside Sinaiticus, which frequently has anachronism puzzles and is the tabula rasa issue at hand, the first "salvation and life" conflation is extant in the 8th-9th century ms. 044, Codex Athous Lavrensis, Ψ. (Also in the margin of 2627, 13th century.) And as we often see in Sinaiticus studies, this unusual variant connects Sinaiticus to a Mt. Athos manuscript, where we have an alternative production history for Sinaiticus.
Thanks for bringing up the Harklean connection, I wanted to give it more emphasis, and your post brought it to the fore.
The list of Sinaiticus textual anachronisms and connections to known historical manuscripts (sometimes text, sometimes correctors) is quite a fascinating and varied list.