Two New Articles in Novum Testamentum

Peter Rodgers recently mentioned two new reviews in the current issue of Novum Testamentum, Volume 52, Number 3, 2010.

There are also two articles in the area of New Testament textual criticism:

Roy E. Clampa, "A Note on Problems with the Representation of 1 John 1:7 in Codex Alexandrinus," pp. 267-271

J. K. Elliott, "Supplement III to J.K. Elliott, A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts," pp. 272-297

The latter update to Elliott's bibliography contains lots of information and leads to uncatalogued Greek New Testament MSS. There is so much to discover out there!

I should also mention that this blog is now included in Elliott's ample bibliography:

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com contains items of news and opinion on aspects of textual criticism including manuscripts.

Marc Multilingue Project On-line

J.K. Elliott tells me that the Marc Multilingue Project, in which he is involved, now has a web-site here, (unfortunately only in French). The project was presented in an article in Fil Neot 29-30 (2002): 3-17, available on-line here.

The article was summarized by Peter Williams on this blog a few years agohere.

Williams said:

It describes a significant collaborative project to produce ten volumes on the Gospel of Mark, with each version provided with its own volume. Languages covered are Greek, Latin, Gothic, Coptic, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac and Slavic. It will attempt to present text forms diplomatically, while also showing the relationship between them.

The edition will set out texts in their relative sequence, starting with D followed by W, since it is believed (by Amphoux) that D may represent the earliest form of the text of Mark we have (I would have preferred P45).

Sinaiticus in Times Literary Supplement

In the recent Times Literary Supplement, published on Friday 29 January, J. K. Elliott has a piece on Codex Sinaiticus and its digitization. The article is available at Times online for subscribers.

Editor Peter Stothard notes:

There is further consolation for the anxious this week in J. K. Elliott’s celebration of the British Library’s extraordinary achievement in uniting in digital form one of the oldest biblical manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus. The story of how schoolchildren and the unemployed contributed to buying the British sections from Stalin was told in an exhibition last year; the online version, which brings together parts scattered in four physical locations, is already being studied in new detail and by millions who would otherwise have struggled to see it at all.

Bibliography of Greek New Testament MSS

Prof. Keith Elliott is assembling the third Supplement to his Bibliography of Greek NT mss. The last supplement was in Novum Testamentum 49 (2007): 370-401. He would be grateful to be sent the bibliographical details of any recent relevant material - editions, articles, plates etc. to add to his files. Better he told the same information more than once than he miss out a useful item. Contact him at j.k.elliott@leeds.ac.uk.

J. K. Elliott on Stephanus' 3d Edition (1550)

In the current issue of New Testament Studies 55.3 (2009): 390-95, J. K. Elliott has a short study on "Manuscripts Cited by Stephanus."

Abstract

The third edition of Stephanus' Greek New Testament (ΤΗC ΚΑΙΝΗC ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗC ΑΠΑΝΤΑ: Paris, 1550), known as the editio regia, is held in high regard in English Protestantism. It was this text which underlay the English translation (by W. Whittingham and others) published in Geneva in 1557 that greatly influenced the Geneva Bible published three years later. In effect, Stephanus' edition was the Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament for over three hundred years.

In his description of Stephanus' third edition of the Greek New Testament (1550) Elliott also includes a helpful table to identify the fifteen witnesses cited in the margin of the edition. Elliott also gives examples of a number of inaccuracies in the edition, some of which were noted already by Wetstein 1730. In this connection he points out that Scrivener had noticed that Codex Bezae was sometimes only loosely cited. I think this particular problem applies not only to Bezae in Stephanus' edition. In fact, in Jude I know that there are not only errors in the four or five MSS that Stephen cited there, but many interesting and significant variants in those MSS are not indicated at all.

Elliott further says that "modern readers may find it useful to examine (with care) Stephanus’ apparatus for access to and information on the readings of the now lost manuscripts cited (8a-10p, 3r, and perhaps 50a-8p)." In my own work on Jude I did that with 8a - a lost MS that could be accessed only through Stephanus' apparatus. I could conclude that this now lost MS shared most of its readings with 1846. Elliott also suggests that Stephanus' edition could be consulted for readings not found in modern editions.

Two New Book Reviews

We can thank J. K. Elliott for two new reviews in the Review of Biblical Literature. Elliott's first review is glowing:
Carl Cosaert, The Text of the Gospels in Clement of Alexandria (SBL, 2008)



His second review is also laudatory, although he notes that the monograph is better suited to a scholarly reader:
AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (HUP, 2008)

Elliott review of Parker

The latest JTS also has a long (8 page) review of Parker's Introduction by J.K. Elliott: JTS 60 (2009), 234-241.

Elliott is very appreciative of the book generally, while also pointing out quite a few problems, foibles, omissions, and typos. He refers to it as a primer, but his comments register the lack of any introduction to NA27, few discussions of texts and methods (which for most of us will limit its use as an introductory text). Elliott poses the interesting issue that the Aland's were (rightly) criticised for failing to do justice to publications not controlled by their Institut, and suggests that Parker is in danger of becoming myopic in relation to publications and methods outside of the current Birmingham/Munster axis (e.g. no intro to Claremont Profile Method; no criticism of Mink etc.). All in all he thinks Parker is a "master plumber".