20% Discount on Gentry Festschrift

The latest Text & Canon Institute newsletter went out yesterday and some of you may be interested in a 20% discount code we included for the new Festschrift for Peter Gentry. 

Publisher's description

This Festschrift honors the life and work of Peter J. Gentry on the occasion of his retirement (2021) from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after 22 years of faithful service. The volume includes two personal reflections by family members and a close friend, followed by nineteen essays written by an international assemblage of scholars, all of whom admire the work of Gentry, and some of whom were his own doctoral students. These essays cover several of the academic fields with which Peter Gentry’s own research and writing intersect: biblical languages and linguistics, and the translation, transmission, and reception of the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity.

Table of contents

Journal Issue on Biblical Authority and Textual Criticism

The latest issue of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology is devoted to textual criticism and bibliology. The main essays are published versions of the Text & Canon Institute’s inaugural conference from 2020 with some intro essays by Steve Wellum, John Meade, and myself. We’re glad to see this material reach a new audience and thankful to SBJT for hosting it. Don’t mind the 2020 date; it’s a COVID thing. It’s all open access, by the way. 

Editorial: Defending Biblical Authority on the Textual Front
STEPHEN J. WELLUM 

Discipleship and the History of the Bible
JOHN D. MEADE 

Some Missteps in Narrating the Bible’s History
JOHN D. MEADE AND PETER J. GURRY 

From a Smoking Canon to Burning Hearts: The Making of the Hebrew Bible
STEPHEN G. DEMPSTER 

Chaos Theory and the Text of the Old Testament
PETER J. GENTRY 

Where Inspiration is Found: Putting the New Testament Autographs in Context
TIMOTHY N. MITCHELL 

Listening to the Dead Sea Scrolls
ANTHONY M. FERGUSON 

What Do James, Peter, John, and Jude Have in Common? Arguing for the Canonical Collection of the Catholic Epistles
DARIAN R. LOCKETT

Come Study OT Textual Criticism in the Desert

ETC readers may know that Dr. Meade and I direct the recently-founded Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary. Our mission is to produce academic research and church resources that illuminate the origin of the Bible. We do this through publications, mentoring, academic colloquia, church conferences, and digital resources. 

Today, we are pleased to share that we have made a strategic hire that will help us fulfill that mission. Dr. Peter J. Gentry, whose work needs no introduction here, was already a member of our board of advisors but he will now be joining us as our first Senior Research Fellow. He also been appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Old Testament at the seminary. These positions provide continued teaching opportunity for Dr. Gentry while providing more time for his ongoing research on the text of the Old Testament.

Dr. Gentry will teach courses at both the MDiv and ThM level at Phoenix Seminary. As a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, he will be especially involved with our TCI Fellows. If you are a student who is interested in a PhD in textual criticism or canon studies or just want to shore up those areas before doing ancillary work, let me encourage you to consider our TCI Fellowship. Applications are open through December 31. Where else can you study with two PJGs?

You can read the official announcement here or watch the video.

Sacred Words Videos Online

The videos from our recent Sacred Words conference are now online at the TCI YouTube channel. We filmed all the speakers in the main auditorium. This included Peter Gentry on the text of the OT, ETC’s own Anthony Ferguson on DSS, Stephen Dempster on OT canon, and Dan Wallace on NT text. (We didn’t have the equipment to film the other breakout speakers.) It was really a great conference and we were pleased with how it turned out, especially for our first such event. Thanks to all our speakers!

Gentry

Ferguson

Dempster

Wallace

A Preview of Peter Gentry’s Septuaginta Ecclesiastes

A critical edition with its critical text and apparatus tells a text’s narrative history. If that is true, the new Ecclesiastes of the Septuaginta series is no exception. In this post, I want to provide two examples of places where Peter Gentry’s critical text differs from Rahlfs. Peter Gentry tells me that there are seventy-two differences in all between his and Rahlfs’ text, and he plans to publish these in his forthcoming English Introduction to the Edition. Here are two examples with screen shots from the edition itself.

Παραβολάς “parables” or παραφοράς “madness” in Ecclesiastes 1:17b?

Below is the page out of the new Edition, and we are looking at the word παραφοράς in 1:17b. Rahlfs chose παραβολάς as the original reading on the weight of the majority of witnesses (note ‘rel’ in the apparatus), but the translator’s formal and consistent approach to the Hebrew text has given scholars pause over the years (note Gordis’ conjecture in 1937 mentioned in the apparatus). Since the translator consistently renders Hebrew words from III הלל with περι-/παραφερ- words, it is probable that the translator would have rendered הוללות “madness” with the noun from the same word group, παραφορά or περιφορά. Although the translator preferred the latter term, in this case, παραβολή, shows he actually chose the former term since παραβολάς naturally derives from παραφοράς due to certain phonological factors [see mine and Peter’s argument here]. The reconstruction of παραφοράς was actually confirmed in the reading above the line in MS 788.

Does “a fool speak from excess” in Ecclesiastes 2:15f?

Between 2:15e and 15g in Rahlfs’ Edition, there is the line: διότι ἄφρων ἐκ περισσεύματος λαλεῖ “Because a fool speaks from excess.” But one will notice that the editor has relegated the line to the apparatus and that the apparatus is very dense for this variant. The line itself has several textual problems, but the most significant issue is that in our witnesses it appears both after the new v. 15f (e.g. B/Vaticanus; papyrus 998) and before it (‘rel’ thus A and S among other MSS have it here and so Rahlfs followed these). Several observations from the apparatus reveal why the editor chose not to include this line: (1) it’s not in the Hebrew (see the second apparatus for the marginal note showing that ancient scribes also knew this); (2) the variant appears in different forms in the MSS and in two different places showing the likelihood that it is a secondary gloss to the text; (3) finally, the editor supplies the probable source and inspiration for this gloss in Matthew 12:34 (cf. Luke 6:45). Thus in all probability the line is a secondary gloss that entered the text in different places through its transmission.

In addition to revising the text of Rahlfs, it is clear even from these two screen shots what this edition will offer over Rahlfs. The text and first apparatus are the main features, but the second apparatus presents a complete update to Field’s work for the hexaplaric materials of Ecclesiastes.

This edition will be the departure for any serious work on the book of Ecclesiastes and its textual history. I would make sure your library knows it has been released and that it acquires the volume for its collection.

New Critical Edition: Ecclesiastes for Gӧttingen Septuaginta Series

The latest critical edition in the Gӧttingen Septuaginta Series (began in 1908) has been published: Peter J. Gentry, ed., Ecclesiastes, Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum, Vol. XI, 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). Here is the description from the publishers' website:

Die Herausgabe der großen kritischen Edition des ältesten erreichbaren Septuaginta-Textes ist Ziel des 1908 gegründeten Septuaginta-Unternehmens der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Anspruch und Aufgabe einer solchen Edition ist die auf möglichste Vollständigkeit angelegte Erfassung und transmissionsgeschichtliche Auswertung der handschriftlichen überlieferung, angefangen mit den griechischen vorchristlichen Papyri (3./2. Jh. v.Chr.) bis hin zu den Minuskelhandschriften des 16. Jh. n.Chr., sodann der lateinischen, koptischen, syrischen, äthiopischen und armenischen Tochterübersetzungen, ferner der Septuaginta-Zitate bei den griechischen und lateinischen Kirchenschriftstellern unter Einschluss der sog. Catenenüberlieferung und schließlich aller Druckausgaben der Septuaginta vom 16. bis zum 20. Jh. Erstmals erscheint mit Peter Gentrys Arbeit eine vollständige kritische Edition des Buches »Ecclesiastes«. Der vorliegende Band XI bildet den 2. Band der Gesamtreihe »Septuaginta« und setzt so die Göttinger Editio critica maior fort.

Prof. Gentry has worked on this edition for about twenty years, and I can attest to his very careful work in it. This edition will be the standard for all future work on the text and interpretation of Ecclesiastes.