Bible as Notepad

I was pleased to lay my hands on this very recent collection of essays edited by Liv Ingeborg Lied and Marilena Maniaci. It is the third volume in De Gruyter’s new ‘Manuscripta Biblica’ series, edited by Patrick Andrist and Martin Wallraff. (Oddly, vol. 2 is only scheduled for publication in 2019 and there’s no word of vol. 1 on the publisher’s website.) As the series itself indicates, MB focuses on manuscripts of the Bible and as such ‘introduces and analyses these neglected witnesses of acts of reading and re-interpreting the text throughout the centuries’. Bible as Notepad fits squarely within this scope.

The essays, which are actually proceedings from a 2014 conference held in Oslo, deal with a diverse pool of topics. Here’s the TOC to whet your appetite:

1. Liv Ingeborg Lied, ‘Bible as notepad: Exploring annotations and annotation practices in biblical manuscripts’
2. Daniel K. Falk, ‘In the margins of the Dead Sea Scrolls’
3. Kipp Davis, ‘Margins as media: The long insertion in 4QJera (4Q70)’
4. Paolo Buzi, ‘Additional notes in Christian Egyptian biblical manuscripts (fourth–eleventh centuries): Brief remarks’
5. Jeff W. Childers, ‘Divining gospel: Classifying manuscripts of John used in sortilege’
6. Marilena Maniaci, ‘Written evidence in the Italian Giant Bibles: Around and beyond the sacred text’
7. Nurit Pasternak, ‘Giannozzo Manetti’s handwritten notes in his Hebrew Bibles’
8. Adam Carter Bremer-McCollum, ‘Notes and colophons of scribes and readers in Georgian biblical manuscripts from Saint Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai)’
9. Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Ted M. Erho, ‘EMML 8400 and notes on the reading of Hēnok in Ethiopia’
10. Patrick Andrist, ‘Toward a definition of paratexts and paratextuality: The case of ancient Greek manuscripts’

There’s much to be learnt from every essay in this wide-ranging collection, but the one that particularly hit home for me was Andrist’s, more theoretically geared, treatment of paratexts. (FWI: Patrick Andrist and Martin Wallraff are spearheading a big ERC-funded project ParaTexBib, which investigates the structural codicology and paratextual materials in the manuscripts of the canonical Gospels). I’ve been interested in the notion of paratextuality for a while now and have found Genette’s literary theories, which Andrist re-contextualised and re-appropriated for the study of biblical manuscripts, fascinating and potentially useful. I hope to say more on the subject in due course. Suffice it to say that the biblical manuscript tradition a rich pool of data that is ripe for fresh investigations and the study of paratexts might well be a very fruitful way of going about it.

A Different Spin on 1 Cor 14:34–5

The July issue of NTS contains an interesting text-critical offering by Aļesja Lavrinoviča: ‘1 Cor 14.34–5 without ‘in All the Churches of the Saints’: External Evidence’. The abstract goes like this:

The present study of the oldest and most relevant extant manuscripts that contain 1 Cor 14.33b–35 shows that v. 33b (ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων) is not connected with vv. 34–5. Scribes would consider 33b to be a part of 33a. Manuscripts ℵ, A, B, Fuldensis, D, F, G, ms. 88* clearly read 1 Cor 14.34–5 as a separate paragraph. In these manuscripts, where vv. 34–5 are found after v. 40, v. 33b closely follows 33a. P46 and P123 are damaged and require reconstruction. Moreover, Greek New Testament editions that link v. 33b with v. 34 reflect exegetical decisions and are not based on external evidence.

Broadly speaking, it seems that Lavrinoviča has made a plausible cumulative case, even if some of the details adduced seem problematic. For instance, Lavrinoviča mentions ‘slashes’ in P46, which she takes to be indicative of text-division, yet without citing any primary evidence or relevant secondary literature apart from Comfort’s general remarks in his Encountering Manuscripts. Here a reference to Edgar Ebojo’s recent thesis on P46 would have been useful. (By the way, the ‘slashes’ in Chester Beatty Biblical papyri are an interesting phenomenon, not exclusive to P46, and would probably repay some further specialised study.) In a similar vein, what the author does not seem to pay much attention to is that various phenomena listed as indicating text-division often appear inconsistent and sometimes downright iffy (e.g. vacant spaces can occur in the middle of a word; ekthesis occurs where you wouldn’t expect a ‘major’ break in the text’ based on the surrounding occurrences; a ‘slash’ used mid-sentence; etc).

Despite these quibbles, I enjoyed Lavrinoviča’s approach, which sits well with the recent trends in Editionswissenschaft whereby editors increasingly consider the manuscript data in deciding matters such as orthography, punctuation, and text-structuring rather than merely imposing a system of their own or standardising solely according to modern conventions. From a reception-historical standpoint, MSS data such as those adduced by Lavrinoviča can come extremely handy for exegetical purposes. Few of us would doubt that the way the text is laid out considerably impacts one’s reading.  Having said that, appropriating MS evidence to such end needs a healthy dose of critical scrutiny. What does it mean in this particular case? Well, even if one followed the said MSS in dividing the text after v. 33b, that says next to nothing about the (in)authenticity of vv. 34–5. This, of course, is not the line of argument pursued (directly at least) in the article, but it is not difficult to imagine someone jumping the gun here.

A Text-Savvy Issue of Novum Testamentum

The latest issue of Novum Testamentum contains two articles of interest:

Eldon J. Epp, ‘Text-Critical Witnesses and Methodology for Isolating a Distinctive D-Text in Acts’, pp. 225–96.

Abstract:
Within the past decade, a few leading New Testament textual critics have challenged two major, long-standing convictions by urging that we should speak no longer (1) of “text-types” or (2) of two textual streams in the Acts of the Apostles. Certainly the term “type” is too rigid and definitive to describe our textual groups, and “textual clusters” is more appropriate. The present essay concerns whether dual texts can be identified certifiably in Acts, thereby distinguishing a “D-Textual Cluster” from an alternate cluster headed by Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus ( א). It is clear that all D-Text Primary witnesses are mixed texts that, over time in various ways, have been conformed and assimilated to the increasingly dominant B-Cluster, as well as to the ascending Byzantine text.A fresh method, however, is proposed and illustrated at length (1) to identify a tightly cohesive group of Primary witnesses to a D-Textual Cluster, which (2) reveals that these D-Text readings virtually always are opposed by the א-B-Cluster. The result is a strong testimony to the early existence of dual textual streams in Acts that stand firmly over against one another.The fresh aspect of the method involves, for each variation -unit, (1) identifying the Primary witnesses available for a given reading; (2) counting the number supporting a presumptive D-Text reading; (3) counting those that do not; and (4) calculating the percentages of witnesses agreeing and not agreeing to the readings in question. Three or more Primary witnesses must be present in a variation-unit to be included. The global figures show that available Primary D-Text witnesses agree with one another 88% of the time on readings in 425 variation-units, while 97% of the time these readings are opposed by both א and B together.

Garrick V. Allen, ‘Textual History and Reception History: Exegetical Variation in the Apocalypse’, pp. 297–319.

Abstract:
This article explores the possibility of examining reception history within the textual history of the New Testament, focusing on the book of Revelation. Both intentional alterations located in particular manuscripts and reading practices gleaned from slips of scribal performance are indicative of reception. Attempts to facilitate a certain understanding of a locution constitute acts of reception embedded in Revelation’s early textual history. The article concludes by analysing the social dynamics of the milieus in which exegetical textual alterations were tolerated, suggesting that the work of informal scribal networks provides modern researchers access to evidence for reception.

It’s a bit rare to see an entire journal issue comprised solely of text-critical studies. Given the length of one of the articles, however, this is perhaps not unexpected! (Fun fact: NovT author guidelines suggest that the manuscripts ‘should typically not exceed 8,500 words’, a suggestion which the editorial board tends to take [in my experience at least] rather seriously.) I hope to say more on the latter [edit: Allen's] article shortly. For now, enjoy the hefty meal from Leiden.