Michael Holmes SBLGNT Page

Co-blogger Mike Holmes has started a new webpage! The primary focus of activity, as Mike says, is the SBL Greek New Testament page. We have added links to the SBLGNT webpages (Holmes/SBL-Logos) in the right sidebar.

See earlier posts about SBLGNT here, here, and the initial announcement here.

Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?

One of the books I picked up at SBL, and the one I chose to read on the plane home was C.E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford: OUP, 2010). Chuck, who has written a load of important things about the history of the NT canon (some listed on his faculty web page) has written a readable, but not sensational, treatment of the history of the four-fold gospel canon (he has also written a short summary here).

In fact Chuck doesn’t think that anyone chose the gospels, he thinks (quoting and following Bruce Metzger) that they ‘imposed themselves as canonical upon the church’. The approach works backwards from an excellent and thorough demonstration that Irenaeus was not alone in accepting an exclusive four-fold gospel canon towards the end of the second century (Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, Dionysius, Cyprian, Victorinus, Marinus and Euplus [yes a new one to me too] held fundamentally similar views). In working back through the second century Hill argues that Justin Martyr and Papias both also had a four-fold gospel collection, and there is perhaps room for some disagreement here (although it should be noted that Hill has published a long article on the “new” Papias material he discerned in Eusebius, and for a fuller argument see Hill, ‘What Papias Said About John (and Luke): A “New” Papian Fragment’ JTS 49 (1998), 582-629). If you work backwards from the really clear evidence I think you are more inclined to think that somewhat marginal evidence is actually proof that the four-fold gospel was known in a period when working inductively from the available evidence we might not be able to say that.

Overall I think this is a really useful book. It is not sensationalist (despite the talk of conspiracy, Hill is generally in respectful dialogue with other scholars [with a hint of frustration that they haven’t considered all the relevant evidence]). Occasionally I found myself not quite so convinced of Hill’s position as he was, but had to admit he had arguments for his position. Certainly if you accept that Papias had a four-gospel canon tradition this would be tremendously significant for how we read the less clear evidence in the early part of the second century.

I found quite a few problems / errors / something more than just differences of opinion, especially in relation to manuscripts and such things. Somethings to consider for the second edition:

• p8. Here Hill is discussing how many other gospels existed in the second century and gives a list of nine, noting ‘It is not unlikely that more Gospels might have circulated before 175. But if they once existed they have left no record, even in later lists of books to be avoided ...’ But there are later lists of non-canonical gospels which do provide some record of numerous named gospels. For example, there is a Samaritan list of 35 named non-canonical gospels (J. MacDonald & A.J.B. Higgins, ‘The Beginnings of Christianity according to the Samaritans’ NTS 18(1971)54-80, esp. pp. 66-69), and the Decretum Gelasianum also names a number of gospels and other books.
• p. 13. In discussing the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Hill mentions 500,000 pieces, ‘only about a tenth of which have so far been published’. But in fact it is more like a hundredth, since the most recently published is P. Oxy 5071 (Parsons, cited by Hill in note 7 confirms this).
• p. 20f. Here Hill is discussing the lack of early manuscripts of Mark. He argues that since church fathers knew Mark, and since some manuscripts could have included Mark alongside other gospels, ‘there is reason to believe that at this time Mark was more widely used in Christian churches than the statistics of papyrus discoveries would, by themselves, lead us to believe’. I think on the contrary that there is no reason to believe this (and I have argued this more fully in an essay on Mark in a forthcoming book edited by Hill) - it is rather a consistent phenomena that church fathers who doubtless knew Mark did not often quote Mark (for Clement of Alexandria for example Cossaert has 274 quotations from Matthew; 143 from Luke; 72 from John and 1 from Mark; for Didymus Ehrman has 155 passages from Matthew; 146 passages from John; 111 passages from Luke; and 10 passages from Mark; Brogan found only one quotation from Mark in Athanasius!).
• p. 25. Hill writes: ‘A “book” was a scroll, or roll, a long sheet of papyrus or parchment rolled up with rods attached at each end to serve as handles.’ In Greek bookrolls on papyrus no rods are used (either in contemporary illustrations or in actual archaeological finds).
• p. 30f. Hill follows Hurtado’s idea that use of a codex might correspond with identification of the text as scripture by the scribe; and further that public reading in church required a large codex. Since non-canonical gospels are often on rolls or small codices, they probably were not regarded as equivalent with the four canonical gospels. But in discussing the size of two non-canonical texts Hill slightly cooks the books. This is perhaps not a big problem, but suggests that perhaps the overall argument is driving how the evidence is perceived and presented. Firstly by taking P. Oxy 4009 (G.Peter?) as representing a miniature codex (‘a strong possibility’), whereas we don’t really know that for sure, and the editors also suggest that it could have been from a double columned codex. Secondly by describing P. Ryl 463 (G. Mary) as ‘a miniature’ when as reconstructed (9cm x 13.5 cm) it certainly goes beyond the normal categorisation of a miniature codex.
• p. 72. Here Hill is comparing Clement of Alexandria’s use of non-canonical gospels with his use of the canonical ones, citing a monograph by Mutschler [whose first name is misspelt as Bernard, when it is actually Bernhard] on Irenaeus that he used Matt 757 times; Luke 402 times; John 331 times and Mark 182 times. Now I haven’t been able to check Mutschler’s book, nor his definition of “use”; but it is plain that the more recent monograph actually on the subject (The Text of the Gospels in Clement of Alexandria by Carl Cossaert) offers significantly different figures: 274 quotations from Matthew; 143 from Luke; 72 from John and 1 from Mark (and actually discusses Clement’s lack of knowledge of Mark).
• p. 84. Here Hill is discussing the Akhmin codex of the Gospel of Peter. He writes: ‘It has often been reported that this codex was found in the grave of a monk ... This is part of a legend that has grown up around the discovery. We don’t know if the person in whose grave it was found was a monk or not, or what the person thought of the book. As far as we know, the gravedigger could have thrown it into the grace to get rid of it!’ Well, the reason it is often reported is not because of legend, but because the original publication of the manuscript, by one of the French archaeologists who excavated the Christian cemetery at Akhmim, stated that it came from the grave of a monk. One might disagree with this, or wonder whether the archaeologists had sufficient basis for making this identification (as van Minnen does in an article cited by Hill), but the conclusion is more well-grounded than Hill’s speculation. Another grave in the same cemetery contained a mathematical papyrus - the phenomena of people being buried with texts that had some relevance/value to them is fairly widely attested.
• p. 118. Here Hill is discussing various aspects of Skeat’s view that some NT papyrus manuscripts were originally four-gospel codices. I was especially interested in this bit, and read it especially carefully and found a couple of problems. a) He notes that the scribe of P75 has some harmonisations and suggests that these ‘seem to indicate the scribe’s knowledge of Matthew and perhaps Mark’. This reference to Mark goes beyond the evidence, even of Comfort and Barrett (cited as evidence) who note the scribe’s knowledge of Matthew (as also picked up in Royse), since the possible reference to Mark is only in a direct parallel to a passage also in Matthew - if the scribe knows uniquely Matthean readings it doesn’t make much sense to propose he drew a reading from Mark. b) Hill states ‘if copied around 200, it is more likely than not that it [P75] had such a companion volume [containing Matthew and Mark], whether attached or separated.’ This is interesting, but I have no idea how this likelihood is measured. I would think this is extrapolating beyodn the available evidence. c) In discussing Skeat’s view of P4, 64 & 67 he states that in Skeat’s view ‘the codex contained at least three Gospels, and other features of the papyri indicated that this condex in fact originally contained four.’ Hill gives no indication of what these ‘other features’ are. I had another look at Skeat and can’t find any comment in this direction. d) Hill says that ‘Skeat’s conclusions have indeed been accepted by a number of other papyrologists’, but the footnote refers only to van Haelst, writing more than twenty years before Skeat and who does not accept Skeat’s view (although he does accept that P4 is probably from the same codex as P64 & P67). e) Hill notes that Skeat’s views have ‘not gone unchallenged’ (with footnote to Head and Charlesworth) but then says: ‘it seems agreed, however, that the books of Matthew and Luke represented in P4, 64, 67 were copied by the same scribe, whether bound together with Mark and John or not.’ This fails to note the major disagreement about whether we should even think of Matthew and Luke as bound together.
• p. 119. Hill says that P75 ‘has sectional divisions which would make it easier to read aloud to a congregation’. This is clearly either wrong or rather exaggerated. I’m not saying that P75 couldn’t be read aloud to a congregation, but it has less help in this than just about any other NT manuscript. (On p. 121 he refers to ‘the apparent liturgical design of the papyri P75’ which I also found very questionable).

Biblical Studies Carnival November

The Biblical Studies Carnival for November has been posted by Deane Galbraith at the Bulletin for the Study of Religion. This is a quite comprehensive carnival divided into seven sections and several subsections:


1. Academy, Biblioblogging and Handy Hints
a. Conference Time
Many references to SBL Annual Meeting blogposts and other meetings.
b. Academic Biblical Studies versus Faith
c. Handy Hints and Resources
d. Biblioblogging Anomaly
(An interview with Jim West)

2. Christian origins
a. The Gospels and Jesus
b. Paul and Pseudo-Paul
c. Apocalypse Now
d. Other Christian Origins Blogging

3. Emerging Judaism
a. Tanach
b. Jewish Pseudepigrapha and Mysticism
c. Ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic Background
d. Septuaginta
e. Talmud and Rabbinics
f. Other Emerging Judaism Blogging

4. Language, Text and Translation
a. The NIV
b. Critical Edition
(SBLGNT)
c. Hebrew
d. Greek

5. Reception History

6. Humor and Gossip

7. Biblioblog Top 30

All in all there are five references to ETC blogposts! Moreover, this blog makes it into the top 30 bibliobloglist (#9) as judged by "quality not quantity" (in reference to the latter, Deane refers to another bibliobloglist for November based on Alexa ranking (where ETC is #45).

SBL Gatecrashing

Before I say anything about the SBL sessions, if I manage to collect anything from my not so detailed notes from this year's meeting, I will share some funny memories on the theme of SBL gatecrashing.

First, Ulrich Schmid invited me to the Birmingham breakfast (thank you), and I told my room mate and colleague, Mikael Tellbe, to join me and meet my friends. He was a bit hesitant and felt embarrassed since he did not know anyone (but me), but I told him not to, and so we had a very good time with a relaxed conversation around one of the two breakfast tables, and we both had nice chats; there were about 15 people there and I think I knew almost all (most of the folks were from ITSEE, save Mark Goodacre).

Mikael then told me it was my turn to join him to the Regent College breakfast reception the next morning. At the entrance we were warmthly welcomed by Rikki Watts, whom I had not met before. Then we were told to sign the guestbook indicating name and e-mailaddresses. We served ourselves breakfast and sat down at one of the tables. There were perhaps 60 people in the room, around 6-7 tables, Gordon Fee was there with his wife, and I also knew Michael Theophilus and Jim Leonard sitting at other tables (Jim had actually been Gordon Fee's TA when Mikael was at Regent, so Jim had learnt a lot, he said, from the experience of marking Mikael's papers, etc).

After people had settled around the tables, Rikki Watts held a nice talk about stuff going on at Regent these days. Then he said that we should go around each table, and everyone should present themselves and say when they were at Regent, what they studied, and what they are doing now. I bent towards Mikael and said, "You can say something about me being your colleague - I can't stand up." Then, I changed my mind, and said, "Ok, I can say something short..." But then, as the turn came to our table, I changed my mind again and told Mikael, "No, you go ahead and say something about me," which he did, "And this is Tommy Wasserman, and he has not been to Regent" :-). But I added, "But Regent has been to us - we have had several faculty members at our school."

Eventually, when everyone had presented themselves, it turned out there were three people present who had never studied at Regent. During the presentation, one of them stood up and said boldly: "I am at the wrong place, but I have learnt an awful lot!" The next evening when Peter Head and I were sitting at the hotel bar, Rikki Watts came by and joined us to discuss the cost of book manufacturing in the first century, and other interesting matters. It turned out that Peter and Rikki had had neighbouring study spaces for years at Tyndale Library, and were best of friends. Now I had the opportunity to return the hospitality and could take care of the bill.

The next, much funnnier story ;-), is about my colleague Mikael (I hope he doesn't read this, but I can't resist). Mikael met up with a friend and fellow student from the old days at Regent several times during the meeting. This very nice guy, whom I had the opportunity to meet, is currently writing a commentary for Zondervan, and was invited with another colleague to the Zondervan authors' meeting. The other person, however, was prevented to come to the meeting, and so the friend invited Mikael instead (who is not a Zondervan author - yet). The meeting turned out to be very cosy and informal. Of course, the Zondervan directors wondered who Mikael was, but after explaining he was heartily welcomed - in the end the Zondervan manager insisted that Mikael should have the little book bag gift which was given to the invited authors with some complementary Zondervan books.

However, at the beginning of the meeting, when everyone had settled around the table, the Zondervan representative announced a nice little welcome lottery – the price was a pack of commentaries. The winning ticket had been hidden under one of the chairs. So everyone stuck down their hands and fumbled around under the chairs. Lo and Behold! Mikael pulled out a little piece of paper, and bent towards his friend waving with the ticket: "Hey, I've won the lottery, I have the ticket ... what should I now do?" The uninvited guest wins the lottery? Then, suddenly, someone else announced that he had the winning ticket. What now? Didn't I have it, Mikael thought? Mikael looked again on his piece of paper. On it he could read the chair production number and place of manufacturing.

UBS Greek New Testament Reader's Edition with Textual Notes

On my desk: The new UBS Greek New Testament Reader's Edition with the Greek-English dictionary compiled by Barclay M. Newman, and with textual notes compiled by Florian Voss.

I picked up this book at the American Bible Society book booth. Although not in the picture from the Hard Rock Café in Atlanta, I actually bumped into Florian Voss in the restaurant, and I asked him to tell me more about these textual notes which he has compiled for this new reader's edition, which is offered here by Eisenbrauns either in hardcover or in flexisoft leather (my copy).

Florian has been kind to send me the following reply:

Our intention regarding the notes was to give the reader at least an idea that the text of the New Testament is not undoubtedly clear but has to be reconstructed out of a variety of manuscripts. As the apparatuses of the Nestle-Aland and the UBSGNT seemed to be too complex for a reader’s edition, we decided to take the apparatus of the UBSGNT as a basis but to reduce the information significantly.

Compared to the UBSGNT, the information was reduced in two ways: First, the notes are focused on places where variants significantly impact the meaning of the text. The approach was to look at modern English translations and to see where they have footnotes such as “Some manuscripts add…”; Some manuscripts omit” or something like that. Where more than one translation had such a footnote I formed an own opinion whether a textual note might be advisable or not. Second, as for the manuscripts, only the most important ones were selected: the papyri, some uncials and minuscules (01-06, 019, 032, 33, 81, 1006, 1739, 2053, and 2344), and the Byzantine tradition as represented by Byz. (1006, 2053, and 2344 are cited only in parts of the NT.)

I am aware of the limited value of notes like this. As explained in the introduction, they are to be understood just as a first step into the world of NT textual criticism and any reader is invited to progress beyond the Reader’s Edition some day and to make use of the Nestle-Aland or the UBSGNT.

Speaking of editions, I also picked up the SBLGNT and had it signed by the editor and co-blogger Mike Holmes. And during the meeting I got many questions from scholars who are not directly into textual criticism about the edition - it was the topic of the day at the meeting. We have already had some discussion about the new edition and I am sure it will continue. (For example, I look forward to discuss Mark 1:1 with Mike - who has opted for the shorter version without "Son of God" - probably to Peter Head's great pleasure, since Pete wrote an article, in his early career, arguing for the short version.)

Furthermore, I too, succumbed to Hendrickson's very attractive offer of the new Sinaiticus facsimile (sorry Camilla...) as they threw in David Parker's new monograph on the codex (which David kindly signed for me) and a fine print of one of the pages in the deal. David was present for several hours at Hendricksons to show the facsimile to interested people, and I think the publisher sold more copies than they could dream of (like some 30-40 copies). I arranged to have my copy sent from Alban books in the UK. Otherwise the shipping and customs would cost me a fortune (no customs in the European Union). Actually, this happened at one SBL meeting when I ordered a lot of books from the American Bible Society, and they sent it with Feedex. This was one of my worst bookbuying experiences ever, with all sorts of fees (shipping, customs, extra fee, VAT). However, the nice ABS representative gave me some compensation at a subsequent SBL meeting by offering some extra discount.

A day in the life

It was the last day of term and in order to round off a class on NTTC I took my students to see some manuscripts in the Cambridge University library.

The three oldest were all P.Oxys (Gregory-Aland P17 and P27, and Rahlfs 990; all third or fourth century). 990 is a fragment of a parchment codex of Tobit, and is one of the earliest Christian parchments with Biblical text. P17 with its large letters and multiple reading-helps looks very much like a text used for some sort of a public function, while the other two are 'good weather manuscripts' (only readable when there is enough light because of the small letters). Originally the papyrus may have been brighter though.

We also had two majuscule palimpsests, Zacynthius (040) and a Cairo Genizah item, majuscule 093. With the latter it took us about 15 minutes before we could correlate the first words of the published transcription (Taylor 1900) with the manuscript. The dating of the first is still a problem with 6th and 8th century the two options. If Zacynthius is really 6th, it is a contemporary of 093 (would be nice for reasons of parallelism).

We had to rush through our two remaining manuscripts, Codex Macedoniensis 034, and minuscule 70. The first, a ninth century majuscule, may be one of the youngest manuscripts to omit the pericope de adultera (though the fact that the passage is 'forgotten' λιθ [ληθη] is marked inline and in the margin). Minuscule 70 has a textual value of close to zero, but is interesting because of its scribe, Georgios Hermonymos. He worked in the second half of the 15th century, produced dozens of manuscripts (I know of 28 still preserved, 4 in Cambridge), and is extremely easy to read. Both Macedoniensis and 70 could have been written yesterday, such is the quality of the parchment.

Teaching is such a burden ...