Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Designing a Greek New Testament
At present there is no recent manual eclectic GNT that seeks to present the earliest form of the text alongside variants selected on the basis of likelihood that they were in the original. The UBS editions seek to present variants that are relevant to Bible translators; the NA editions seek 'to provide the reader with a critical appreciation of the whole textual tradition' (NA27 p. 45*). Consequently, major variants about spelling are dropped in favour of semantically important variants that virtually no one thinks are original (or even in favour of semantic information which does not involve variant Greek texts, as in Matthew 6:11).
There is a need for a manual edition that is more focussed on the question of the original text. This would begin to highlight where true uncertainty exists and would allow researchers to focus attention on those parts.
Despite the level of abbreviation that takes place in the apparatus of NA27 it still generally considers variants as whole words. I should like a system that is more willing to pinpoint the variation by letters. Thus, if ° were allowed to apply to single letters within a word,
πιστευ°σητε
could signal the variation in John 20:31 most succinctly, provided the ° could be placed in a way that did not interrupt the flow of the text. Nor is there any particular reason why ╭ ╮ should not occur in the middle of a word.
There is a need for a manual edition that is more focussed on the question of the original text. This would begin to highlight where true uncertainty exists and would allow researchers to focus attention on those parts.
Despite the level of abbreviation that takes place in the apparatus of NA27 it still generally considers variants as whole words. I should like a system that is more willing to pinpoint the variation by letters. Thus, if ° were allowed to apply to single letters within a word,
πιστευ°σητε
could signal the variation in John 20:31 most succinctly, provided the ° could be placed in a way that did not interrupt the flow of the text. Nor is there any particular reason why ╭ ╮ should not occur in the middle of a word.
Monday, January 30, 2006
The E-Commentary Project
I have received the following announcement from Andrew Wilson:
The E-Commentary Project
Anyone dissatisfied with the thin gruel of theoretical minutiae and wanting to get their teeth into the tasty bits of textual praxis is welcome to join the E-Commentary Project.
For a short summary of the E-commentary project go to www.nttext.com/nttop.html. For a fuller statement of the idea behind the commentary and its principles, see the General Introduction at www.nttext.com/commintro.html. The actual commentary discussion will be located on the Forum at http://www.nttext.com/forum
This year, it is envisaged tackling some evangelical favourites: Galatians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, one chapter per week commencing in March.
In preparation for Galatians, there is also a study posted on the Forum about Scribal Habits in Galatians, analysing the singular readings of all of the MSS in Swanson's Galatians volume. There is also a review of Moises Silva's study of Scribal Habits in Galatians (in the Scribes and Scriptures volume).
Anyone who thinks they might be interested in participating is welcome to register on the Forum and participate in discussions.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Mark D. Roberts on Ehrman
Mark D. Roberts has recently been writing an extensive reflection on the text of the Bible, interacting with various points of view, but engaging especially with Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. See here. Mark is a pastor, but did his PhD at Harvard with Helmut Koester (I am delighted to know that Koester is involved in the training of pastors!).
Earlier comments: here.
Earlier comments: here.
Ecumenical project 2
Before we all rush off and set up a cyber institute for ecumenical textual criticism (see discussion here), we would do well to reflect on what can be best achieved by working alongside scholars from non-evangelical churches on a broad platform of some common understanding of Christian history and the biblical text. We need to ask who would be good collaborators and what it would be good to collaborate about.
If we're looking for scholarly contribution, I'd say that the groups most likely to have the calibre of scholar we would need would be the RC and the Greek Orthodox churches. Armenian Orthodox, being a group with scholarly tradition based within an independent country, might also be well resourced. However, on OT matters Orthodox groupings tend to be committed to a text quite deviant from the Hebrew, but which is not the 'Old Greek' of the 'LXX' either. So for the sake of argument we might confine co-operation to the NT. Obviously co-operation with the Greek Orthodox would be a natural thing for evangelicals committed to 'Byzantine-Priority' or Majority Text theories. We've already seen a common interest between certain groups of evangelicals and the Greek Orthodox with the production of The Orthodox Study Bible using the NKJV (let's not talk about the textual basis for that!).
What jobs could best be done with such wide co-operation? I suppose that one might be able to launch a major academic project taking apart some of the more cynical reconstructions of early Christians and their treatment of the text. One might also be able to co-ordinate response to books (or other media) that seek to discredit the integrity of Christian scripture (e.g. the likes of that code book by Dan someone or other). Anything else?
If we're looking for scholarly contribution, I'd say that the groups most likely to have the calibre of scholar we would need would be the RC and the Greek Orthodox churches. Armenian Orthodox, being a group with scholarly tradition based within an independent country, might also be well resourced. However, on OT matters Orthodox groupings tend to be committed to a text quite deviant from the Hebrew, but which is not the 'Old Greek' of the 'LXX' either. So for the sake of argument we might confine co-operation to the NT. Obviously co-operation with the Greek Orthodox would be a natural thing for evangelicals committed to 'Byzantine-Priority' or Majority Text theories. We've already seen a common interest between certain groups of evangelicals and the Greek Orthodox with the production of The Orthodox Study Bible using the NKJV (let's not talk about the textual basis for that!).
What jobs could best be done with such wide co-operation? I suppose that one might be able to launch a major academic project taking apart some of the more cynical reconstructions of early Christians and their treatment of the text. One might also be able to co-ordinate response to books (or other media) that seek to discredit the integrity of Christian scripture (e.g. the likes of that code book by Dan someone or other). Anything else?
Seeds planted
I've now finally got around to planting my papyrus seeds. I was amazed by how small they were—about the length of the omicrons in the text of NA27 and as thin as the variant dividers in the apparatus.
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