‘Conjecture Magnets’ Ranked

In his chapter on emendation in the book Pen, Print, and Pixels, Jan Krans gives some very interesting data from the Amsterdam Database. It’s the kind of data that makes you want to ask follow up questions, which is what this post does. 

On pages 175–177, Jan gives a list of places that he calls “conjecture magnets.” These are the most conjectured about problems in the NT and show, as Jan points out, that those conjecturing agree there’s a problem but obviously can’t agree on the solution! 

A passage is a “magnet” if it has five or more conjectures for it. Jan lists 46 such places. What he doesn’t do in the article is tell us the number of conjectures for each one or rank them accordingly. Thankfully, that’s the perfect kind of thing you can do easily with the Amsterdam Database. So, listed below are Jan’s 46 conjecture magnets ranked by the number of conjectures in the database as of today.

You’ll have to go to Jan’s chapter or to the database itself to see what the issue is in each case. But, as one initial observation, it’s interesting that Matthew and especially Revelation do not make the list at all.

Rank	Passage	Total Conj.
1	1 Cor 11.10	36
2	Acts 2.9	27
3	Rom 16.16-23	22
4	Rom 7.25-8.2	21
	Heb 11.37	21
	2 Pet 3.10	21
5	Eph 1.1	20
6	John 18.13-24	19
	Jas 3.6	19
7	Col 2.18	17
8	Luke 2.2	14
	Acts 5.12-16	14
	1 Cor 4.6	14
9	2 Cor 11.30-12.1	13
	Gal 4.25	13
	Heb 2.9	13
10	John 3.25	12
	John 19.29	12
	1 Cor 15.2	12
11	Mark 9.23	11
	Acts 4.25	11
	1 Cor 15.29	11
	1 Thess 3.3	11
12	Acts 13.33	10
13	1 Cor 2.4	9
	2 Cor 1.13	9
	Jas 4.5	9
14	Mark 14.41	8
	Luke 18.7	8
	John 19.39	8
	Acts 1.18	8
	Acts 16.12	8
	Rom 4.12	8
	Col 2.14	8
15	Mark 14.3	7
	Acts 10.30	7
	Eph 5.26	7
	2 Pet 1.20	7
16	Acts 18.5	6
	Acts 27.9	6
	1 Tim 4.3	6
	Heb 12.18	6
	Jas 3.1	6
17	Acts 20.4	5
	Acts 27.7	5
	1 Cor 6.5	5

News from CSNTM: Digital Manuscript Collection Interface is Coming!

The countdown has begun —on Monday 16 February, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscrips (CSNTM), for which I am a boardmember since 2010, will launch its new CSNTM DIgital Manuscript Collection at collections.csntm.org. According to Denis Salgado, Lead Research Fellow and Assistant Executive Director, this platform will offer enhanced functionality, increased flexibility, and the ability to host a broader range of manuscripts and resources that will be added in coming months. Whether you are a scholar, student, or someone passionate about biblical studies, this database will undoubtedly serve as an essential resource for New Testament manuscript research and discovery for years to come.

On the Origin of the Nomina Sacra

Where do the typically Christian shortforms for words such as ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, ‘God’, and ‘Lord’ come from? What is their origin? In a recent essay I argued that their origin lies in a necessary Christian response to Greek Jewish manuscripts in which the Tetragrammaton was dealt with in a special way. And the nomina sacra of the group of words listed above are a coherent and unified response to that Jewish practice, prompted by the fact that the early church saw Jesus in the Jewish Scriptures, and that from the beginning Jesus could be referred to by any of these terms.

Though a unified response, I still argue for a logical beginning in the contraction of the word κυριος. In the essay I suggest that the form κ̅ϲ goes back to the numeral 26, which provides a nice link to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton.

Since writing that essay, I found a number of publications I could have used in support, and one that came out at the same time my piece was published.

First is that the link between nomina sacra and numerals had been suggested for the variant of the number of the beast in Revelation 13:18 by Pete Williams (yes, my boss) back in 2007 (bibliography see below).

Secondly, in 2021 Jesse Hoover showed how the reading 616 had been used within the Donatist church. The number 616 can be represented by χι̅ϲ, which was then interpreted as a combination of the nomina sacra for Christ and for Jesus (basically the same point Williams made, but then 1,400 years earlier).

So my suggestion that κ̅ϲ and 26 are related would make sense within the reception history of the nomina sacra.

There is a ‘thirdly’ here, though. Around the same time my essay was published, HTR published an article by Alexander Kulik. I don’t think we have met or have been otherwise in contact, both pieces are conceived independent of one another (and come from different angles as well). But his study makes an elaborate and thorough case for the plausibility of connecting the nomen sacrum κ̅ϲ with 26, much better than I could have done. You will have to read the full essay by yourself, but I think that Kulik’s piece strengthens the case to regard κυριος as the origin considerably.

Of course, Larry Hurtado had seen the similarity in shape between numerals and nomina sacra, and this led him to seeking the origin of the phenomenon in ι̅η as the initial form of a nomen sacrum for Jesus, with 18 traced back through Barnabas. Though Hurtado was on the right track, I think there is more mileage in κυριος and 26 and it is pleasing to see that some real progress may have been made.

Bibliography

Hoover, Jesse. "The Apocalyptic Number 616 and the Donatist Church." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 72, no. 4 (2021): 709–25.

Jongkind, Dirk. "On the Origin of the Nomina Sacra, Yet Again." In Die Bibel zum Sprechen bringen: Festschrift zu Ehren von Holger Strutwolf, edited by Marie-Luise Lakmann, Gregory S. Paulson Paulson and Jan Graefe. ANTF 61 (De Gruyter, 2025), 105–18.

Kulik, Alexander. "Counting on God’s Name: The Numerology of Nomina Sacra." Harvard Theological Review 118, no. 3 (2025): 425–63.

Williams, P.J. "P115 and the Number of the Beast." Tyndale Bulletin 58, no. 1 (2007): 151–53.

Darrell Post Finds a New Member of Family 13 – L1080

In recent years, Darrell Post has worked to collate all manuscripts in John 11 and in this process he has just discovered a new member of Family 13 – Lectionary 1080 (Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, A' 80, 13th century). Post tells me that the manuscript "was found to be a perfect match to Family 13 in its core group, in John 11:1-45. The lesson that covers 11:47-54 is of a slightly different pattern, but is a match to L547, also belonging to Family 13." 

This is the third lectionary which has been identified as a family member: 

In 1964, Jacob Geerlings analysed L547 in his study on The Lectionary Text of Family 13 according to Cod Vat Gr 1217 {Gregory 547) [ The Ferrar Lectionary] (Salt Lake City, 1964).

In 1982, Yvonne Burns published an article on L574, "A Newly Discovered Family 13 Manuscript and the Ferrar Lection System" in Studia Patristica 12 (pp. 278–299).

And now Post has identified a third lectionary, L1080, as a member of F13, but he points out that a full collation is necessary to see if it is a family member throughout the manuscript. Post sent me a chart which shows the pattern of readings in the chapter and also illustrates its close relationship to L547 in the lesson in 11:47–54.

Copyright of Digital Images of Biblical Manuscripts

The other day I attended an interesting professional development session on "Foundations of Copyright for Researchers" (by the way, this was not punishment for using academia.edu). One of the interesting things about this was a discussion about a recent UK court case and its implications for copyright of digital images - something many of us are interested in and use pretty much every day. 

In brief it seems that the Judge in this court case (Lord Justice Arnold) broadly ruled that simply taking a photograph of an object was not sufficiently "creative" to warrant the copyrighting of the digital image.  

"What is required is that the author was able to express their creative abilities in the production of the work by making free and creative choices so as to stamp the work created with their personal touch […] This criterion is not satisfied where the content of the work is dictated by technical considerations, rules or other constraints which leave no room for creative freedom.” 

If you are interested in this, then there is more information here: https://douglasmccarthy.com/2024/01/after-thj-v-sheridan/ (and also further reading and references to follow up). 

Want to learn to read Greek Manuscripts?

Reading manuscripts is one of the best ways to get into textual criticism and even theology of Scripture because it forces you to deal with what an actual person actually did for someone’s actual Bible. It doesn’t allow you to make assumptions about what you think should have happened and assume that the evidence will simply prove you right.

Dr. Jacob Peterson has created a wonderful website that takes readers who can read printed Greek texts from easy Greek manuscripts on to harder ones.

Screenshot of lesson 1

Just today, I stepped into the main room of CNTTS and saw that our newest employee was being trained on this website before he starts next week.

If you’ve ever wanted to be able to read the manuscripts themselves instead of relying on others to tell you what they say, I recommend xeirographa.com (with an x, not a χ).

A photo of xeirographa.com being used in the wild, which was definitely not staged.