Saturday, October 09, 2010

Royse on Scribal Habits Now in Paperback!

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About a year ago, I was contacted by SBL Editorial Director Bob Buller who had read with interest my blogposts from the SBL 2008 book review session SBL24-129 in which James Royse's recent monograph Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (NTTSD 36; Brill, 2008) was reviewed.

You can find links to the seven blogposts here .




The full text presentations from this SBL section are available under TC-Files in the right sidebar.

Bob also noted the subsequent discussion about the high price of the Brill edition. In fact, the very first remark in the comments to the first post was made on this point by Wieland Wilker: "The real shame is that this phantastic book is so expensive! 310 Euro! $ 369! Come one! This book belongs into the hand of every NT scholar."

Buller told me he was intrigued with the idea of making this work available in an SBL paperback. On the other hand, he was worried that SBL would end up with a lot of very expensive copies sitting in a warehouse, if the demand was not so great. We discussed the matter and I wholeheartedly recommended the enterprise.

Now I can tell you that the SBL paperback edition of Royse's monograph has been announced here and it costs $89.95 (i.e., under 1/4 of the harback list price). Now, that is still a lot of money for a book, but then you must keep in mind that this one is over 1000 pages long, and, as Wieland said, it belongs into the hand of every NT scholar!





In our conversation Bob Buller also asked for recommendations of other Brill books that would be worthwhile for the SBL to publish in paperback. Any suggestions?

9 comments

  1. William Petersen's Tatian's Diatessaron would be nice.

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  2. Other Brill books to be published in cheaper paperbacks?

    How about all of them!

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  3. Great news!
    I just ordered. Amazon has it for 73 Euro!

    I second the suggestion of
    William Petersen's Tatian's Diatessaron!

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  4. Neat!

    B. Ehrman's Studies in the Textual Criticism of the NT, and the two volumes on John's manuscripts, perhaps?

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  5. Maybe we can get de Gruyter to join in the fun and get the entire Text und Textwert series for really cheap?

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  6. I would suggest making it available for Kindle, further reducing the price on account of the lack of paper and ink involved.

    Yours in Christ,

    James Snapp, Jr.

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  7. Actually, selling it on Kindle for $29.95 would help subsidise an even less expensive second printing of the paperback edition for those who don't have Kindle.
    Gotta sell out the first printing first, though.

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  8. $67.46 from Eisenbrauns.

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  9. Daniel, thanks, yes I just suggested that sale at Eisenbrauns; it is a bargain!

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