Saturday, January 01, 2011

Reading the SBLGNT and wondering about a comparable GNT Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine edition

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This year is a good one for readers of the GNT. At SBL we received copies of 'our very own' Michael Holmes' SBLGNT.

One of the features that I appreciate with the SBL edition is the simplified apparatus and the comparative citation of the Byzantine text from the Robinson-Pierpont edition.

I would like to spend more time reading the 'Robinson-Pierpont' itself and I am wondering about my options.

There was a new 'reader' that was published, but I would appreciate something simpler, with just the Greek text (+ apparatus, yes), and preferably something small, on the order of the NA, UBS, and SBLGNT. I've been using the PDF's that Maurice has graciously made available to the public. I suppose that I could pick up one of the hand-sized, traditional editions from the Greek Orthodox community here in Jerusalem, but a list of differences between 'it' (whichever edition) and the R-P would inevitably arise.

8 comments

  1. Dr Buth, if I understand you correctly, would not the RP Byz 2005 edition precisely serve the purpose you desire? The main text is the Byzantine Textform, and in footnotes appear the NA27/UBS4 variants therefrom. It might not be pocket-sized, but other than that....

    Also, in relation to differences between the "standard" Orthodox Antoniades 1904/1912 text and the RP2005, a full collation of those differences (still undergoing final checking) is available at:

    http://koti.24.fi/jusalak/GreekNT/NTTexts.htm.

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  2. Dr. Buth,

    CSPMT is planning to provide exactly what you are asking for. A Byzantine Greek NT smaller critical edition will be published with the base text being the Orthodox Antoniades 1904/12 edition.

    All major Byzantine type mss. groupings will be represented in the extensive apparatus as well as the basic critical readings for comparison. Blessings.

    Paul D. Anderson
    President-CSPMT
    www.cspmt.org

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  3. ευχαριστω υμιν
    Thank you, Maurice and Paul.

    On a small critical edition, I look forward to this. Any dates?

    On the collation citation, I did not find a collation with Antoniades, only Schrivener. Antoniades has a few differences, I remember, at least movable nu stand out.

    I just checked with the local Patriarch and they hope to have a new shipment of pocket GNTs during this coming month. I do not know what editions they have, presumably Antoniades.

    In the meantime, I will continue with the R-P PDFs.

    And maybe someone who likes to write code could do us a favor and produce a Unicode version of the formatted Robinson-Pierpont so that we can reformat as necessary in handouts, readings, ktl.

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  4. Dr. Buth,

    We are working on collations from various Byzantine manuscript groupings so no firm date as yet on the BGNT published edition. We will though be keeping everyone updated on this through our website.

    Our plan is to keep it around the size and format of the UBS edition. We felt is was time that a smaller critical Byzantine NT edition be published. Thank you for your interest. Blessings.

    Paul Anderson
    President-CSPMT
    www.cspmt.org

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  5. Buth: On the collation citation, I did not find a collation with Antoniades, only Scrivener. Antoniades has a few differences, I remember, at least movable nu stand out.

    The Antoniades vs RP2005 collation is a separate file (BYZ-ANT.TXT) within the packet ANT1904.ZIP, cited under the first section of "pre-formatted raw ASCII files".

    And yes, for standardization purposes, movable nu is always present in the corrected Antoniades text available at that site (I do have another file that retains the original presence or absence of movable nu, but this has not been posted).

    I should note in passing that virtually all other internet sites claiming to display the Antoniades text -- including Orthodox sites -- tend to reflect numerous errors and/or differences from the actual 1904/1912 Antoniades edition; similarly the Orthodox printed editions from 1929 onward often seriously distort the original Antoniades lectionary-based text (which text as a supposed reflection of the lectionary tradition remains questionable for a number of reasons already adequately covered in various text-critical sources).

    According to my data, the Antoniades 1904/1912 text differs from the RP2005 text in approximately 1540 instances, and apparently in similar proportion from any printed TR edition as well.

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  6. Dr. Buth,

    I'm working on an independently compiled text of the Gospels, presented in uncial lettering, which -- if I ever get it finished -- could be printed out to fit on 8-and-1/2" x 11" pages folded in half; each page would thus be 8.5" high and 5.5" wide. I envision an unannotated edition, and an annotated edition with notes that mention a lot of translatable variants, including Western readings and other readings that were not adopted by major compilers such as Tregelles or WH but which are nevertheless interesting.

    Would that be something that you might be interested in?

    Yours in Christ,

    James Snapp, Jr.

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  7. for James,

    Yes, such a gospel text would be handy for our monthly synoptic discussions here. In fact, a critical Gospel synopsis based on the Byz texttype would be especially helpful.

    For special reading puposes an uncial without accents can be quite nice and I regularly correspond with people without writing accents.

    However, for more general reading purposes, I prefer a miniscule text with accents in order to continually reinforce my own language. I spent far too many years not listening to the text, or hearing others mis-pronounce the text, so that my own control of a particular lexeme is still easily corruptible. Sometimes, just being asked about the correct accent is enough to cloud one's memory. So I like to get frequent, correct reinforcement from printed texts. We pray that the next generation will be spared some of this.

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  8. Dr. Buth:

    We have extensive Synoptic charts and lists, and some excellent full-color graphic diagrams on various aspects of the Synoptic Problem at our site, which is all public domain under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.

    http://adultera.awardspace.com/SYNOP/index.html

    mr.scrivener

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