Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Newly Published Articles and Books in NTTC

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I am certain that many of our readers are on holiday and to avoid idleness (when you do not watch the interesting FIFA World Cup), here are some recent publications of interest (apart from the NTS article on “Tertius in the Margins” mentioned in another blogpost):

H. A. G. Houghton, ed., Liturgy and the Living Text of the New Testament (Gorgias Press).
“The textual history of the New Testament is a dynamic tradition, reflecting differing readings, interpretations and uses of its canonical writings. These contributions represent original research by an international range of scholars, first presented at the Tenth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.”


“Luke’s account of Martha and Mary of Bethany is present in the textual tradition in two versions. The majority of scholars and editors prefer the shorter reading, “only one thing is necessary.” This view is also taken up by the influential UBS Committee, which regards the long reading as a conflation. This preference for the shorter reading is mistaken on several grounds. First, it builds on a factual error presupposing a reading that does not exist in the extant Greek textual tradition. Second, it neglects the history of interpretation and specifically its significance for the textual problem. Third, it is motivated at least in part by positing a dichotomy between the two sisters. In this article, I argue that the long reading in the passage in Luke 10:41–42, where Jesus replies to Martha that “few things are necessary, or indeed only one” is the initial text and the lectio difficilior, as well as the text that is best suited to its narrative context in Luke’s Gospel.”

Garrick V. Allen, “There Is No Glory and No Money in the Work”: H. C. Hoskier and New Testament Textual Criticism, TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 23 (2018): 1–19.
“Focusing on the work and life of H. C. Hoskier, this article explores the broader intellectual context of late nineteenth and early twentieth century textual criticism. This examination illuminates the deep context of current trends in textual scholarship on the New Testament, arguing that the discipline has much to learn from the dark corners of the tradition. Though seemingly dry and laborious work (and of a truth it is the latter to a large extent) some of the most wonderful truths, some of the most interesting problems present themselves to his mind as letter by letter, line by line, and page by page the patient collator toils along slowly at his task.”

There are more articles to be published in this journal very soon. Also, check out the reviews in the new volume.

Alan Taylor Farnes, “Scribal Habits in Selected New Testament Manuscripts, Including Those with Surviving Exemplars,” Unpublished PhD dissertation,  University of Birmingham, 2018.
“In the first chapter of this work, I provide an introduction to the current discussion of scribal habits. In Chapter Two, I discuss Abschriften-or manuscripts with extant known exemplars-, their history in textual criticism, and how they can be used to elucidate the discussion of scribal habits. I also present a methodology for determining if a manuscript is an Abschrift. In Chapter Three, I analyze P127, which is not an Abschrift, in order that we may become familiar with determining scribal habits by singular readings. Chapters Four through Six present the scribal habits of selected proposed manuscript pairs: 0319 and 0320 as direct copies of 06 (with their Latin counterparts VL 76 and VL83 as direct copies of VL 75), 205 as a direct copy of 2886, and 821 as a direct copy of 0141. I discuss in Chapter Four the need to better understand the scribal habits of manuscripts written by scribes who wrote in their non-native language. Additionally, I conclude that 205 and 2886 are, in fact, not copies of one another. In the conclusion, I argue that there is no common scribal habit shared by all scribes except that this study has not found a scribe who adds more words than they lose. Additionally, textual critics should place greater emphasis on the roles played by patrons and readers of the text rather than on scribes alone.”

Happy holiday!

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