The Earliest Systematic Use of GA 03 in the Modern Period

A few years ago, Dirk Jongkind posted a brief article on this blog about GA 372, a minuscule manuscript of the synoptic Gospels and the first few chapters of John. As he noted then, this manuscript certainly gives the appearance of being a copy of a printed edition. While it seems to have been copied by hand, it includes faux wood cuts capitals, and does not include nomina sacra or ekthesis. As Teunis Van Lopik helpfully pointed out in the comments to that article, the scribe of this manuscript is  Johannes Honorius, whose “script formed the basis for the font of  the pontifical press.” 

However, the text does not match any printed edition. In preparing the forthcoming Tyndale House Textual Commentary, Dirk and I noticed a few places where the text overlapped with that of GA 03. In his comment, Teunis had suggested that this manuscript might have been intended as the printers copy for a canceled Greek New Testament project, noting that “in 1560-1561 a congregation of four cardinals, assisted by Guglielmo Sirleto worked on the text of the Vulgate and the Greek New Testament. Some documents, produced during the existence of this congregation, are still available. To this small collection I will add GA 372.” 

Since this project was based in the Vatican, it raises the possibility that the edited text of which GA 372 was intended as the printer’s copy had made use of GA 03. Consulting the TUT results for GA 372 in Matthew, I discovered that it has 16 “2” readings, 16 “1/2” readings, 26 “1” readings, and 6 Sonderlesarten.

The high number of “1” readings in GA 372 rules out the possibility that it is simply a copy of GA 03, which only has one such reading in Matthew. However, a consideration of the non-majority readings in GA 372 make it almost certain that the text of which it is a copy was corrected against GA 03 at some stage in the process. 

The Sonderlesarten are especially telling. There are six of these in GA 372. In three of these (6:4, 23:3, 37:4), it agrees straightforwardly with GA 03. In fact, in 37:4, GA 372 agrees with GA 03 in a reading found in only two other witnesses (01 and 873). In two others (15:3 and 58:3C), the distinctive reading of GA 372 can be simply explained as either a conflation or a partial correction of a standard TR edition against the reading of GA 03. In only one case (59:3), is there no obvious relation between a Sonderlesarten of GA 372 and the text of GA 03 and this particular reading is much less distinctive than the others, being found in a large number of minuscules.

The “2” readings continue the same pattern. Out of the 64 Teststellen in Matthew, GA 03 has the “2” reading in 42 locations, or about 66% of the time. According to TuT, GA 372 has only 16 such “2” readings. In 14 of these locations, GA 372 has the same reading as GA 03, including a number of places where the “2” reading is found in a tiny handful of other witnesses (e.g. 35:2, a reading otherwise found only in five other known witnesses—GA 05 032 163 2680 2737). One additional location (32), while being classed as a “2” reading, is found in no fewer than 590 manuscripts in the TuT collation, so it is hardly distinctive. In the final location (20), a consultation of the images reveals an error in TuT—GA 372 does not have the “2” reading here, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that this is the one location where GA 03 does have a “1” reading. It is quite striking that GA 03, while having “2” readings only 66% of the time, can explain *all* of the distinctive “2” readings in GA 372. 

To sum up, of the 16 “1” readings and 6 Sonderlesarten in GA 372, all but 2 of them can be explained by the comparison of a standard Byzantine text (or printed TR edition) with the text of GA 03. Given Teunis’s previous identification of GA 372 as a remnant of an edition of the Greek New Testament prepared in Rome, it seems clear that those who were preparing this edition made use of GA 03, which would make this the earliest known systematic text-critical use of this manuscript in the modern period. It is perhaps worth noting that GA 372 is not discussed in Yi’s history of the early text-critical use of GA 03, From Erasmus to Maius.

As a useful follow up to this study, if anyone had a list of distinctive readings of various early TR editions in the Synoptic Gospels, it might be possible to determine if GA 03 was compared to a Byzantine manuscript or, as I suspect is more likely, to a printed edition. If the latter, it is entirely possible that this edition is still in the Vatican library, waiting to be discovered. 

RIP Chrys C. Caragounis (1940–2025)

The Centre of Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University has announced that Professor emeritus Chrys C. Caragounis has passed away at the age of 85. 

 

Professor Chrys C. Caragounis has died at the age of 85. He was born in Athens in 1940 and studied theology at London University, where he received a Bachelor of Divinity with honors in 1971. He continued his studies at Uppsala University and defended his thesis The Ephesian Mysterion in 1977. Caragounis' academic career included positions at Uppsala University, London School of Theology and the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, before returning to Sweden in 1987 where he concluded his career as Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Lund University. 

Is GA 2021 Part of the Same Manuscript as GA 1848?

Working on a footnote for the forthcoming Textual Commentary on the Tyndale House Greek NT, I was doing a little digging into the manuscript collection of Paul Pétau. Mill used three manuscripts from this collection for his edition of the Greek New Testament, which he labels as Pet. 1., Pet. 2., and Pet. 3. 

Pet. 1. seems fairly clearly to be the same as, Nederland Leiden Universitaire Bibliotheken Voss. gr. Q° 77, GA 328, Diktyon 38184. Pet. 3. also seems to be fairly clearly the same as Vaticano Città del Vaticano Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) Reg. gr. 179, GA 181 + GA 2819, Diktyon 66348, a manuscript used by Zacagni for his edition of the Euthalian apparatus. 

Unfortunately, Pet. 2., the manuscript I actually wanted to identify, has proved rather harder to track down. By Tischendorf’s day, it had already disappeared. In the prolegomena to Tischendorf’s edition, written by Gregory, it is noted that “hodie latet” (now missing). Despite this, Tischendorf seems to have cited this manuscript from Mill’s edition, using the numbers 39 for Acts and the Catholics, 45 for Paul, and 11 for Revelation. The reading of greatest interest is, of course, Revelation 13:18, where Mill notes that Pet. 2. reads χιϛ, or 616. Unfortunately, I was not able to track down any manuscript with this reading. 

However, it was this research that lead me to GA 1848. This manuscript, which was also once part of the Petau collection, has been divided into a large number of individual volumes, now divided between the BNF and the Vatican. BNF Grec 108, 109, 110, 111 and BAV Reg. gr. 76 are all known to be a part of this same manuscript, which was copied by Georgios Hermonymus in the late 15th century. 

BAV Reg. gr. 68] (GA 2021) has the same copyist, also comes from the Pétau collection (according to Xavier Rincel’s dissertation). On examining the images side by side, they also share a number of distinctive formatting features, including a rubricated running title, large gaps for initials (mostly not filled in), and general mise-en-page.

According to the Liste, GA 1848 is a copy of GA 467, also copied by Georgios, and which has a very similar layout. Since GA 467 contains Revelation, if GA 1848 is a copy, it seems reasonable to suppose that it also would have contained Revelation. Given that GA 2021, in addition to all the other features, has been bound into the same miniature volumes as the different portions of GA 1848, it is very likely part of the same manuscript. If this is confirmed by other researchers, the two should be linked together in the Liste. 

When I initially discovered this, I had hopes that GA 2021 would prove to be the missing Pet. 2. However, a quick cross-referencing of of the Sonder- and Singulär- lesarten in the TuT of GA 2021 with the readings of Pet. 2. in Mill’s apparatus, as well as a few checks of the readings of Mill in GA 2021 itself, did not reveal any significant correspondences, leaving Pet. 2. “hodie latet” in our day, as it was in Gregory’s. 

Bates Reviews New Book on the Origins of Greek Minuscule

For those who don’t know Clark Bates, he wrote his ThM thesis under my supervision on the origin of minuscule script. I learned a lot from his research. He has gone on to finish his PhD at the University of Birmingham (UK) on catena MSS. In the latest issue of The Byzantine Review, he has a substantive review of a new book on that subject. Here is how the review starts:

It is not very often that one has occasion to review a work that disrupts,challenges, and refutes one’s own earlier research and suppositions. Neither is it often that such disruption is well-received. Nina Sietis’s recentmonograph on the origin of the ‘Studite Minuscule’ has provided me withboth opportunities.

Well, that got my attention! He goes on:

In this thoroughgoing and well-written book, Sietis offers readers an outline of the institution of the Studios Monastery andthe biography of its most influential abbot, Theodore, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the research related to the development of the literary minuscule script often associated with the same monastery and abbot. The historical and paleographical details of the first volume are accompaniedand amplified by a catalogue of Studite manuscripts in the second one. Because most researchers will probably engage with Volume I, I will devote most of my review to it but reserve some comments for the catalogue of Volume II.

Sietis’s book is in two volumes, the first of which is open access. But for those of us who can’t read Italian or can’t read it well, you will want to read Clark’s review to get a good sense of the book’s argument. I will be among those who need to update my lecture notes accordingly.

Updated Essential Works in New Testament Textual Criticism

I have just started to update our most popular blogpost ever, the bibliography on the Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament Texual Criticism. Yes, it has now surpassed Elijah Hixson's magnificent piece on First-Century Mark as well as Peter William's breaking news on the archaelogical discovery of Q (I am thankful to see that someone added a disclaimer "THIS POST IS A JOKE FOR APRIL FOOLS DAY!"). In any case, I just added in some few new entries to the bibliography, two of which got an asterisk (among the top ten). But there are many more to add. Do you have any suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

Introductions and surveys

• *Crawford, Sidney White, and Tommy Wasserman, eds. The Oxford Handbook on Textual Criticism of the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
• *Quarles, Charles, New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century: A Practical Guide. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2025.
  

Current trends views and debates

• Holmes, Michael W. "New Testament Textual Criticism in 2020." Early Christianity 11.1 (2020): 3–20.

Working with manuscripts

• Lied, Liv Ingeborg and Brent Nongbri. Working with Manuscripts: A Guide for Textual Scholars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025. [This is a general guide, not focused on biblical manuscipts]

Current trends in dating NT papyri

• Nongbri, Brent. God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. [A provocative monograph summarizing Nongbri's several challenges to narrow and too early dating of the papyri].
• Wasserman, Tommy. “Beyond Palaeography: Text, Paratext and Dating of Early Christian Papyri.” Pages 151–162 in The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri at Ninety:Literature, Papyrology, Ethics (open access). Edited by Garrick V. Allen, et al. Manuscripta Biblica 10. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2023. [This chapter contains a response to some of Nonbgri's challenges and emphasizes the continuity between Christian and Jewish scribal cultures.]

Scribal habits

• Hixson, Elijah. Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices. NTTSD 61. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
• Malik, Peter. P.Beatty III (P47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text. NTTSD 52. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
• Mugridge, Alan. Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice. WUNT I.362.  Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.

Practice of NT textual criticism

• *Houghton, H. A. G. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion to the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025.

Conjectural emendation

• Kamphuis, Bart L. F. New Testament Conjectural Emendation in the Nineteenth Century: Jan Hendrik Holwerda as a Pioneer of Method. NTTSD 56. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

Update: I have added Charles Quarles new introduction under Introductions and surveys and marked it with an asterisk.

Ancient Books Website

My thanks to Drew Longacre for drawing my attention to a new web resource on ancient books from William A. Johnson and Nicholas Wagner at Duke. As the website explains:

The Ancient Books Website (ABW) joins a long tradition of open- access tools for papyrological research. The website provides data complementary to those in tools like the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB), now part of Trismegistos (TM), and the Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri (DCLP). The data captured here are focused on two areas: (1) reconstruction of the physical details of each literary papyrus, and (2) analysis of the scribal features.

Currently, they have two main datasets online that give detail on the physical features and scribal features of bookrolls. Again, from the website:

Physical features. The website provides measurements for width and height (measured or calculated) for features like column, intercolumn, roll, letters, and vertical spacing. 

Scribal features. So far, the website provides synoptic analysis of the punctuation, and of scribal usage for nu-movable and iota adscript. We will be adding to these data over time. 

Datasets for early codices is said to be coming in 2026.