Gordon Fee Donates Specialized Collection to NOBTS

The H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies (CNTTS), New Orleans, happily announces its receipt of Gordon Fee’s personal textual criticism library. The specialized volumes and other materials have been designated The Gordon D. Fee Collection on the New Testament Text.

The collection is comprised of rare and newer books which Dr. Fee amassed in his half century as a text critic. The collection also includes extensive documentation supporting his work on textual criticism projects.

Noteworthy is Dr. Fee’s collation files on Luke and John, including his signature graphic depiction of the textual variants. The quality of the graphic depiction of the variants in Luke and John is such that the center hopes to digitize the data, make them freely available, and to use them for the center’s own research. Also included are Dr. Fee’s files on the text of various church fathers.

In 2005, Dr. Fee was honored with Evangelical Textual Criticism blog’s Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005 (award; cf. nomination).

In donating his collection, Dr. Fee was passionate that his materials be made available for the advancement of the discipline. In this regard, CNTTS is particularly suited to receive the collection. There are currently nine students working toward a textual criticism PhD at the center’s home at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and 10 part-time researchers at the center. CNTTS has produced its own extensive apparatus of the variants of the Greek New Testament (Bible Works, Accordance), and has commenced a ten year exegetical commentary project on the meaning of the (non-original) variants; the project will be made accessible on the web in due course. CNTTS also cooperates with the International Greek New Testament Project and with the Virtual Manuscript Room project sponsored by the Institut für neuetestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster.

The acquisition was coordinated by James M. Leonard (PhD cand., Cambridge) who is the current recipient of the CNTTS’ post-doctoral research grant as Visiting Scholar. Leonard served as Dr. Fee’s teaching assistant and worked under him in the capacity of Exegesis Assistant at Regent College (1991-1993). Both Leonard and 2008 recipient of the center’s post-doctoral grant Michael Theophilus (PhD, Oxford) studied with Fee at Regent College, Vancouver.

Panel on Textual Criticism and Exegesis in New Orleans II

Several of us benefited greatly from the hospitality of Bill Warren and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The Center for New Testament Textual Studies shuttled people back and forth from Providence House to downtown regularly. Prof. Warren was superb in recommending restaurants.

Additionally, NOBTS and CNTTS had an open house followed by a session on textual criticism (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2009/11/panel-on-textual-criticism-and-exegesis.html). The panel was comprised of Larry Hurtado, Tommy Wasserman, and Michael Theophilus.

Prof. Hurtado argued that the longer reading of Mark 1:1 (… “the Son of God”) was an addition reflecting sound exegesis of the whole of Mark’s Gospel. One of the reasons for the shorter reading is that an accidental omission of ΥΥΘΥ (Son of God) would seem unlikely at the beginning of a book. Presumably, a scribe would have started his arduous task after a refreshing coffee break, etc.

I wonder, however, if a scribe was really less likely to make mistakes when fresh. I’m not sure that the data does support the presumption. A perusal of the opening verses of the individual writings of the New Testament indicates that they all have their fair share of accidental mistakes throughout the manuscript tradition. Perhaps a fresh start led the scribe to being in a hurry. This might explain the word order inversion of Christ Jesus in Rom 1:1, for example.

Prof. Hurtado conceded the existence of accidental mistakes in opening verses, but doubted whether an accidental omission similar to the omission of Son of God in Mark 1:1 could be found. I think, however, that 1 Cor 1:1 would be one such reading. There, κλητός is omitted in several manuscripts so that the text reads “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus [or, Jesus Christ] through the will of God…” instead of “Paul, CALLED to be an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God.”