Royse on Scribal Habits Now in Paperback!

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?