Review of Acts of the Apostles, Ethiopic Version

Jean-Louis Simonet sends word that he has published a critical review of Curt Niccum’s book, The Bible in Ethiopia. The Book of Acts (2014) in J-L. Simonet, ‘Le livre des Actes dans la Bible éthiopienne. A propos d’un livre récent’ BABELAO 5 (2016), 117-125. This is available online here.

NB. The name BABELAO means « Bulletin of the Abelao », more precisely « Bulletin de l’Académie Belge pour l’Etude des Langues Anciennes et Orientales » (Bulletin of the Belgian Academy for the Study of Ancient and Oriental Languages). It is a scholarly online journal, see further here.

Ethiopic Manuscript of Jannes and Jambres (and 2 Timothy 3.8)

Over at PaleoJudaica, Jim Davila notes the recent discovery of an Ethiopic text of Jannes and Jambres (a work about the Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7, known only incompletely, which may be categorised, following the lead of Origen, as among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha - an introduction and ET of the fragmentary Greek witnesses is found in Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, 427-442). I re-quote here from the source of the information, the discoverer of the manuscript, Ted Erho:

The fragment consists of a bifolium of non-consecutive leaves datable on palaeographic grounds to the beginning of the 14th century, or perhaps slightly earlier. Although in relatively good condition and generally legible, the top inside corner is damaged, resulting in the loss of a few letters from the first two lines of each affected column; mold or some sort of related bacterial contamination on the recto of the initial leaf have additionally caused several characters and one full word to become completely obscured.

Approximately 80% of the text of Jannes & Jambres preserved in this Ethiopic witness is previously unattested. In two places, however, parallels exist with the Greek evidence. The first of these occurs at the very beginning of the fragment and overlaps with both Vienna Frag A and P. Chester Beatty XVI Frame 4↓, while the second, which commences about two-fifths of the way through f. 1v and continues almost until the end of the leaf, aligns with Vienna Frag B and P. Chester Beatty XVI Frame 3→. No precise textual correspondences with the extant Greek material exist for any portion of the second Ethiopic leaf. Its content, however, consists primarily of laments for various elites who have died (probably the nobles of Egypt), which each section introduced by the question “Where is (name)?”, traces of which may be attested in the very fragmentary later leaves of P. Chester Beatty XVI. In any case, the substantial quantity of unique material in the Ethiopic fragment suggests that the Greek evidence probably represents a smaller portion of the full text of the apocryphon than has been supposed to date.

  This is interesting of course because Jannes and Jambres are mentioned in 2 Timothy 3.8f: “As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;  9 but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.” This is interesting on at least three grounds: a) hermeneutical; b) canonical and c) textual.

• a) In terms of the hermeneutical assumptions exhibited here, it seems to be a very clear example of a NT author reading (and referring) to an OT text not (only?) in its original form (where the magicians of Egypt are not named), but in the form in which it was understood in popular Jewish Bible reading (the names appear at Qumran in CD 5.18f; Tg Ps-Jon on Exod 1.15 & 7.11f; and become very widespread in magical circles, even appearing in Pliny, Nat. Hist 30.2.11) [Other clear examples to consider would include Acts 7.22; 1 Cor 10.4; Jude 9, 14f] It will be interesting to see whether the new discovery sheds any light on Paul’s appeal to these men in 2 Timothy 3.
• b) According to Origen (who discusses the reference to these names in 2 Tim 3.8f in a little excursus to his Commentary on Matthew at 27.9) some people had rejected 2 Timothy on the grounds that it contained text from some secret book. Origen seems to broadly agree with the attribution of the source of the material to a secret book, but not with the consequential rejection of the epistle (partly at least on the grounds that Paul does something similar in 1 Corinthians). While it seems to me that it is not necessary to think of a written source for the names (as opposed to popular traditions), I think Origen’s canonical thinking is along the right lines here. [Jude also was rejected by some on the basis of its parallels with non-canonical texts.]
• c) In terms of the textual interest, we could note that NA28 notes a variant reading “Mambres” for Jambres. “Mambres” is read by F G it vg(cl.ww) and Cyprian. This reflects the spelling within Latin and rabbinic sources for the Jannes and Jambres tradition which also read “Mambres” (including Origen, since the latter portions of his commentary on Matthew survive only in Latin). So there may be some intersection there between apocyrphal traditions and the text of the NT.
• d) Although it doesn’t, as far as I can tell, address this passage, there is an excellent and informative discussion of some similar issues in relation to expansionist readings of the New Testament text in Bruce M. Metzger, “Names for the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian Tradition,” in Patrick Granfield & Josef A. Jungmann (eds.), Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, 2 vols. (Münster, Verlag Aschendorff, 1970) vol. 1: 79–99 (reprinted in his New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 23-45 (and available here).
  

19th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies: Ge'ez Versions of the Bible

Those who have an interest in or are conducting research on the  Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez) versions of the Bible, early Jewish  literature or early Christian literature are herewith advised of an academic conference that will take place next year:

As part of the 19th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, to be held from 24-28 August, 2015, at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
Panels are being organized on ‘Critical Editions of Biblical Books’  (by Maija Priess, Hamburg), ‘Early Christian Literature Preserved in Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez)’ (by Timothy B. Sailors, Tübingen) and ‘Literary Genres and Text Carriers in Ethiopian Manuscript Culture’ (by Alessandro Bausi, Antonella Brita and Denis Nosnitsin, Hamburg).

Descriptions of these panels can be found on the conference website, under the section ‘Classical Ethiopic’. There are also sections on Literature, Linguistics and History that may be of interest. See  http://ices19.uw.edu.pl/index.php/panelspapers/

The call for papers has been extended and is open until 15 December 2014. Paper proposals must be submitted via the official conference website: www.ices19.uw.edu.pl

Ethiopic Manuscripts of the Bible

Visiting SBL 24-139 has been a wonderful experience, hearing a survey of all the Ethiopic manuscripts which are currently housed in North America and which will be, by and by, digitized and - at least in part - accessible in the internet. Steve Delamarter from George Fox University (http://www.georgefox.edu/seminary/faculty/delamarter.html) does the main work here, substantially helped by the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library: http://www.hmml.org/

The Bible in Classical Ethiopic, Ge'ez, is, despite its late appearance (most NT manuscripts date to the 12th-19th centuries, although Christianity entered Ethiopia before the 6th century), an important textual witness for two reasons: Ethiopia has been a long time virtually isolated from the Alexandrian and Byzantine mainstream Christianity, and most of the Ethiopic NT have been directly translated from the Greek.

I met Curt Niccum over there, whose edition of the Ethiopic Book of Acts will hopefully appear soon (so far, his edition proves the Book of Acts to have mostly Alexandrian, some D and some Byzantine readings).

Ethiopic Gospel of John

For those of us who like to read Ge'ez, the Ethiopic Gospel of John is now available:

Wechsler, Michael G., Evangelium Iohannis Aethiopicum, CSCO 617, Leuven: Peeters, 2005.

with an introduction, mentioning the kind of text Eth John reflects (mixed, as you might have guessed). The main corpus is a critical edited text of Eth John, based on the earliest Ethiopic MSS. Besides, an additional chapter lists minor variants, and another one has suggestions for the NA27 text, in Greek (for that, you do not need Ge'ez!).

It seems to be a thoroughly edited work, which will be very helpful in the future editions of the IGNTP / ECM Gospel of John volumes. In the foreword, he acknowledges, besides others, the help of R. Zuurmond (who edited Eth Mark & Matthew) and of God (who, according to him, seems to have been somehow involved in the production of the Greek Vorlage ...).

Anyone who wants to know more about the Ethiopic Bible: Take a look at the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Vol. I and II are now out (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden). Look for the article "Bible" in Vol. 1. Very helpful.