Subakhmimic online

Thanks to Christian Askeland for pointing out to me that Thompson's edition of the Subakhmimic of John is available here.

Meeting in Edinburgh

The Society of Biblical Literature international congress is next week in Edinburgh University. There are many relevant items on the programme of which I particularly note the following.

How would people feel about having an ETC meet, open to anyone, on the Tuesday at the morning break, assembling in William Robertson?

Working with Biblical Manuscripts (Textual Criticism)
7/03/2006, 8:45 AM to 12:00 noon
Room: Lecture Theatre - William Robertson
Theme: The Use of the Codex

David Trobisch, Bangor Theological Seminary, Presiding
Larry W. Hurtado, University of Edinburgh
Does Size Matter? Early Christian Codex-sizes and Significance (30 min)
Malcolm Choat, Macquarie Universiry
Combinations of Christian works in Codices (30 min)
Scott David Charlesworth, University of New England
Christian Preference for the Codex as a Window on Textual Authority and Comparative Transmission of Canonical and Non-canonical Gospels in the Second Century (30 min)
Break (45 min)
Don Barker, Macquarie University-Sydney
Christian and Secular Codices from Oxyrhynchus (30 min)
David J. Trobisch, Bangor Theological Seminary
What is There in a Picture? An Introduction to Codex Washingtonianus W 032. (30 min)

Working with Biblical Manuscripts (Textual Criticism)
7/04/2006, 8:45 AM to 12:00 noon
Room: Lecture Theatre - William Robertson

David Trobisch, Bangor Theological Seminary, Presiding
Tommy Wasserman, Lund University
P78 – the Epistle of Jude on an amulet? (30 min)
Pablo Torijano Morales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Andrés Piquer-Otero, University of California-Berkeley and Juan-José Alarcón
Text-critical Value of Secondary Versions in the Study of The Suptuagint 3-4 Kingdoms (30 min)
John P. Flanagan, Leiden University
Isaiah 6:13: A New Look at an Old Textual Problem (30 min)
Break (45 min)
Ekkehard Henschke, Oxford
Tischendorf's Codex Sinaiticus and its Modern Presentation (30 min)
Elvira Martin Contreras, Oriente Antiguo Instituto Filologia
M1’s Massoretic Appendices: A New Description (30 min)

Working with Biblical Manuscripts (Textual Criticism)
7/05/2006, 8:45 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Lecture Theatre - William Robertson

David Trobisch, Bangor Theological Seminary, Presiding
Holger Szesnat, CambridgeTheological Federation
Teaching the Text-critical Basics (30 min)
Kathleen Maxwell, Santa Clara University
The Relationship Between Paris 54 and Princeton, Garrett 3 (30 min)
Alanna Nobbs, Macquarie University
Papyri from the Rise of Christianity in Egypt: An Overview of the Project (30 min)
Break (45 min)
Edwin Judge, Macquarie University
Papyrus Evidence for the Appearance of Distinctively Christian Names (30 min)

Burroughs, Misquotes in Misquoting Jesus

I've been notified by the publisher of a new book critiquing Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus (of which various reviews can be found here). The book is by Dillon Burroughs, a young-looking chap who has a Dallas Theological Seminary ThM, but who makes no claim to special expertise in the subject. Details of the book can be found on Amazon here.

I've been sent a PDF of the book and have briefly perused it. I did not notice inaccuracies and observe that many of the 80 of so pages contain extensive quotations from scholars such as Bock, Blomberg, Wallace, and Witherington. In that sense he may be 'doing a Lee Strobel' in his form of writing, i.e. basing what he says on more authoritative individuals.

The basic contents are as follows:

Chapter 1: Misquoting Jesus in the Media: NPR to Comedy Central
Chapter 2: What Misquoting Jesus Gets Right
Chapter 3: Will the Real New Testament Please Stand Up?
Chapter 4: Postmodern and Personal Bias in Misquoting Jesus
Chapter 5: Quantity of Manuscript Changes vs. Quality of Changes
Chapter 6: Deal or No Deal: Must Inerrancy Be All or Nothing?
Chapter 7: New Testament: Remix or Remake?
Chapter 8: Misquoting Jesus and the King James Only Debate
Chapter 9: Women's Issues in Misquoting Jesus
Chapter 10: How Can Evangelicals Respond to Misquoting Jesus?

Given the almost exclusive dependence on electronic sources (e.g. Wikipedia for a list of Ehrman's publications), some of the material is surprising to see in print. He also publishes, evidently without permission, an e-mail exchange between himself and Ehrman.

There is some discussion at the end about what is the best way to respond to books like this (trying to learn lessons from responses to The Da Vinci Code).

It is a quick read and, while seasoned textual critics will learn nothing from it, those who are not scholars or those who are following the debate following the publication of Misquoting Jesus are likely to pick up some insights through reading this.

Krans, Beyond What Is Written

The much-awaited study by Jan Krans of conjectures in NT textual criticism has been announced by Brill (here) as forthcoming in September. Publication details: Jan Krans, Beyond What Is Written (New Testament Tools and Studies, 35; Leiden: Brill, 2006). Their publicity reads: Beyond What is Written examines Erasmus' and Beza's multiple editions of the New Testament and the vast body of annotations which accompany these editions. This study provides a new understanding of the many conjectures on the New Testament text proposed by these two renowned scholars as part of their New Testament projects. As a consequence, it not only elucidates their different approaches to New Testament textual criticism, but also clarifies the nature and role of conjectural emendation in sixteenth-century scholarship. As a piece of historical research, this investigation into conjectures in the work of Erasmus and Beza also contributes to the ongoing debate on the nature and task of textual criticism today. The study is an important publication for textual critics and exegetes of the New Testament, as well as for historians of the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Isaiah scroll images

Fred Miller has updated his page with images of the great Qumran Isaiah scroll (1QIsa^a). See here. He appears to reproduce Trevor's photos, but I should have thought that these would still be in copyright. Can anyone advise as to the legality of the site?

Images of the Genizah targum mss

If you go to the website of the Taylor-Schechter Unit in Cambridge University Library, where about 140,000 manuscript fragments from the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo are housed, you will find a wealth of good images of the targums. Go to the manuscript search facility and check the 'Klein' box, name your biblical book and away you go. This site is a very well-hidden treasure.

Information provided does not deal directly with the date of manuscripts and this is also not provided in the hard copies of the published catalogues. The scholars working on this project have elected to record the more objective types of information over speculative estimates of age.