Facsimile Edition of the Korça Codex 93 (GA 2902)

A beuatiful facsimile edition of the Korça Codex 93 (=GA 2902), now deposited in the National Archive of Albania in Tirana, has recently been published in 1300 copies. Here are some extracts from the news flash on the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania: 

The Codex of Korça 93 is part of the collection of one hundred Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts preserved today in the Central State Archives of Tirana, Albania. The Codex is from the 10th century and is written in the form of a cross, a fairly rare occurrence in the Byzantine manuscript tradition and is one of the oldest examples of this category on an international level. 
[...]
The publication of the Facsimile of this very important Codex was made possible by the contributions of the Inter-confessional Bible Society of Albania, the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania, and the General Directorate of Archives of Albania. The Facsimile is accompanied by an exhaustive study of the Codex as a paleographic transcription of the Gospel of Luke with the corresponding translation in English. 
[...]
It is worthy to be note the fact that a Facsimile edition of this type is the first in the history of documentary publications in Albania, and has been prepared with the cooperation of local institutions. The field of publication of these kinds of historic resources is of limited circulation in Albania, whether due to the isolation of the past or to the lack of experience and opportunities. The publication of this Codex, as universally representative of the intellectual activity during one of the most thriving cultural periods of Byzantium, in addition to its scientific importance, serve as a contribution to the promotion of cultural heritage in Albania.

Here is a news story covering the presentation of the facsimile edition to Sali Berisha, the Prime Minister of Albania and Jozefina Topalli, Chairwomen of the Parliamant, to whom it is handed over by the Archbishop Anastasios of Albania.



You can also watch a 30 minute long reportage featuring one of the editors, Andi Rembeci, Lecturer in Palaeography and History at the University of Tirana who presents the fascimile alongside the original in great detail (in Albanian). At the end of the clip you can see Rembeci putting the Gospel codex back in its place in the archive.




Thanks to Simon Crisp of the United Bible Society who drew my attention to this new publication. Crisp pointed out that my own article on Papyrus 72 was referred to in the accompanying volume of studies – I wonder what they wrote.

As usual there is the infected issue of dating. The Kurzgefasste Liste indicates 13th century, whereas the Albanian scholars dates the codex to the 10th century.

This codex and many other were photographed by the CSNTM in an expedition in 2007 when they rediscovered many MSS which had not been registered by the INTF – read about this expedition here.

On the CSNTM webpage you also find a description and selected images of the Korça codex.

Presentation of NA28 (SBL Chicago)

Following up on Mike Holmes’ post on the changes between the 1st and 2nd editions of the Editio Critica Maior, this blogpost summarizes the presentation by Klaus Wachtel of the INTF, Münster, at the SBL in Chicago.

The presentation was part of a session presenting the Nestle-Aland 28th edition. The specific paper was entitled:

The Revision of the Catholic Epistles according to the Editio Critica Maior

– The text of NA28 has changed at 34 passages. A list of changes is available on the INTF website here. This list also displays the differences between ECM1 and ECM2, which are due to the benefit of using the whole database with the Catholic Letters.

– Diamonds have been inserted in the text and the apparatus where ECM2 will display a split primary line. A list of these passages which are marked with diamond in the text and apparatus is available here.

– The selection of witnesses has changed.

– The symbol “Byz” is used instead of Gothic M.

– The aim of the ECM is to present all relevant material [I think for the textual transmission of the NT in the first 1000 years] and the initial text.

– The simplest hypothesis (making least suppositions) is that the initial text represent of the text of the author as it is preserved in the extant textual tradition. However, a reconstruction of the authorial text is not possible in each case, every reconstruction cannot be absolutely claimed to be authorial. The present reconstruction is a hypothesis about the text of the authors.

– The old text-type terminology is not useful any longer. Core witnesses of the Byzantine text are integrated into the network. The ECM Byz is represented by seven witnesses with a pure Byzantine text (these representatives changes from letter to letter).

– Sometimes the editors preferred readings which were preserved in later witnesses (not the well-known witnesses). When the characteristic feature of the Byzantine text of smoothing out the text is not there, we can be sure that we have an old text before us.

– 125 passages are marked with diamond – here it is unclear which reading is the initial text. The bold dot has been abandoned.


NA28 vs. NA27

NA27: Aim was more secure reconstruction of the original text.

NA28: Aim is formulated as a hypothesis about the initial text (at many passages left open)


NA27: Text-type theory

NA28: Redefinition of external criteria based on relationships between individual witnesses


NA27: Prejudice against the Byz tradition

NA28: Reliability of the main stream tradition


NA27: The critical apparatus as a repository of variants

NA28: a gateway to the sources


NA28: ECM new basis for Nestle-Aland


Question (at QA-session): At places where there is a diamond, why print a certain reading in the main text? Answer: It was done for practical reasons – the printed reading is the NA27 reading. It would have been a worse alternative to print a new reading.

Acts 21:5 and (Variants) within Variants

A little lesson on the use of brackets ( . ) in the apparatus of NA28.

In Acts 21:5 the text reads either (with selected evidence for the word order variation ημας εξαρτισαι from NA28 [mainly]):

οτε δε εγενετο εξαρτισαι ημας τας ημερας, εξελθοντες κτλ.
A B*^.2 E 2344

or:

οτε δε εγενετο ημας εξαρτισαι τας ημερας, εξελθοντες κτλ.
all others including P74 Alef B¹ C (33) 1739 Byz

I was interested in the (33) - the brackets indicate a minor variation - where the text is given in an appendix of NA28 on page 829 (first printing): ημας ημερας εξαρτισαι.
Stated in this way 33 is closer to the majority reading than the minority one. However, the full picture is slightly different.

33: οτε δε εγενετο εξελθειν ημας ημερας εξαρτισαι εξελθοντες
(there is possibly punctuation after ημας)

What we have is that the infinitive following εγενετο, εξαρτισαι, is replaced with εξελθειν, most likely under influence of the following participle εξελθοντες, and the article before ημερας is omitted. Then the correct infinitive is reinserted.

On the basis of εγενετο + INF + ημας, which is the real issue in the word order variant, I would argue that 33 could be included in support of the minority reading:

οτε δε εγενετο εξαρτισαι ημας τας ημερας, εξελθοντες κτλ.
A B*^.2 E (33) 2344

I would be almost fine with having this word order in the main text. (Ah, you say Tregelles had this already?)

Eighth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament5-6 March 2013

The Eighth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament is rapidly approaching, taking place in Birmingham on 5-6 March 2013.

On this page (University of Birmingham) you find just about everything you need to know (including a booking form).

Presentations during the two-day colloquium include:

• Dr Amy Anderson (North Central, MN) – Family 1 in Mark: Preliminary Results
• Dr Stephen Carlson (Uppsala) – Did Scribes Really Corrupt the Text of the New Testament? A Look at the Textual History of Galatians
• Dr Simon Crisp (Birmingham) – “Dear Dr Nestle...”: The Correspondence of Erwin Nestle with the BFBS and the ‘Nestle-Kilpatrick’ Greek New Testament Edition of 1958
• Dr Toan Do (Franklin, WI) – Ἁμάρτητε or ἁμαρτάνητε? Reading 1 John 2:1b with the CBGM
• Dr Hans Förster (Vienna) – The Text of the Gospel according to John
• Dr Jan Krans (Amsterdam) – New Testament Conjectural Emendation and the Church Fathers
• Oliver Norris (London) – Evidence of an unusual Gospel harmony in the Carmen Paschale of Sedulius
• Prof. Tom O’Loughlin (Nottingham) – Divisions as Exegesis in the Book of Revelation as found in the Book of Armagh
• Rebekka Schirner (Mainz) – Augustine as a Textual Critic of the Old and New Testament
• Ulrike Swoboda (Vienna) – The Gospel of John and its Original Readers
• Matthew Steinfeld  (Birmingham) – Origen's Text of Galatians
• Dr Satoshi Toda (Tokyo) – The Eusebian Canons
• Dr Tommy Wasserman (Örebro) – Lectio vehementior potior: Scribal Violence on Violent Texts?

Oxford Conference on Garima Gospels

There is a fascinating two-days-conference in Oxford at the beginning of November, presenting the earliest known Ethiopic Gospels, the so-called Garima Gospels. It seems that the Ethiopican dark age (roughly the 7th-11th centuries) left the text of the Ethiopic New Testament largely unharmed. See here.


Update: See Peter Head's blogpost about the Garima Gospels here.

Online lecture New Testament Textual Criticism

With some trepidation (and aware of some of the inaccuracies) I give you the promised link to the talk I gave for the Faraday Institute two weeks ago (this should lead you to the Cambridge University Media website). It was great to see Dan Batovici and Peter Head there (as well as many other friends). And yes, I use the term 'original text'. Most people understand this term better than some of the more recent proposals (intelligibility over technical precision).