Launch of SBL Text-Critical Resources Web Page

Email from SBL:

Texts lie at the heart of biblical studies and the related fields its members research and teach. It is with this core interest in mind that the Society of Biblical Literature has launched a web page providing resources for text-critical research, writing, and collaboration.

Please visit “Texts and Resources,” which you can also find under the Educational Resources navigation button on the left column of the SBL home page.

At its launch, this web page showcases the decades-long commitment of the German Bible Society/Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (GBS), which has produced the staples that have nourished generations of biblical scholars and translators.

On this web page, members who log in will find the reading text (the upper text without critical apparatus) of four GBS editions available in several file formats, including downloadable PDFs and texts viewable via a GBS online platform:

        • Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 5th revised edition
        • Septuaginta, edited by Alfred Rahlfs, 2nd revised edition
        • Biblical Sacra luxta Vulgatam Versionem, 5th revised edition
        • UBS Greek New Testament, 4th revised edition

Also available on this web page are links to the SBL Fonts and the SBL Greek New Testament.

SBL members can be grateful to the collaborative efforts of Florian Voss (GBS’s Senior Editor and International Rights Director) and Felix Breidenstein (GBS’s Former Executive Director) for making this partnership a reality and for providing a significant service to SBL members. We hope those who use these texts will likewise express their appreciation and support for GBS.

Even more corrections in Codex Bezae?

No one is waiting for yet another set of corrections in Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, but in the recent transcriptions it seems that something has been left out. For example here in Mark 5:8 where there is correction of the nomen sacrum ο ιηυ to ο ιηυς, but in addition, there is a line underneath these two words, which are unique to the Greek text of Bezae. Can it be that the underlining indicates awareness of a variant?

The next one is a couple of lines further down (Mk 5:9, also on the image above). This time it is εστιν that is underlined, which again is a fairly unique reading (Legg adds Π margin). Another one?

The next underlined word is at Mark 5:18 και ενβαινοντος. Legg notes και εμβαντος as a Byzantine variant, but this is not a particularly obvious target. Especially since και ενβαιν is underlined and not the variant part -οντος. So perhaps not.

However the fourth example, five lines down and also on this image, is again a full hit, ο θς for ο κς.

Browsing a little back I notice at Mark 4:24 τα underlined (should be τι) and also on the same page at 4:29 the final two letters of παραδοι (possibly pointing at the reading παραδω).

So what to make of this? In Parker's discussion of 'hand K' (Parker, Codex Bezae [1992], 41) he mentions fourteen 'horizontal strokes in the margin or written area, which cannot be dated'. Are these six examples discussed here part of the fourteen? None has been noted in the transcription of Bezae on the Cambridge University website, though the key to the transcription (on the Birmingham site) has '(K) A symbol used by Scrivener to indicate various later corrections and notes, displayed in this transcription as s.m.' Underlining strikes me as a fairly 'modern' way of marking something, and not every choice of items to mark is particularly exciting. Yet, it is a manuscript feature worth noting.

When someone is tired of looking at dots in the margin of Vaticanus, they may want to turn to underlining in Bezae.

Article and Reviews in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism vol. 19 (2014)

Several new reviews have been published in the current volume of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism vol. 19 (2014). As the associate editor I can say that we are working with several submitted articles, but we warmly welcome more! See here on how to submit.

Articles

Nathan Thiel, The Old but New Command in 1 John 2:7-8? A Proposed Emendation

Abstract: In 1 John 2:7, the author of the epistle says that he is not writing the recipients a new command, but in the very next verse he seems to do an about face, now writing that the command is indeed new. According to most interpreters, this reversal can be attributed to the creativity of the author. This essay argues, in contrast, that the paradox is accidental, introduced through a primitive error in textual transmission. It proposes that 1 John 2:8 originally began πάλιν γράφω ὑμῖν (“Again I am writing to you”) and that ἐντολὴν καινήν (“new command”) was mistakenly imported into v. 8 early on in the letter’s textual history. By emending the text, we are able to resolve the grammatical and contextual anomalies of the present reading.

Reviews

Ariel Feldman, The Rewritten Joshua Scrolls from Qumran: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Marcus Sigismund, reviewer)

Kim Haines-Eitzen, The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity (Thomas J. Kraus, reviewer)

Margaret Jaques (ed.), Klagetraditionen: Form und Funktion der Klage in den Kulturen der Antike (Matthias Millard, reviewer)

Timothy M. Law, Origenes Orientalis: The Preservation of Origen’s Hexapla in the Syrohexapla of 3 Kingdoms (Martin Meiser, reviewer)

Ryan D. Wettlaufer, No Longer Written: The Use of Conjectural Emendation in the Restoration of the Text of the New Testament: The Epistle of James as a Case Study (Jan Krans, reviewer)

Andrew T. Wilburn, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain: New Texts from Ancient Cultures (Thomas J. Kraus, reviewer)