Summer LXX Course at Trinity Western University

Has anyone seen “First Century Mark”?

I have had correspondence with Craig Evans and have his permission to confirm that he has not seen the alleged first-century manuscript of Mark and does not know the identity of the scholar or scholars to whom it has (presumably) been assigned for publication.

I also believe that Dan Wallace had not seen the alleged manuscript at the time he debated Ehrman. I do not know whether he has seen it since then.

There may have been more eyewitnesses to the Secret Gospel of Mark than to ‘FCM’.

Based on current evidence I would conclude that, although ‘FCM’ may exist, we currently have no reason to believe that it exists or will be published in the coming years. Of course, a historical kernel might exist to the stories of ‘FCM’, but I personally have very limited enthusiasm for source criticism.

Xray imaging and the Herculaneum Papyri

New article: Vito Mocella, Emmanuel Brun, Claudio Ferrero & Daniel Delattre, 'Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging' Nature Communications 6, Article number: 5895 doi:10.1038/ncomms6895 (20.1.2015). 

Abstract: 

Hundreds of papyrus rolls, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and belonging to the only library passed on from Antiquity, were discovered 260 years ago at Herculaneum. These carbonized papyri are extremely fragile and are inevitably damaged or destroyed in the process of trying to open them to read their contents. In recent years, new imaging techniques have been developed to read the texts without unwrapping the rolls. Until now, specialists have been unable to view the carbon-based ink of these papyri, even when they could penetrate the different layers of their spiral structure. Here for the first time, we show that X-ray phase-contrast tomography can reveal various letters hidden inside the precious papyri without unrolling them. This attempt opens up new opportunities to read many Herculaneum papyri, which are still rolled up, thus enhancing our knowledge of ancient Greek literature and philosophy.

This article has been widely picked up in the news (e.g. here from the BBC [from where I have copied the pictures], the New York Times, National Geographic) [HT: Henryk Glogowski, thanks for the email]

Virtual Papyrus Exhibition in Leiden

On the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the official foundation of the ‘Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’, there is an excellent online the virtual papyrus exhibition ‘Texts from Ancient Egypt. Highlights from the Collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute’.

The exhibition can be viewed at http://www.hum.leiden.edu/papyrological-institute/papyrus-collection/
Here is a fascinating Christian creed from the exhibit:

Birmingham Colloquium Programme

The History and Text of New Testament Commentaries

The provisional timetable is now available for the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium, to be held on 2nd-4th March 2015, and is included in this message below.

Booking continues to be open for a couple of weeks: please use the form which can be downloaded from:
http://arts-itsee.bham.ac.uk/itseeweb/conferences/9Coll-booking.pdf

We hope to welcome you to Birmingham in March.
Hugh Houghton (here via an email)


Monday 2nd March

From 2pm:  Registration
2.30pm   Welcome
2.45pm   Ronald Heine, “Origen’s Gospel Commentaries”
3.40pm   Carl J. Berglund, “Quotation practices in Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John: How dependable are his quotations of John, Paul and Heracleon?”
4.30pm  Christina Kreinecker, “The Biblical Text in Rufinus’ Translation of Origen’s Commentary on Romans”
5.00pm  Rory P. Crowley, “Justin’s Dialogue 88 and His Commentaries on the Baptism Material: Implications for the Variant Form of the Heavenly Voice in Luke 3:22”
5.30pm  Rosalind MacLachlan, “The Context of Commentary: Non-Biblical Commentaries in the Early Christian Period”

Tuesday 3 March

9.00am   Lukas J. Dorfbauer, “The Rediscovery of a Supposedly Lost Fourth-Century Work: Bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia and his Commentary on the Gospels”
9.45am   Susan Griffith, “Sources and texts in Ambrose’s Commentary on Luke”
10.15am  Thomas O’Loughlin, “Capitula as commentary in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-7:28): the implicit exegesis in Latin division systems
11.15am  Shari Boodts & Gert Partoens, “The critical edition of Florus of Lyons’ Expositio epistolarum beati Pauli apostoli. State of the art and new results.”
11.45am   Maria Valeria Ingegno, “Patristic Sources for the Pauline Epistle Commentary of Gilbert de la Porée”
12.15pm   Alexander Andrée, “Peter Comestor and the Glossa 'ordinaria' on the Gospels”

Afternoon excursion to Worcester

Wednesday 4 March

9.00am   Gilles Dorival, “Biblical catenae”
10.00am  Klaus Wachtel, “Coherence and History: Commentary Manuscripts in Acts and the Catholic Letters”
10.30am  John Gram and Bruce Morrill, “Parsing Paul: Layout and Sampling Divisions in Pauline Commentaries”
12 noon  Will Lamb, “Catenae and the Art of Memory”
12.45pm  Dora Panella, “Jesus’ Post-resurrection appearances in 1Cor 15:5-8 and their interpretation in the catenae of Oecumenius, Theophylact and Zygabenus.”

2.15pm  Matthias Schulz, “Catena Manuscripts in the Coptic Tradition – An Overview”
2.45pm  Carol Downer, "A consideration of some texts from de Lagarde's Coptic Catena"
3.00pm  Carla Falluomini, “The citations of the Gothic New Testament in the Skeireins commentary” 
4.00pm  Garick V. Allen, “The Scholia in Apocalypsin: The Edition of P. Tzamalikos (2013) and Scriptural Interpretation in Manuscript 2351”
4.30pm  Agnès Lorrain, “Theodoret’s text of Romans”
5.00pm  Jan Krans “Romans in the Hands of Radical Commentators”
5.30pm  Concluding round table

7.00pm  Colloquium dinner with address by Prof. Gordon Campbell.

This timetable will also be available at:
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/itsee/news/2015/birmingham-colloquium-2015-programme.aspx

TC program unit at EABS in Cordoba 2015

A few days ago the European Association of Biblical Studies committee accepted a proposal by Theodora Panella (ITSEE, Birmingham) for a workshop with the title “Textual Criticism of the NT, the OT and the Qur’an” for the next EABS’ Annual Meeting in Cordoba (July 12th-15th). Below is a description of the program unit and a call for papers.

Programme

This workshop focuses on the textual study and criticism of sacred texts from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world that later had a global influence. These are the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’anic text. All three have similarities and differences. They have influenced other writings and at the same time have themselves undergone external influence bearing on questions of interrelationship, orality, textuality and language. Not only the abovementioned characteristics, but also their preservation and the copying as well as the proliferation of manuscripts are of particular interest to textual scholars.
Relevant topics for discussion:

• The study of OT, NT or Qur’anic writings not only in manuscripts, but also inscribed or printed,
• The text itself and the circumstances of its transmission
• Types or groupings of texts
• Reconstructions of forms of text
• Textual Criticism and history
• Textual Criticism and exegesis
• Textual Criticism and theology
• Textual Criticism and the world

At the same time, this workshop seeks to foster dialogue among researchers.

Call for Papers

We welcome paper proposals that focus on the above mentioned topics and related aspects.
Generally the duration of papers to be read should not exceed 20 minutes. Abstracts (no more than 300 words) have to be enrolled through the EABS meeting website.

Up-date: 

There is also a call for papers for the section on "Biblical Philology in Byzantine Manuscripts"

Byzantinists and patristic scholars might take interest in the fact that in the framework of the upcoming conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS), a session on “Biblical Philology in Byzantine Manuscripts” will be organized. The conference will take place July 12-15, 2015 in Córdoba (Spain), and the call for papers is now open. Proposals can be submitted until April 1 through http://www.eabs.net.

More information on the “Biblical Philology in Byzantine Manuscripts” session can be found here: http://www.eabs.netF/site/biblical-philology-in-byzantine-manuscripts/. Proposals are invited for papers dealing with the study of medieval marginal annotations to the biblical text within the Greek Christian tradition. Particularly welcome are papers highlighting possible acquaintance with Hebrew culture and exegesis on the part of Byzantine scholars, but other topics can be suggested.

For more information, please contact Mariachiara Fincati (mc.fincati@gmail.com), Barbara Crostini (crostini.barbara@gmail.com) or the undersigned. Feel free to circulate this call.