A Centennial Tribute to Bruce Metzger: Remembering His Achievements, Influence, and Legacy

Mike Holmes is giving a special lecture on Feb 13th in Princeton on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bruce Metzger. More details here. Let us know if there is video Mike.

Update (from the comments): Mike Holmes said...
Alas, the event has been postponed due to heavy snow on the East Coast--6"-10" in the offing for Princeton on the 13th. New date TBD.

Malik on Corrections in Sinaiticus

Peter Malik, 'The Earliest Corrections in Codex Sinaiticus: A Test Case from the Gospel of Mark' Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 50(2013), 207-254.

Abstract: One of the most intriguing aspects of the production of Codex Sinaiticus is the corrections made at various stages in the scriptorium. Perhaps surprisingly, no one has yet undertaken to identify these corrections by scribal hands that authored them and by the correction stage at which they were made. Using Mark’s Gospel as a test case, the present study seeks to assign the known scribal hands and the appropriate correction stages to these earliest corrections. After scrutinizing the individual corrections, I shall make some general comments concerning the correcting activity of the scribes in this portion of the manuscript, including a brief discussion of the textual affinities of (some of) the corrections.

Congratulations to Peter. This is an interesting study, based on a recent Cambridge MPhil. Among many other things, it has a helpful discussion of the situation at Mark 1.1 (p. 214-219). Incidentally, it also shows the sorts of things that PhD students should be publishing (cf. the discussion here).

More Images of London Manuscripts Online

British Library Add MS 11840 (XII):

Gospel Lectionary with ekphonetic notation (Gregory-Aland l189)

 

 

 British Library Add MS 16184 (XIII): New Testament (Gregory-Aland 496)

British Library Add MS 19389 (XIII):Gospel of John (Gregory-Aland 503) 

British Library Add MS 22506 (1304-1305):  Four Gospels (Greg.-Aland 645)

British Library Cotton MS Titus C. XV (VI): Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus (N = 022) 

 only four folios: Matt 26.57-65; 27.26-34; John 14.2-10; 15.15-22

HT: http://paleografia-greca.blogspot.co.uk/

Papyrology summer school

The Centro di Studi Papirologici of Università del Salento, Lecce, is organizing the Seventh Edition of the Scuola Estiva di Papirologia that will take place from July 14^th to July 19^th 2014.

The School is open to graduates, last-year undergraduates and PHD students in Classical Studies and those people who are concerned with the deepening of the main topics of Papyrology, such as the archaeological search of papyri; the contribution of the papyri to the history of Greek and Latin Literature; the history of Greek and Latin writings; the reconstruction of ways and forms of books’ production and circulation in the ancient Mediterranean area; the study of Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman Egypt; the Herculanean Papyri; Papyri and digital Technology. Moreover, transcription’s exercises of Greek and Latin documentary and literary papyri are expected. The lectures will be given in Italian.

Only a limited number of participants will be admitted to the courses. Anyone interested in the School should send the application, a curriculum vitae and a teacher’s reference to the Centro di Studi Papirologici by mail or e-mail. The deadline for the final application will be April 30^th 2014.

For further information please contact:

Prof. Mario Capasso

Centro di Studi Papirologici

Università del Salento, Lecce

Via V.M. Stampacchia, 45, Palazzo Parlangeli

I-73100   Lecce (Italy)

Tel:  0039-0832-294606

E-mail:  cspapiri@unisalento.it

SBL International Meeting, Call for Papers: Hurry Up!

This year the SBL International Meeting is held in Vienna, Austria 7-10 July. The Call for Papers has been extended to 12 February, so hurry up and submit a proposal to the Working with Biblical Manuscripts (Textual Criticism) program unit. I have now stepped down from the chair after having served an extended term, and I will instead chair a five-year text critical seminar at the SNTS (with Claire Clivaz and Ulrich Schmid), but my colleague Jan Krans is handling the SBL unit with great competence.

Here is the Call for Papers:

Papers concentrating on any aspect of textual criticism are welcome, in particular practical work with manuscripts. Examples of topics include: papyrological insights, scribal habits, preservation techniques, technical developments, computer-assisted tools, the production of critical editions, evaluation of patristic and versional evidence, discussion of particular passages, social historical studies, new projects, systematic-theological problems, teaching text-criticism in an academic setting, etc.

 So go to the SBL site, log in and submit your proposal!

Hebrews 5.6 in P46

At Hebrews 5.6, in the citation from Ps 109.4(LXX), P46* clearly has the word EPEUX. The corrector has changed this, by marking the word with dots and writing IEREUS interlinearly.


This is an interesting reading because it raises a number of issues: on the one hand P46* represents 'the more difficult reading' (since this is clearly a rare word); while P46C here represents a reading harmonised towards the text of the LXX (an important general consideration in citations from the OT in the NT, and especially in Hebrews, as Cadwallader showed). Should we follow this reading as the earliest attested reading for this verse? (as indeed was argued by Hoskier, Commentary, 1938, 3-6)

The answer is I think not.

The crucial addition rule is (as always) Hort's dictum: "Knowledge of documents should precede final judgment upon Readings."

First, this is the only place in Hebrews in P46 where we have EPEUX for IEREUS. Every other citation or allusion to Ps 109.4(LXX) has IEREUS (e.g. 7.1, 17, 21).
Secondly, this reading is not supported by any other known witness. It is a singular reading to P46* and is corrected in the manuscript.
Thirdly, P46* has some form. Royse counts 16 singular readings in P46 which result in 'words unknown to grammar or lexicon' (Scribal Habits, 254).
Fourthly, this corrector, with the black ink and thick strokes is most probably the scriptorium corrector (the second corrector, after the scribe himself, so Zuntz, Text, 253, supported by Royse, Scribal Habits, 235) - his task is not comparing the scribe's production with an alternative exemplar, but to correct the worst errors of the scribe's production.
Fifthly, there is a visual similarity between EPEUX and IEREUS - many errors begin as simple mistakes of words that look somewhat similar (Zuntz suggested that there may have been Latin influence prompting the P - R confusion, although Royse finds no other examples, see pp. 260-262).

The answer would seem to be that sometimes the 'more difficult reading' is simply too difficult. The weight of all the evidence must also be considered. Especially in this example since:

Sixthly, this word, EPEUX, is beyond rare, it is attested nowhere (not in LSJ, nor BDAG, nor in Lampe's PGL; I suppose I could have checked TLG to make an even more definitive negative). Hoskier, presuming that it must mean something, thought it may have meant 'a precentor, leader of prayer and praise and song' (p. 6). He hypothesised that early Christians may have engaged in discussions about have to 'name' priests and come up with this word. (In this of course Hoskier has his own form, as Royse shows in discussion of Hoskier's discussion of Hebrew 9.3 at Scribal Habits, 262f.)