Free Codex Vaticanus (amended)

On Wieland Willker's excellent list textualcriticism@yahoogroups.com there is discussion of a PDF facsimile of Vaticanus that can be downloaded free. Earlier the URL for this download was posted on this blog, but it has been deleted since the legal position of the facsimile is unclear.

I would strongly encourage those experienced in TC who are not members of Wieland's list to consider joining it.

Internal evidence in a text-critical edition of the GNT

Quote: "I think the aim of the NA28 in deleting such notes [i.e. on conjectural emendations - GV] would be that it is a text based on the documentary evidence for the NT text, not for the history of the study of the NT." (Peter Head, under "Conjectural emendation")

Should the printed text (including text in apparatus) of a text-critical edition be based solely on the documentary evidence (= external) or on internal evidence (intrinsic + transcriptional) as well? If internal evidence is to be excluded, references to parallel passages (as in the NA app. with Col. 1:14) should also be left out.

The Earliest Gospels

Just arrived on my desk: Charles Horton, ed., The Earliest Gospels: The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels - The Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45 (JSNTSS 258; T & T Clark, London, 2004). Essays by Sean Freyne, Martin Hengel, Harry Gamble, Graham Stanton, William Petersen, James Robinson, Martin McNamara, Barbara Aland, Keith Elliott, Larry Hurtado, Charles Horton.

To Ephesus?

The first verse of Ephesians reads:
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus...”

(NIV, italics mine)

The phrase εν Εφεσωι is excluded from the earliest manuscripts:

P46 א* B* 6. 1739; (McionT,E cf Inscr.)

versus א2 A B‎2 D F G Ψ 0278. 33. 1881 Majority Text latt sy co which have εν Εφεσωι.

Without this reference there is nothing in Ephesians to address the letter. In fact, it would seem to be one of the least personal and more theological of the letters as it does not address problems.

Romans 1:7, 2 Corinthians 1:1 and Philippians 1:1 all use the same grammatical construction (ousin en ...) which suggests that it is a Pauline construction... or the type of construction that a scribe would insert thinking that it had been left out. (Note Romans 1:7 is also textually suspect, albeit much less so than Eph. 1)

The irony is that the stronger the argument which a scholar makes for the construction εν Εφεσωι being Pauline, the stronger the argument is for another scholar who argues that it was inserted and then preserved in later documents because of its Pauline nature.

Did they include this solely on the ground of church tradition? Should it be included?

1 Peter 1:1

I asked a while ago about the title to 1 Peter. It's time now to start going through the text.

The first variant in NA27 is the addition of και, but the Peshitta does not support this variant as claimed. The Peshitta necessarily introduces 'and' in rendering certain types of appositional construction.

The second variant allegedly omits και. Can Augustine (in Latin) really be cited for such a detail?

To what extent is there a genetic connection between the various witnesses cited for each variant in verse 1?

Timpanaro on Lachmann

Sebastiano Timpanaro, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, (Florence, 1963), translated into German as Die Entstehung der Lachmannschen Methode (Hamburg, 1971) should be available in February 2006 as The Genesis of Lachmann's Method (University of Chicago Press). Further details available here.