Library Repair Causes a Plea to the Pope

NY Times, June 21:

"ROME June 21 — Normally a sanctuary of scholarly meditation, the Vatican Library has been the scene of unusually hectic activity lately, as word has spread that it will close in July for a three-year renovation.

Since the Vatican announced the impending shutdown, dozens of scholars have been lining up each day at ever earlier hours to snatch one of the 92 available spots in the manuscript room, where they can pore over archaic texts in forgotten languages. The library staff, traditionally prompt in responding to requests, has been struggling to keep up with the demand.

'We’re kept waiting like the virgins in the Gospel for their bridegroom to come,' Lucas Van Rompay, a professor of religion from Duke University who specializes in Eastern Christianity, said jokingly.' . . . Petitions addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, the ultimate authority on Vatican matters, are circulating among scholars. Some ask that the manuscript division at least remain accessible to the public during the three-year renovation. Others request that the closing be delayed until 2008 so that scholars will have time to wrap up research and meet publishing or teaching deadlines."

Read the whole story here. And do check out the slideshow from the library.

(I will travel the rest of the week and therefore cannot blog).

UBS5

Preparations for the fifth edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament are underway. These involve revising the choice of variants from the fourth edition, again with the purpose of focusing on those that are most significant. UBS5 will also be informed by work on the ECM. They have written to a number of scholars asking for suggestions as to changes in the variants registered. Although they haven't thrown the net wide open for comments from anyone, I'm sure that unsolicited but reasoned feedback on this issue would be gratefully received by the German Bible Society, who appear to be coordinating this project. Since they are also planning to have an Additional Meeting at SBL in San Diego, that would be another opportunity to present the editors with constructive suggestions.

The Books of the Bible

The International Bible Society have announced a new type of English Bible (TNIV) with some (claimed) unique features: The Books of the Bible (HT: BBB)

• chapter and verse numbers are removed from the text (a chapter-and-verse range is at the bottom of each page)
• individual books are presented with the literary divisions that their authors have indicated
• footnotes, section headings and other supplementary materials have been removed from the text (translators’ notes are available at the back of each book)
• the books of the Bible have been placed in an order that provides more help in understanding, based on literary genre, historical circumstance and theological tradition
• single books that later translations or tradition divided into two or more books are made whole again (example: Luke-Acts)
• single-column setting that clearly and naturally presents the literary forms of the Bible’s books

The controlling idea is claimed to be that this reflects the original way in which the texts would have been received.

Here is the order of the books in the BoB: BoB Book Order

Up-date: twelve good reasons for not including chapter and verse divisions in the Bible. Worth pondering.

Metzger's Textual Commentary goes electronic

David Lang announces on the Accordance Blog that Metzger's Textual Commentary is now available for the Accordance Bible Software for Macintosh. The tool costs $35.

The textual commentary is of course very helpful, and an electronic version opens up new possibilities. Actually, I was thinking the other day of going through the commentary and look at places where the committee refers to "paleographic" explanations behind readings. With an electronic version that becomes easy.

On his blog Lang says, "For those like myself who know just enough about textual criticism to be dangerous, a critical apparatus is helpful, but it can often leave you even more confused. Metzger's textual commentary is like an apparatus 'for the rest of us,' explaining text-critical decisions in the closest thing to layman's terms I've seen."

I understand what Lang means, but it might be very dangerous to use the commentary as an "apparatus." This points to a problem. Perhaps many students (and others?) learn to deal with text-critical problems by going to the "key" in Metzger's commentary without any wrestling of their own. What is your experience?

Manuscript support for Marcan 'priority'

British Museum ms Royal I A. xiv has the gospels in the order Mark, Matthew, Luke, John; Bodleian ms Hatton 38 has the order Mark, Luke, Matthew, John (Metzger, Early Versions, pp. 449-50). Aside from such Anglo-Saxon mss, does anyone know any other tetraevangelia that put Mark in first position?

BMCR Review of Hurtado

Larry Hurtado's book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (for an earlier mention and table of contents see here); is reviewed by Jonathan More for the Bryn Mawr Classical Review here.

The review offers a fairly good description of the book, but doesn't engage particularly with any of the controversial aspects of it (on using canonical organising principles, on the significance of the use of the codex, on the origins of the nomina sacra etc.).