Book and Manuscripts Conservation Studio on Patmos

One may think that time, in some regards, has stood still in those monasteries where so many Greek New Testament MSS are kept. However, this situation is rapidly changing at many places including Sinai, Athos and Patmos. For example, there is now a books and manuscripts conservation studio in St John Theologican Monastery on Patmos in Greece, working to preserve the MSS. Activities include digitization and disinfestations projects. Since 2006 the studio organizes a summer workshop related to the conservation and research on Byzantine book binding. So if you don't know what to do in September, go to Patmos one week and get a practical introduction to Byzantine binding (I should mention some previous experience is required).

Read more and look at images of the library, the conservation studio, and the summer workshop here.

Wallace on Patmos, Kozani and Meteora

Earlier in this month, Dan Wallace and his CSNT team visited Patmos and took photos of MSS there, among which was at least one unregistered New Testament MS (a leaf of an uncial lectionary). I had previously discovered this MS in the binding of another MS, and asked Dan to look for it, which he did. I am awaiting a Greg.-Aland number from the INTF. Read Dan's brief report here.

Just a few days ago, the team heading for the Meteora monasteries (quite a lot of MSS there) made a detour to a small town, Kozani, and, yes, found new MSS. Read that report here.

The first scholar to research the monasteries of Meteora was the Swedish traveler Jacob Jonas Björnståhl (1731-1779). Just like Wallace he was looking for Greek New Testament MSS, and indeed he found them, but some he had to dig out. They were in such bad condition that he had to sip vinegar to be able to stand the odour. I know that he also wrote his signature in at least one of the GNT MSS which he found very significant, so I hope Dan and his team notice that signature.

Björnståhl tragically died during his journey in Thessaly (although not in Meteora, but in Volo). Many MSS that he had acquired during his travels were donated to Uppsala University Library, including some GNT MSS. Many of his other papers (letters, etc) are deposited in an archive in the University Library in Lund. For example a letter of recommendation from a Greek bishop to those monasteries in Meteora, without which Björnståhl would not have been able to enter. This was a time when the Turks plundered the churches and monasteries, and it was not an easy thing for a European to be admitted there.

In a few weeks I will present a paper at the SNTS in Lund on the MSS in Sweden, including an excursus on Björnståhl, and maybe I will find something in the archive to show (if they admit).

Zohrab's Armenian Bible

I hear from Tigran Aivazian that Zohrab's 1805 edition of the Classical Armenian Bible has now republished, at an amazingly cheap price for the amount of information provided:

http://www.bibles.org.uk/

The Zohrab/Zohrabean edition is the only edition of the whole Classical Armenian Bible and this reissuing obviously represents a huge amount of work. I'm glad to know that the size of font has been enlarged.

Your Favourite Dates in TC

I just notice that in exactly a week's time (23.6.2008) it will be 301 years ago that John Mill died, which also fell on a Monday. This Principal of Edmund Hall, Oxford, had just lived to see his Novum Testamentum. Cum lectionibus variantibus complete in print a couple of weeks before.

Which leads to the natural question, What are your favourite dates in Textual Scholarship? [Birthdays of spouses, submission of dissertations, first job, and comparable trivia are not permitted]

SBL 2008 Sessions

I booked my plane tickets for SBL today. The program is now online.

New Testament Manuscripts (Umlauts, P66.72.75, and a P.Oxyrh. fragment)
Versions and Fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Andrew of Caesaria, Coptic, and Jesus writing on the ground)
Review (David Parker, New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts)
Review (James Royce, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri)
Int. Org. for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (Ex, Cant, 3 Kgdms, Lamentations, Hexapla)
TC of Hebrew Bible (Peshitta, Samaritan Pentateuch, Isaiah, Red/Reed Sea)
TC of Hebrew Bible (Ethiopic Manuscripts in N. America)
TC of Samuel-Kings Workshop

P99 and the Reader's Bibles

I have seen a few Reader's Greek New Testaments floating around Cambridge recently (sample), and I must confess to having bought a Reader's Hebrew Old Testament a couple months back. We have at least one ancient parallel to this phenomenon. The Chester Beatty Codex ac. 1499 (P99, ca. 400 CE) contains Greek glosses for difficult Latin words (or perhaps vice-versa as the Greek precedes the Latin) for Romans, 2 Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians. The manuscript is probably a writing exercise from a Pachomian monk polishing his Latin (A. Wouters, 1988, 166–168). This codex says a great deal. Egyptian monks (assuming that P99 came from the Dishna papers) were interested in the Latin Bible. The monks were active in educating themselves (the codex also contains a Greek grammar which consists of verbal paradigms). The ancient writers were struggling with the increasing gap between spoken Greek and Classical/Attic Greek (ibid., 80 f.).