Fifty Digitised GNT MSS and a New Blog

British Library curator Juan Garcés notified me that he has started a new blog, The Digitised Manuscripts Blog (which of course has now been added to our blogroll). The focus is to report on various issues related to the current digitisation projects at the British Library, in particularly the Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

The British Library described the project in their "Annual Reports and Accounts 2008/2009":

Digitisation of Greek manuscripts

We are very grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for making it possible for us to undertake a project to digitise 250 of our Greek manuscripts to make them fully accessible to researchers around the world through the internet. We will also create catalogue records for each item and create a website that will enable researchers to search using key words and interactive technology that will allow them to upload notes and collaborate with other researchers virtually. We aim to launch the website in summer 2010. We are continuing to fundraise to enable us to add the remaining Greek manuscripts and papyri to the site in the longer term.

In a special post yesterday, "Greek New Testament Manuscripts", Juan announced that in the first phase of that project fifty Greek New Testament manuscripts will be digitized (!): one majuscule from the 7th century; 33 minuscules from the 10th-14th centuries; and 16 lectionaries from the 11th-14th centuries. I don't know, but maybe the majuscule is Codex R (027)? [Update: confirmed by Juan Garcés in the comments.]

Joy to the world: more digitized GNT MSS.

Greek New Testament Manuscripts in Turin That Survived the Fire

When I worked on Jude I had access to a microfilm collection assembled by the Swedish scholar C. A. Albin in the 50-60's. There I came across a microfilm of Greg.-Aland 613 = Turin, Bibl. Naz. C. V. 1, that contained Jude 21-25 followed by a copy of the third century tract, On the Twelve Apostles traditionally ascribed to Hippolytus. According to the Kurzgefasste Liste this MS had been destroyed in a fire, referring to the severe fire of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin in 1904 that destroyed thousands of books and MSS. I also found a letter from a librarian that was enclosed with the microfilm, saying that this fragment was the only thing left of 611, 612 and 613.

Last year at the SBL in Rome, I met Matteo Grosso for the first time. He presented a paper in our Working with Biblical Manuscript unit. Then I met him again in New Orleans where he presented an improved version of the same paper. Since Matteo is from Turin, I suggested to him that he should visit his library and examine the GNT MSS there. I told him there would probably be some suprises. He agreed. Then, not much later, Martin Fassnacht of the INTF in Münster, by chance told me he was going to Turin to examine and photograph the MSS there(!) This was of course a win win situation since Matteo could then help him out in various ways, which he did.

I was also able to report to Martin everything I knew about the MSS there, and that was probably helpful, because at first they could not locate C.V.1 at all, but I told him it should be there, because it had been extant long after the fire. And, lo and behold, they were able to locate this exciting box containing 85 fragments! So now, I suspect we are in for more than what was on the microfilm I had examined.

Photo by M. Fassnacht (Februrary 2010)









There are likely to be many other surprises — there were other boxes with many fragments of various MSS - but the material now has to be properly examined and Martin will write a full report. There will be another visit to Turin to shoot some remaining MSS, and the photos will successively be uploaded to the Virtual Manuscript Room starting soon. (Martin, by the way, is one of the developers of the VMR.)

It is very nice to be able to be assist on a distance. Some time ago I was able to tip Dan Wallace and his team about an unregistered MS on Patmos when they were there. I had come across that one in a Danish microfilm collection.

Let's do our best to support these initiatives!

Two things I picked up on blogs

Matt Evans posts an interview with Dan Wallace (with news and views on NT TC and the CSNTMS)

Evan Kuehn posts on a new manuscript (in Coptic) of Athanasius' Festal Letter (AD 367) [David Brakke, 'A New Fragment of Athanasius's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon' Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010):47-66]

Funds available for TC Research

Yesterday I received an email from a missionary in Nigeria who wanted to give me £10,000,000 to fund Textual Criticism research from an ETC perspective. Apparently she just found it in the basement of an old church. All I had to do was send £967 to help ship the cash to a bank, and give her my bank details and passwords. Brilliant, of course I sent her all this stuff instantly. Who wouldn't? What a provision.
So what do you think we should do with this money once it arrives? Any ideas?

Libraries

Ben Myers has written Twelve theses on libraries and librarians which is well worth reading. Even more so (perhaps) is the Compendium of Beautiful Libraries to which he links - photos of glorious libraries from around the world (although perhaps Cambridge is under-represented).

New Update to the Kurzgefasste Liste

A few days ago a new update of the Kurzgefasste Liste was published by the INTF here. Apparently, the PDF updates will continue, although the complete Liste is now available in digital form in the Virtual Manuscript Room of Münster.

Since the last update one new Oxyrhynchus papyrus has been registered, and a dozen minuscules/lectionaries from Tirana, Albania (see a report here):

P 127 = Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (P. Oxy. 4968)
Date: 5th century
Content: Act 10,32- 35.40-45; 11,2-5; 11,30- 12,3.5.7-9; 15,29-30.34- 41; 16,1- 4.13-40; 17,1-10
Editio princeps: D.C. Parker, S.R. Pickering, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri LXXIV, London 2009, 1-45, Pl. II-V

See Peter Head's earlier comment on this interesting papyrus here.

2900 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ko. 85
Date: 14th century
Content: Gospels

2901 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ko. 92
Date: 13-14th centuries
Content: Gospels

2902 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 93
Date: 13th century
Content: Gospels
(columns in cruciform)

2903 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ar. 98
Date: 12-13th centuries
Content: Catholic Letters and Pauline Letters

L2439 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Vl. 7
Date: 11th century
Gospel lectionary

L2440 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Vl. 11
Date: 12th century
Gospel lectionary

L2441 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 13
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2442 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 16
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2443 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 77
Date: 15th century
Gospel lectionary

L2444 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 88
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2445 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 89
Date: 14th century
Gospel lectionary

The list of papyri reaches to 127;

The list of uncials reaches to 0320;

The list of minuscules reaches to 2903;

The list of lectionaries reaches to L2445.

To my knowledge this new uncial lectionary that we reported on last year has not yet been registered (don't forget to read the comments for the idenfication of the fragments as a lectionary).