A Greek NT Reunited (GA 699)

Interesting blog post over at the British Library on GA 699 and the separate histories of its two parts (with nice pictures).

This is a notable NT manuscript partly on the grounds that it was (unusually) a manuscript of the whole New Testament - one of only around 60 extant that ever contained what we regard as the whole New Testament.

Ancient Greek Lexica

We know that modern lexica are important for providing information on how modern scholars understand the meaning of words. And we know that ancient lexica are even more useful for providing information on how ancient scholars understood the meaning of words. So it is interesting to read through Roger Pearse's useful list and discussion:Lexicon: an introduction to the dictionaries of ancient Greek that survive from antiquity.

PS. We also know that such lexica may preserve interesting text-critical information - on one of which see Dirk Jongkind, "Some Observations on the Relevance of the 'Early Byzantine Glossary' of Paul for the Textual Criticism of the Corpus Paulinum", Novum Testamentum 53 (2011): 358-75.

Stephen Emmel on The Fake Harvard John Fragment

Building on Christian Askeland's argument that the Harvard Coptic John Fragment was textually dependent on Thompson's 1924 publication of the Qau codex (see The forgery of the Lycopolitan gospel of John) Stephen Emmel has recently done a great job on assessing "The Codicology of the New Coptic (Lycopolitan) Gospel of John Fragment"

I was interested to read it because in a comment to Christian's post I had suggested that "It may be worth trying to reconstruct the page (as a reductio ad absurdum)." Emmel has now done that in massive detail and shows how extremely implausible are the results, concluding that "No Codicological Reconstruction of H Is Entirely Credible". Emmel also agrees that if the Coptic John fragment is fake, then the Gospel of Jesus Wife fragment is also fake.

I would say that the end is nigh.

Fighting over Recto and Verso

Over the recent weeks I have been twice in a skirmish on the correct use of the terms recto and verso, and I blame the dark days of early papyrology for this (there are articles on this topic; I leave it to commentators to share that wisdom). Before the dawn of papyrology everyone knew what the recto and verso of a manuscript page were: the recto is the front, the verso the back, identified on the basis of the direction of the text. On paper the physical aspects of either side of the page are (virtually?) indistinguishable; on parchment there is a hair and flesh side, though with well prepared parchment there is not that much of a striking difference. However, on papyrus there is the writing either along the direction of the strips of papyrus or across these. But still, recto and verso are terms based on the direction of the text, not on any physical aspect of the material.

Then there were papyrologists. And they described rolls, where the primary writing is on the 'along side' (normally the inner side of the roll), and where there is possibly secondary writing on the 'across side' (normally the outer side of the roll). Or other reused sheets of papyrus, where, again, the first text is along, and the secondary text across (normally). And the terms recto and verso were used so that they became often identical with along and across the direction of the fibres.
I think that this explains the odd labelling on the actual frames of P45, where the folio number is followed by a 'r' or 'v' which indicates not the direction of the text, but the direction of the fibres. In the transcription on the INTF website the same terms are used, but there correctly. This results in regular mismatches between the labelling on the frame and on the transcription. E.g. folio 16:

Label on frame '16v'; content John 10:7-25; transcription '16r'

Label on frame '16r'; content John 10:29 - 11:10; transcription '16v'

These days papyrologists tend to avoid the terms recto and verso (and rightly so, at least in their world), but within book studies (codicology proper) the terms have a rightful place as describing the direction of the text.

Physical description Parchment: Hair - Flesh. Papyrus: Along (→) - Across (↓)
Text direction (not related to the physical description!) Parchment: Recto - Verso. Papyrus: Recto - Verso (only really useful in papyrus codices)

It is only now with electronic texts and webpages that recto and verso have lost their relevance.

Online Images of NT manuscripts in Oxford

Oxford Bodl., Barocci 3 (G-A 314):

Oxford Bodl., Barocci 28 (G-A 2101): (XIII; Gospels with Comm.; on paper)

Oxford Bodl., Barocci 29 (G-A 46):(c. 1300; Gospels)

Oxford Bodl., Barocci 31 (G-A 45): (XIII; Gospels)

Oxford Bodl., Barocci 48 (G-A 2408 = fol. 18 [XIV; Rev 5.1-5]; G-A 2015 = fol. 51-74 [XV; Apocalypse]):

[HT: Paleografia Greca]

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