Archaic Christianity

Just in case you have the desire to do some reading in the Greek New Testament manuscript labeled GA 676, I have a few tips for you. You can find the images on the CSNTM website. All snippets below with one exception are found on image 234.

As I said the other day, I'm trying to end April with a bang. I've given you a gallery of readers, started and finished a series on how I think readers should work, and I am now giving you part three of my shibang.

I know nothing about this manuscript other than what they posted on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, but here's a link to Codex Maurocordatianus.

An article recently came out on the Christianity Today website about CSNTM and their work in Albania last year. If you're not familiar with CSNTM or that trip, give it a read.

Here are Archaic Christianity it is και ligature day. Yes, this is a holiday practiced by scribes throughout all of time. This holiday post is dedicated to Brett. Here, Brett, are more examples of funky και ligatures.

Where will you get your textual variants? April DeConick over at the Forbidden Gospels Blog was musing on the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament and how it doesn't give you all of the information that is out there. She's right and it is worth a read. There's also a follow-up post. However, among the commentators I think there is a little confusion about some of the resources (for example, that Swanson's work is not an attempt to be exhaustive, which Chuck Grantham, a frequent comment guy here pointed out). In my continuous attempt to not be completely useless, I am going to contribute a little.

Here's another ligature, comin' at ya fast! This one is from Codex Hierosolymitanus. Here are ye ligatures of the day.

So I found out that the scribe for codex Hierosolymitanus actually has a name. This is nice because I can get rid of the name I gave him, TSWAMEMBPOULLACP. It was a good name, obfuscatory as the scribe himself. This post is going to focus on Leo and his writing of the letter κ, "kappa". Can you make out these words? All of them are found in the first chapter of 2 Clement.

Long day. 14 hours at work. But, I do have some good news for you! Yes, I always bring you the best. This time it is about manuscripts.

Yes, I'm sure you've missed the series. I have as well. How about starting out with a small word?

I've blogged ever-so-briefly on this before, but more news is starting to come out on one of CSNTM's recent manuscript trips. I'm pretty sure more press releases are to come...

I just wanted to point out a few resources that I have found useful for study of lectionary Greek manuscripts. One of them I have not yet read since reading German texts is still a little slow for me, but it looks useful.

The letters in and alphabet are not always easy to distinguish. Take the u and v in English. A "u" with an only slightly rounded bottom can look quite a bit like a "v" with a slightly rounded bottom. And when you get into cursive, it can become even harder.

This morning I was reading Mark 1 and was staring at verse 4 in a printout I had of the text based on Tauber's MorphGNT (which doesn't have any textual variants or punctuation), thinking "that is an unusual bit of syntax." Before our morning study class at church I was looking at it again, but this time in my NA27. I noticed that the first article in the verse was in brackets, showing that the reading was very debatable. So then I looked through the variants and realized that I wasn't the only one who found the wording to be a little unexpected. I figured this might be an interesting thing to ponder for some, because a) this is a good example of an intentional scribal change to the text, b) is one that affects how you translate this verse and, c) is one that involves both Textual Criticism and Greek syntax. Here are the readings:

Well, I am glad an announcement has finally been made. I've mentioned a few times on this blog and my other blog that I have been spending time in some manuscripts that were discovered that could not net be announced. Well, that is no longer true...

When you are collating (the process of comparing and annotating differences between a manuscript and a base text) handwritten manuscripts, one thing you have to have a plan for is how to deal with ligatures. In the world of Greek manuscripts this is especially true for minuscules, though even uncials like Sinaiticus can have ligatures.

Along with the nomina sacra, there are a number of other shorthand marks in Greek manuscripts. One very common one is the nu bar. Here it is in Sinaiticus:

If you have spent any time in Codex Sinaiticus, you will notice the plethora of itacisms (spelling variations caused by the similar pronunciation of various vowels and diphthongs). You will also see them in Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, but they seem to occur more often in Sinaiticus in my growing but limited experience.

I updated the site and added a few things. First, I'm starting now to put collations of ancient texts up here on the site. You can find them on my collations page. I have a number of other chapters collated but I have not yet converted them to the proper format. Some were from the class projects I mentioned before...

Following up on a previous post, I am going to write briefly here about the issue of the destination of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. Hopefully this will be a decent introduction to those of you who are not familiar with the issue. For those who have access to commentaries and academic books, I found the discussions in the commentaries of Best, Foulkes, and Lincoln to all be pretty good.

Our second installment on Greek handwriting is a good follow-up for the first.

We just uploaded a new manuscript to the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts site. It is a 10th-12th century minuscule manuscript of Luke, and you can view the images of this manuscript here.

These "Greek Handwriting" posts are about letter forms and ligatures found in Greek manuscripts.

Something common in Greek New Testament manuscripts...

Libraries much have a special deal going with the Egypt Exploration Society. The newest volume of the Oxyrhynchus papyri (which has four new NT papyri) is available only for pre-order on both Amazon and...

Since it was New Year's Eve, I did what everybody else does on this great holiday. I went to the library (at DTS) and did some research. I was looking at the new books (I always do) and saw a new volume of the Oxyrhynchus papyri had been published. I took a gander and saw that it had four new papyri in it. Major cool...