Wednesday, March 25, 2009

SBL Paper on Wettstein in the Making

An email arrived yesterday, confirming that my paper proposal for the SBL conference in November 2009 has been accepted. It will be part of the second session, which is more general and which can contain papers on the history and practice of (New Testament) textual criticism. The proposal was as follows:

Textual Criticism in the Making: Johann Jakob Wettstein

Wettstein’s edition of the Greek New Testament (2 vols., 1751-1752) is a landmark of New Testament textual criticism. Unknown to most present-day scholars, and hitherto unexplored, are Wettstein’s papers, preserved for posterity by the Remonstrant Church, and nowadays kept in the library of the University of Amsterdam. Though some have unfortunately been lost, the papers that remain still give us some surprising and instructive insights into the working conditions of a textual critic in the 18th century, his scholarly circle, and the making of his landmark edition.

So please come to the session; you will be in for some surprises.