British Library Digitised Manuscripts - Greek NT

Just launched: the British Library Digitsed Manuscripts website, with almost 300 Greek manuscripts already (and a printed GNT with marginal notes [Add MS 12080]).

So far, I noticed the following Gregory-Aland entries:

uncials
011 (G) (Harley MS 5684)
027 (R) (Add MS 17211)

minuscules:
65 (Harley MS 5776)
72 (Harley MS 5647)
81 (Add MS 20003)
104 (Harley MS 5537)
113 (Harley MS 1810) (the GA number is not indicated on the browse page)
114 (Harley MS 5540) (GA number not indicated)
115 (Harley MS 5559) 
116 (Harley MS 5567)
201 (Add MS 11837)
202 (Add MS 14774)
272 (Add MS 15581)
312 (Add MS 5115/5116)
321 (Harley MS 5557) (GA number not indicated)
385 (Harley MS 5613)
478 (Add MS 11300)
490 (Add MS 7141)
491 (Add MS 11836)
492 (Add MS 11838)
493 (Add MS 11839)
495 (Add MS 16183)
496 (Add MS 16184)
497 (Add MS 16943)
498 (Add MS 17469)
499 (Add MS 17741)
500 (Add MS 17982)
501 (Add MS 18211)
503 (Add MS 19389)
504 (Add MS 17470)
505 (Harley MS 5538) 
640 (Add MS 19392A)
641 (Add MS 22734)
644 (Add MS 19388)
645 (Add MS 22506)
686 (Add MS 5468)
687 (Add MS 11868B)
688 (Add MS 22736)
689 (Add MS 22737)
690 (Add MS 22738)
691 (Add MS 22739)
692 (Add MS 22740)
693 (Add MS 22741)
1268 (Add MS 19386)
1274a (Add MS 11859) (indicated as GA 1274)
1274a (Add MS 11860) (part) (indicated as GA 1274 and 1274b)
1956 (Add MS 7142)
2822 (Add MS 11860) (part)
2823 (Add MS 11860) (part)

lectionaries:
l25a (Harley MS 5650)
l152 (Harley MS 5787)
l188 (Add MS 5153A/5153B)
l189 (Add MS 11840)
l190 (Add MS 17370)
l191 (Add MS 18212)
l192 (Add MS 19460)
l193 (Add MS 19993)
l318 (Add MS 19737)
l319 (Add MS 21260)
l321 (Add MS 22735)
l322 (Add MS 22742)
l323 (Add MS 22743)
l324 (Add MS 22744)
l930 (Add MS 19459)
l1053 (Add MS 19392B)

further
selections from OT and NT (Add MS 10968)
facsimile transcriptions from Codex Alexandrinus (Add MS 18278)

This all is really impressive, and a big step forward for NT textual criticism!

Nevertheless, anyone who consults the Liste (e.g. at the Münster Virtual Manuscript Room) will notice that not all GNT manuscripts of the BL are there. The Liste gives 228 numbers. The future looks bright.

Who needs conjectural emendation?

I do. Right now, actually, because I am editing a text by Bill Petersen, and just came across a sentence that is simply wrong. Bill writes:

Strutwolf went on to say that the Nestle-Aland text cannot and does not attempt to reconstruct an earlier (that is, pre-180) text, for that text was pluriform, and might called a “school-text,” under for teaching and preaching, but which was not fixed (hence the Alands’ description of the pre-180 text as “freischwebend”).

A nice citation, but that is not the point. Let us correct ‘might called’ to ‘might be called’. That one is easy enough. But what about ‘under for teaching and preaching’? Something went wrong here, but just what? Should I leave ‘under’ out? Should I write ‘used’? Or ‘undertaken’? All suggestions are welcome, especially good ones.

Meeting in Leuven (Sept. 1st)

On Sept. 1st Silvia Castelli, Jan Krans and Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte met with colleagues from Leuven (Jos Verheyden) and Halle (Manfred Lang, Bastian Lemitz). Thus, the New Testament Conjectural Emendation programme was brought in touch with the Leuven-Halle programme on the Corpus Hellenisticum. After the characteristics of both programmes had been discussed, Jan Krans gave a presentation on Textual Criticism in the Making: Johann Jakob Wettstein. In this presentation he pointed out the extreme interest of papers and manuscript notes by Wettstein that are kept in Amsterdam University Library (UBA). Manfred Lang and Bastian Lemitz updated the group on the publication of Der neue Wettstein, which is presently working on the volume of Acts. The Halle-Leuven and the Amsterdam group have taken several common projects into consideration. Although at present, further details cannot be mentioned yet, it is clear that a shared interest in the scholarly giant Johann Jakob Wettstein and his work will lead to further cooperation in the future. For that reason, it may be expected that this report will be continued…

Conjectural Emendation Quiz

In collaboration with Evangelical Textual Criticism, a small quotation quiz was organized. Here are the answers in chronological order, with some remarks.

#2 is indeed by Scrivener, in 1861:

It is now agreed among competent judges that Conjectural Emendation must never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty, ...

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament for the Use of Biblical Students, Cambridge etc.: Deighton, Bell, and Co etc., ¹1861, 369.

Note the typical term ‘resorting to’. In later editions the quotation continues as follows:

... difficulty; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it.

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament for the Use of Biblical Students, 2 vols, London etc.: Bell, ⁴1894, II p. 244 (already ²1874, p. 433).

This complex sentence - to me at least - seems to mean that conjectures are unacceptable because they are conjectures. The interesting point is that Scrivener maintains all this, knowing about William Linwood’s support of conjectural emendation of the New Testament. By implication, Linwood would not belong to the select class of ‘competent judges’.

#1 is indeed by Eb. Nestle, in 1901, at least in the English translation:

Not long ago philologists evinced such a fondness for conjectural emendation that the question might not unreasonably be asked why they did not rather themselves write the text that they took in hand to explain.

Eberhard Nestle, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament. London: Williams and Norgate, 1901, p. 167.

The German original is from 1899, and sounds even better:

Für’s Konjekturen-machen hatten viele Philologen vor noch nicht langer Zeit eine so grosse Vorliebe, dass man nicht ohne Grund fragen konnte, warum sie die Texte, die sie zu erklären vorgaben, nicht lieber selbst schrieben; ...

Eberhard Nestle, Einführung in das Griechische Neue Testament. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, ²1899, p. 134 (not in ¹1897). (The title of the English translation makes explicit what Nestle took for granted ...)

The Nestle quotation continues, however, on a more positive note:

At the same time, the aversion to this method of criticism which till recently prevailed and still to some extent prevails, especially in the matter of the New Testament text, is just as unreasonable.

In German:

... ebenso unbegründet aber war und ist die Abneigung, die namentlich auf dem Gebiet der nt.lichen Textkritik bis in die jüngste Zeit gegen sie herrschte, zum Teil noch herrscht.

Perhaps ‘unfounded’ would have been a better translation of ‘unbegründet’ than ‘unreasonable’, but the idea is clear. Did Nestle have Scrivener (et al.) in mind? In any case, Nestle himself is known for a number of conjectures on the NT text.

#5 is by Kenyon:

No authority could be attached to words which rested upon conjecture; and a critic who should devote himself to editing the Scriptures on conjectural lines would be merely wasting his time.

Frederic G. Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. London: Macmillan¹1901, 15 (²1926), p. 17.

Kenyon’s position becomes even clearer if the quotation is taken a bit larger:

It is universally agreed ... that the sphere of conjecture in the case of the New Testament is infinitesimal; and it may further be added that for practical purposes it must be treated as non-existent. No authority could be attached to words which rested upon conjecture; and a critic who should devote himself to editing the Scriptures on conjectural lines would be merely wasting his time. Where nothing but questions of literary style are involved, we may be willing to accept a reading upon conjecture, if no better evidence is to be had; but where it is a question of the Word of Life, some surer foundation is required.

The same agreement, now even universal, as found with Scrivener. To me, Kenyon exemplifies two aspects: (1) the opinion that the wealth of evidence in manuscripts, versions, and citations, almost precludes conjectural emendation, and (2) a theology-driven protest against it; hence ‘authority’, and the need of ‘some surer foundation’.
BTW, the particular use of the semicolon in Kenyon’s prose was once common even in British English, but has been abolished from civilised writing ever since; presumably it survives in certain areas of Australia only.

#3 is indeed by me (thanks Christian), in 2006:

Knowledge of authors should precede judgement of their conjectures.

Jan Krans, Beyond What Is Written. Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (NTTS 35), Leiden etc.: Brill, 2006, p. 3 (cf. p. 333).

It is my short formula for the ‘historical turn’ in the study of NT conjectural emendation. HT to Hort, of course; he was the one who was ‘clever with words’ (PH).

#4 is by Georg Luck, in 2009:

It is a sobering experience to observe what flights of fancy Biblical scholars indulge in order to discredit a conjecture.

Georg Luck, ‘Conjectural Emendation in the Greek New Testament’. In Verae Lectiones. Estudios de Crítica Textual y Edición de Textos Griegos. Eds. M. Sanz Morales and M. Librán Moreno. Cáceres: Huelva, 2009, 169-202, 183.

The entire article is not (yet) very well known, but it nicely shows a current-day classical scholar’s take on NT conjectural emendation. For members of the Textual Criticism Group, a scan of it is available under ‘files’.
The context of this remark is actually Kilpatrick’s defence of the transmitted reading ὑσσώπῳ (‘on hyssop’) against the conjecture ὑσσῷ (‘on a javelin’) in John 19:29.
Peter Head (in the comments on the ETC post) deduced an 18th-century date for the quotation, because it reflects a period in which biblical scholars were still remembered to discuss (and reject) specific conjectures, instead of them simply rejecting conjectural emendation in principle. Perhaps then, in the eyes of Luck, Kilpatrick becomes a biblical scholar instead of a textual critic, just because he deals with conjectures the way he does.

This concludes the quiz; there could easily be made a second one, with quotations just as interesting. Maybe next year.

Greek NT Lectionary 154 online

The digital library of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek keeps growing. This morning I noticed the addition of a Greek New Testament lectionary, Hss Cod. graec. 326. This turns out to be the 13th-century l 154.

Larry Hurtado in Amsterdam

In a previous post, Arie Zwiep announced the one-day symposium with Larry Hurtado at our university. I could do some live blogging, for Larry is speaking as I am typing this.
More importantly, however, we had a nice session of our Amsterdam New Testament Colloquium yesterday, where we were able to discuss with Larry his Lord Jesus Christ in a cordial and relaxed manner.
The discussion focussed (partly) on the category of ‘religious experience’, as Larry uses a taxonomy of it and more notably the special category of ‘revelatory religious experience’ as part of his historical explanation of early devotion to Christ. What kind of explanation is it? How does it square with current research on ‘religious experience’? Can such an explanation be verified or falsified? It turned out, at least, that further research and discussion is still possible.
The photograph below shows the group after the discussion, or, to be entirely correct, between the official part of it and its less official continuation at another, even more spirited location.

From left to right: Bas van Os, Cees van der Ziel, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Jan Krans, Arie Zwiep, Larry Hurtado, Martin de Boer. The painting between Larry and Martin shows Tjitze Baarda, as former dean of our faculty.

Symposium with Larry Hurtado

Dear all,

You are all cordially invited to a research symposium with Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) on 11 June 2010 at VU University Amsterdam.

See for details: http://www.cert-amsterdam.nl/en-events.htm

Arie Zwiep