Blog
Update on the UK Gospels Manuscript: No Pericope Adulterae
Daniel B. Wallace
7/27/2010
The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts sent a team in June 2009 to a private residence in England to photograph a previously uncatalogued Greek Gospels manuscript. The manuscript turned out to be from the 10th century, containing all four Gospels (except for nine missing leaves). Some of the quires were out of order, but after making a Scripture index of each page the dislocated passages were found.
Five Albanian Manuscripts Catalogued by INTF
Jeff Hargis
1/13/2010
In 2007, the Center photographed the collection of New Testament manuscripts at the Albanian National Archives in Tirana, Albania. Some of these were already cataloged in the Kurzgefasste Liste der griechishen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (the “K-Liste”), while many others were previously unknown to scholars. In addition, the identities of several of the manuscripts remain uncertain as they have not been examined thoroughly for many decades, if at all.
What Does it Mean to “Discover” a Manuscript?
Jeff Hargis
3/31/2009
In the last few years, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has discovered more manuscripts of the New Testament than the rest of the world combined. In the past nine months alone, CSNTM has discovered about twenty, and we are in the process of presenting our finds to the academic community.
P46 the Earliest Extant Witness to the Corpus Paulinum
Rob Reid
1/19/2009
The earliest papyrus manuscript containing most of the epistles of Paul, less the pastoral epistles, along with the book of Hebrews is from the Chester Beatty Papyri Collection known as P46. This papyrus was discovered along with P45 and P47 in the Fayum of Egypt in the ruins of an early Church. The manuscript traveled 130km north to Cairo and was broken up in two portions by a dealer. Presently, part of the papyrus is in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. The other portion of the papyrus was acquired by the University of Michigan, where it is presently housed. As stated previously, this is the earliest Pauline manuscript and along with the prestige has come much scholarly debate concerning the date of the papyrus. F. G. Kenyon first suggested a third century CE date. Subsequently, Ulrich Wilcken dated the document to ca. 200 CE. More recently, Young Kyu Kim suggested a provocatively early date to the reign of Domitian in 81–96 CE. His argument was predicated upon six premises: (1) comparative literary papyri of such an early date, (2) comparative documentary papyri of an early date, (3) several unique features of the handwriting, (4) and (5) other morphologically early components, and (6) a corrector’s hand which was thought to be in several documents of the early period cumulatively convinced Kim.
Codex B
Robert Kashow
11/26/2008
Codex Vaticanus (otherwise known as B or 03), is one of the more appropriately named manuscripts because its residence is currently at the Vatican in Rome. It was produced in the fourth century and is a very close relation to an even earlier manuscript, P75, which is of utmost significance in determining the original wording of the New Testament. Thus, this manuscript is regarded by many as one of the most important existing New Testament Greek manuscripts, if not the most important.
Codex W
Robert Marcello
10/19/2008
With all the recent news coverage around Washington, it seems only fitting to look at one of America’s own New Testament treasures. Few are aware that the Freer Gallery of Art, a division of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, contains a late fourth or early fifth century manuscript of the four Gospels. Though there are numerous manuscripts in the United States, few compare to the quality and date of this manuscript in Washington.
Codex Sinaiticus on-line
Daniel B. Wallace
9/15/2008
The famous codex from St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt has begun to show up on the Internet. A joint project between the British Library, the University of Leipzig, the National Library in St. Petersburg, and St. Catherine’s Monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai, Egypt, has been underway for some time now. All four institutes own portions of this manuscript (with the BL owning the largest section, the complete New Testament—which, incidentally, is the oldest complete New Testament by half a millennium). The project to post these images on-line has involved new digital photography and some slick search-capable tools.
New Testament Text-Critical Colloquium in Münster, Germany
Daniel B. Wallace
8/5/2008
From August 3 through August 6, 2008, most of the world’s leading New Testament textual critics have gathered in Münster, Germany, for an important conference.