Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung

This volume in honor of Martin Karrer contains 16 chapters on aspects of textual history, in particular the Septuagint, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation. The collection documents the breadth of Martin Karrer’s scholarly interests, giving insights into their diverse connections to contemporary textual studies and their relevance for explorations of early Judaism, the New Testament, and early Christianity.

This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive study on punctuation in Coptic and Greek manuscripts from late ancient Egypt. It provides a nuanced exploration of how the reading aids functioned by looking at selected documents from the Gospel of John, identifying both similarities in the use of pauses in both languages as well as independent developments in Coptic punctuation.

2025 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise

The famous Codex Vaticanus is currently regarded as one of the most essential sources for reconstructing the Greek New Testament text. Although it had already been used by textual critics in the sixteenth century, the manuscript only rose to the prominent status it now holds during the nineteenth century. In this volume, Yi writes an extensive scholarly history of Codex Vaticanus and describes its changing perceptions among scholars, beginning from Desiderius Erasmus until its editio princeps prepared by Angelus Maius. By examining critical editions, analysing monographs and articles, considering book reviews and pamphlets, and delving into archive collections, Yi delineates the stages of the manuscript’s progression from an ancient manuscript held at the Vatican Library to its designation as the ‘Codex Vaticanus’. It is a study of the many individuals and their stories surrounding this very manuscript, stories about accessibility and the dissemination of knowledge, authority and head-on collisions between the most learned critics, and of continuity and changing paradigms in scholarship. All in all, this book sets out how Codex Vaticanus became the manuscript par excellence in the history of New Testament textual scholarship.

This study takes "Text and Textual Value" as the starting point for an extensive analysis of the Greek manuscript witnesses for the Apocalypse. It focuses on carrying out a text-critical evaluation and grouping of the texts. It also emphasizes their relationships and how the texts developed historically. For the first time since Josef Schmid, it edits the complete manuscripts of the Apocalypse, thereby giving a new picture of their transmission.

Sahidic is one of the most important Coptic literary dialects. A modern, critical edition of the Sahidic translation of the New Testament has long been missing from the academic field. A research project funded by the FWF Austrian Science Fund (P29315) has now made it possible to produce a critical edition of the Sahidic Gospel of John, based on 172 different preserved manuscripts, most of them fragments.

The Codex Vercellensis is one of the great treasures of the Vercelli library, containing the four Gospels. Written during the fourth century, it is the oldest remaining Latin manuscript of the Greek New Testament and one of the most important witnesses to the early understanding of the Gospels. In this edition, Weissenrieder and Visinoni provide the Latin text of the work parallel to spectral images, indicating abbreviations, lineation, foliation and staurograms as well as a (reconstructed) critical edition with references to the most important texts of the Old Latin tradition as well as Greek and Syriac manuscripts and a commentary to this unique Latin translation. The analyses involved will be: (1) digital methods, (2) philological and theological, (3) translation theories in antiquity as well as (4) genealogical. The authors call into question assumptions about the text preserved in the manuscript, arguing that it represents an early stage of the Latin Gospels. The manuscript will be examined in light of its wide-ranging cultural and historical context. As such, the project aligns itself methodologically with the field of manuscript studies and attempts to integrate the specialized expertise of various disciplines in the study of a single object.

This book analyses how the early Greek whole-Bible manuscripts (pandects) change and preserve the text. Dormandy refutes the method based on singular readings and so investigates all the ways in which each pandect differs from the initial text, both changes introduced by its own scribe and by the scribes of earlier manuscripts. He surveys sample chapters in John, Romans, Revelation, Sirach and Judges (including discussing the “new finds” of Sinaiticus). Dormandy’s observations of Codex Ephraemi challenge accepted transcriptions. Dormandy argues that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus may plausibly have been made in response to commissions by Constantine and Constans. Dormandy concludes that generally, across all the Biblical books considered, the pandects preserve the initial text well. Transcriptional and linguistic variations are more common than harmonisations or changes of content. The more precise profiles of each manuscript vary between Biblical books. The pandects thus create bibliographic unity from textual diversity. This shows their significance in the history of the Christian Bible: they reflect in bibliographic form the hermeneutical move to consider all the books of the Christian Bible as one corpus.

As the principal Greek witness of the so-called "Western" tradition of the gospels and Acts, Codex Bezae’s enigmatic text in parallel Greek and Latin columns presents a persistent problem of New Testament textual criticism. The present study challenges the traditional view that this text represents a vivid retelling of the canonical narratives cited by ancient writers from Justin Martyr to Marcion and translated early into Syriac and Latin.

Klaus Wachtel has pioneered the creation of major editions of the Greek New Testament through a blend of traditional philological approaches and innovative digital tools. In this volume, an international range of New Testament scholars and editors honour his achievements with thirty-one original studies. Many of the themes mirror Wachtel's own publications on the history of the Byzantine text, the identification of manuscript families and groups, detailed analysis of individual witnesses and the development of software and databases to support the editorial process. Other contributions draw on the production of the Editio Critica Maior, with reference to the Gospels of Mark and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse. Several chapters consider the application of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. A wide selection of material is considered, from papyri to printed editions. The Greek text is analysed from multiple perspectives, including exegesis, grammar and orthography, alongside evidence from versions in Latin, Syriac, Coptic and Gothic. This collection provides new insights into the history of the biblical text and the creation, development, analysis and application of modern editions.

This edited volume presents analyses of the Greek manuscript tradition as well as text-critical and text-historical assessments that contextualize the various versions and Patristic declarations. Essays on scholia commentary and on art history integrate the findings from the textual analysis into a broader perspective on intellectual history.

Die kritische Neuedition (Editio Critica Maior) der Johannesapokalypse konfrontiert die Herausgeber mit einer ebenso außergewöhnlichen wie faszinierenden Textüberlieferung. Im Diskurs mit der zum Teil nicht unproblematischen Editions- und Forschungsgeschichte sind umfangreiche textkritische und textgeschichtliche Untersuchungen als Vorbedingung für die anstehende Textkonstitution unumgänglich.

Der Sammelband dokumentiert in insgesamt 13 Einzelbeiträgen die laufenden Arbeiten an der Editio Critica Maior der Johannesapokalypse und stellt einem textkritisch wie theologisch interessierten Publikum wichtige aktuelle Ergebnisse aus der aktuellen Arbeit vor. Neben Analysen zum griechischen Text beinhaltet der Band neue kritische Editionen der sahidischen und der syrischen (genauerhin harklensischen) Version sowie weitere Untersuchungen zur äthiopischen, koptischen und lateinischen Überlieferung der Johannesapokalypse.

Beiträge zur Scholien-Kommentierung und zur Kunstgeschichte öffnen die engere textkritische Sichtweise hin zur weiteren Rezeptionsgeschichte dieses geistesgeschichtlich wirkungsmächtigen Werkes.

This extensive collection of material, imcomparable in the canon of research literature, marks the conclusion of the series "Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments". In 123 sample passages the editors meticulously demonstrate the complex transmission history of the Apocalypse, a book shaped by a number of divergent groups of manuscripts.

As a witness to the early Coptic and Greek Biblical traditions, Papyrus Bodmer III is of vital interest to biblical scholars. This updated transcription is unique in providing readers with direct access to the original text by positioning digital images of the actual papyrus side by side with a new transcription of each page. Over 100 corrections to Kasser's 1958 transcription underscore the importance of this book for serious students of the New Testament.
A detailed introduction examines the provenance, codex and paleography of P. Bodmer III, presents the singular readings discovered in the text, and separates these readings into meaningful categories. Finally, the appendices provide a complete list of the 1,960 singular readings, a brief description of the 119 corrections made by the original scribe, and a quick reference to the location of all corrections to Kasser's 1958 transcription, as well as corrections to citations in the NA 28th edition.
This work will prove a valuable asset to anyone interested in Coptic Biblical studies, New Testament textual criticism, scribal habits, and other related fields.

A new critical edition (Editio critica major) of the Book of Revelation (The Apocalypse of St. John) is to be published soon. There are unique elements in the textual tradition of this work – earlier versions (the Erasmus and Complutense editions) have influenced the text more than other portions of the New Testament. The essays in this volume presage the new edition and examine selected aspects of the textual tradition and edition history.

The Gothic version of the New Testament is the oldest extant writing in a Germanic language and one of the earliest translations from the Greek. This volume offers a re-examination of fundamental questions concerning the historical and cultural context in which the version was prepared, the codicology of the manuscripts, and the value of the Gothic text for the reconstruction of the underlying Greek, together with a history of text-critical research and a new evaluation of the significance of the Gothic text in the light of current New Testament textual criticism.

This textual study of the Gospel of John in seventeen Greek manuscripts offers a fresh investigation into the textual group known as Family 1. Since Kirsopp Lake’s 1902 study, Codex 1 of the Gospels and its Allies, Family 1 has been considered an important textual witness by all major critical editions of the the New Testament; however, with the exception of a recent study of Matthew (Amy Anderson, The Textual Tradition of the Gospels: Family 1 in Matthew), little further research has been conducted into the family’s text. By analysis of a full collation of John, this study examines manuscripts: Gregory-Aland 1, 22, 118, 131, 205abs, 205, 209, 565, 872, 884, 1192, 1210, 1278, 1582, 2193, 2372, and 2713. The study has confirmed the place of codices 1 and 1582 as core members of Family 1, but has demonstrated the existence of a new core subgroup, represented by codices 565, 884 and 2193, that rivals the textual witness of 1 and 1582. The discovery of this subgroup has broadened the textual contours of Family 1, leading to many new readings, both text and marginal, that should be considered Family 1 readings. The reconstructed Family 1 text with critical apparatus is based on the witness of this wider textual group and is offered as a replacement to Lake’s 1902 text of John.

This monograph explores the history of the Coptic tradition of John’s gospel, considering when these ancient Egyptian witnesses are profitable for determining the earliest readings of their Greek source text. The standard critical edition of the Greek New Testament cites the Coptic versions no fewer than 1,000 times in John’s gospel. For these citations, that edition references six dialectally distinct Coptic translations: the Achmimic, Bohairic, Lycopolitan (Subachmimic), Middle Egyptian Fayumic, Proto-Bohairic, and Sahidic versions. In addition to examining these, this project considers newly published texts from the Fayumic and Middle Egyptian traditions.

Apart from a pivotal article on Coptic and New Testament textual criticism by Gerd Mink in 1972, Coptological research has progressed with only limited contact with Greek textual criticism. The discovery of various apocryphal Christian texts in Coptic translations has further diverted attention from Greek textual criticism. This project contributes to this subject area by applying recent advances in Coptology, and exploring the various facets of the Coptic translations. In particular, the monograph investigates (1) translation technique, (2) Greek-Coptic linguistic differences, (3) the reliability of the Coptic manuscript tradition, (4) the relationships between the Coptic versions, and (5) relevant contributions from the scholarly community.

John’s gospel is extant in more Coptic dialectal versions than any other biblical text. As a result, the gospel offers unique insight into the nature of the ancient Egyptian Christian communities.

The history of the Septuagint text and its reception in the New Testament writings are among the most fascinating areas of current biblical text research. This volume contains contributions which illuminate in great detail the different text versions of the Greek Old Testament and explore how they relate to each other and how they influenced the text of the New Testament. The papers were presented between 2007–2009 at international conferences and workshops held by the Institute of Septuagint and Biblical Text Research of the Protestant University Wuppertal-Bethel.

This book is concerned with the Arabic versions of the Gospels. It is an attempt to examine a substantial number of Arabic manuscripts which contain the continuous text of the canonical Gospels copied between the eighth and the nineteenth centuries and found in twenty-one different library collections in Europe and the Orient.
Following the introduction, Chapter Two presents the state of research from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present time. Chapter Three introduces and reflects on the two hundred plus manuscripts examined in this work. Chapters Four to Eight concentrate on grouping these manuscripts into twenty-four families and examining their Vorlagen (Greek, Syriac, Coptic and Latin). In order to examine the relationship between the families, phylogenetic software is used. Consequently, the manuscripts are grouped into seven different mega clusters or tribes. Finally the date of the first translation of the Gospels into Arabic is addressed and (a) provisional date(s) suggested based on the textual and linguistic analyses of the manuscripts.
The conclusion in Chapter Ten gives the overall contribution made by this thesis and also future avenues for the study of the Arabic versions of the Gospels.

Manuscripts of the New Testament frequently contain, in addition to the text, supplementary information such as excerpts from the Fathers, chapter lists, quotation lists, introductions to sections, for example, the Pauline letters, and to individual books. The „Euthalian apparatus“ is the name given to one such collection of helps to the reader. Unfortunately, the relationship of the various parts, the identity of the author, the time of the writing, and the provenance remain uncertain. This work collects, summarizes, and analyzes the sometimes disparate published scholarship on the apparatus through 1970. The bibliography updates the original bibliography through 2007 and includes newly identified, earlier bibliographic references.

David C. Parker is one of the world’s foremost specialists in the study of the New Testament text and of Greek and Latin manuscripts. In addition to editions, monographs and more popular writings, he has published many articles on different aspects of textual criticism. This volume brings together twentyfive of them in a revised and updated version.
The collection is divided into three topics. The first deals with manuscript studies. As well as three very different studies of Codex Bezae, there are articles and reports on individual manuscripts and classes of manuscripts and reports on visits to libraries. The second section has the theme of textual criticism. It includes broader studies dealing with the theory of the discipline and more detailed discussions of particular problems, including translations into Latin, techniques for grouping Greek manuscripts, and the comparison of modern editions. The third section contains papers in which Parker has discussed the often overlooked relationship between textual criticism and theology. These studies explore particular textual problems and their wider significance, and cover topics as varied as “Jesus and Textual Criticism”, “Calvin’s Biblical Text” and “The Early Tradition of Jesus’ Sayings on Divorce”.

The present volume is devoted to the Coptic tradition of New Testament accounts of the Resurrection (Mt 28,1-8; Mk 16,1-8; Lk 24,1-12; Joh 20,1-10 together with the oldest witness to the Resurrection in 1Cor 15,3-5). In it, a comprehensive text-critical apparatus includes nearly all Sahidic manuscripts at present available, most of them unedited, and the textual variants are presented, provided with a commentary and divided into groups. A second stage contrasts and compares the propositions in the Greek and Coptic texts to discover syntactic differences between them and comment on these; here, dependency grammar is applied to the Coptic language for the first time. Particular attention is paid here to the rendering of Greek verbs in Coptic. It is the aim of this volume to present the Coptic versions of the Resurrection accounts on a scale hitherto unmatched, and apart from establishing textual variants within the Coptic texts to identify those syntactic differences from the Greek texts which cannot simply be traced back to the translation process.

The over 1700 Greek mss. with a continuous text of St. John's Gospel available today are compared at 153 sampling points, and all the variants at these points are documented. A quantitative evaluation makes it possible to select the relevant mss. for an Editio Critica Maior of St. John's Gospel. In addition, a new process is introduced for also grouping the mss. of the Byzantine text-type.

For this volume, thirteen papyri and a majuscule have been edited and undergone a critical textual examination. Through these methods, the accuracy of the copyists' writing (manner of tradition) and the quality of the master copies of the text or chains of text are placed into close relation. This procedure allows for a relatively accurate evaluation of relatively small fragments. The result shows that despite numerous small mistakes the early papyri have preserved a text which is very close to the "original".

This study presents comprehensive documentation relating to the Sahidic, Bohairic, Achmimic and Dialect V translations of the Epistle of St. James and the two Epistles of St. Peter from the Greek New Testament.

An edition of all Syrian translations of the New Testament, presented synoptically and chronologically. The translations are edited here for the first time. The citation material is assembled, reflecting lost translations (Vetus Syra, Philoxenia). In the introduction there are extensive discussions of all complexes of traditions. A reconstruction of the Greek "Vorlage" of the Harclean version, with complete collations of the related Greek manuscripts, as well as numerous indices, also make the work available to the non-specialist.

Als 1987 die Bände erschienen, die der Untersuchung von Text und Textwert der Katholischen Briefe gewidmet waren, handelte es sich dabei um ein "Pilotprojekt", wie man heute zu sagen pflegt. Mit Rücksicht darauf wurde das gesamte zur Verfügung stehende Material ausgebreitet, gleich ob es sich um Handschriften mit wertvollem alten Text oder um solche mit dem "Mehrheitstext" des byzantinischen Reiches handelte, der nun zwar keineswegs so monolithisch ist, wie mancher meint, sondern zahlreiche interne Variationen bietet, aber dennoch für das Ziel der Gewinnung des ursprünglichen Textes des Neuen Testaments und die Feststellung seiner frühen Geschichte von sekundärer Bedeutung ist.

Der vorliegende zweite Band der Reihe "Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus" liefert, wie angekündigt, das Material zum Römerbrief und den beiden Korintherbriefen. Er ist nach den Prinzipien des ersten Bandes angelegt und bietet dementsprechend eine synoptisch angeordnete Reedition sämtlicher zu diesem Bereich vorhandenen Papyrushandschriften und -fragmente sowie einen vollständigen kritischen Apparat aus allen erhaltenen Unzialhandschriften. Der Benutzer hat also hier das vollständige Material griechischer Textmajuskeln zum Studium der Überlieferung der großen Paulinen im ersten Jahrtausend beisammen.

Daß der erste Band der Reihe "Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus" das Material für die Katholischen Briefe vorlegt, ergibt sich daraus, daß die Vorarbeiten für die Editio critica maior im Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung hier am weitesten gediehen sind.