The book is an investigation into the material reception of the Shepherd of Hermas as a case study of early Christian literary authority. An idiosyncratic early Christian apocalyptic work, the Shepherd was broadly copied and used often alongside biblical texts not only in Greek, but also in Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian and, as authoritative even in non-Christian context, in Middle-Persian. Drawing on patristic sources, late antique book-lists, and several manuscript traditions, the book challenges long-held assumptions about the outlook of its earliest reception and about its fourth-century rejection. Rather than a narrative of decline, the book proposes a model of continuity and illuminates how the Shepherd was continuously used in theological, catechetical, and liturgical contexts across centuries, and maintained a consistent status as a scriptural secondary book—neither fully canonical nor discarded—throughout late antiquity.

From the outset, biblical texts were produced in multilingual contexts, with an awareness of language barriers and a pressing need to overcome them. Translating biblical books and compilations has been one of these efforts in multilingual and multicultural mediation. Such translation endeavors were seen from the beginning as both desirable and in need of explanation and justification. This volume brings together studies on Bible translations from antiquity to the present, stemming from a series of international conferences held in Košice, Slovakia, in 2021 and 2022, as well as subsequent research exchanges. It addresses general methodological and conceptual questions, examines ancient translations into Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic, and finally explores historical and recent Bible translations into Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, and German, considering not only their philological approaches but also their institutional, political, and religious contexts.

A study of the citations from the synoptic gospels that occur in the works of Origen that have survived in Greek. The citations, lemmata, adaptations and allusions have been collected and citations and lemmata compared against a selection of known manuscripts representing major text types including the so-called Caesarean text type.

Fragmentary material comprises a significant part of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Whether it be tattered papyrus documents, the abbreviated citation of biblical texts in early Christian writings, or the scattering of once-whole manuscripts, the story of the New Testament is a gathering of fragments—in all their forms—in the hopes that “nothing may be lost.” This volume is a result of the Twelfth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, wherein presenters were invited to approach the theme of “fragments” from any philological or philosophical framework. Chapters discuss the possible forgery of a biblical papyrus, the dismemberment of a sixteenth-century lectionary manuscript, and the Arabic text of Romans preserved in a fragmentary bilingual codex. Elsewhere, software tools are employed to re-assess the readings of manuscripts digitised in decades past and to re-evaluate the stemma of a family of manuscripts. Further contributions consider the fragments of the biblical text contained in patristic commentaries and Byzantine catenae. The wide-ranging scope of the research contained in this volume reflects the need to examine these pieces of the past so that the shape of research in the present accurately illustrates the tapestry that is the history of the New Testament texts.

This book investigates the biblical text of Codex Washingtonianus, also called the Freer Gospels, Codex W and GA 032. There are numerous distinctive features in this early and important gospel book, including the differing affiliation of its text in separate sections (known as block mixture). The study examines and evaluates the blocks of text in this manuscript through the extensive application of the technique of quantitative analysis, which sheds light on the textual relationship between Codex Washingtonianus and other gospel manuscripts. Paratextual features, orthographic variations, and singular readings are also described and analysed. This book thus functions as an investigation of the phenomenon of block mixture in itself as well as the character of this particular manuscript, confirming many of the findings of previous scholarship and providing new data from the context of modern research.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine-thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

Quotations in early Christian writers provide important evidence for the text of the New Testament as well as the ways in which Scripture was used and received in the early Church. The fourth-century archbishop Gregory of Nazianzus was one of the most influential and widely-read authors of his time, but because the majority of his output was in poetic form he has rarely been treated as a source for the biblical text. The present study brings together all the identifiable references to the Gospels in Gregory’s writings for the first time, comparing them with standard biblical texts and manuscripts in order to determine their significance for the history and transmission of the New Testament. This collection also sheds new light on Gregory’s treatment of Scripture and the distinctive role it plays in his rhetorical style.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine-thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

The present study represents the first attempt to expand the methodological and practical framework of textual scholarship on the Greek New Testament from an Orthodox perspective. Its focus is on the Antoniades edition of 1904, commonly known as the Patriarchal Edition. The examination of the creation and reception of this edition shows that its textual principles are often misrepresented. In particular, it is shown to be more closely related to the Textus Receptus than to lectionary manuscripts. This is confirmed by an analysis of lectionary manuscripts using the Text und Textwert methodology and a detailed comparison of the Antoniades edition with the recent Editio Critica Maior of the Catholic Epistles. A textual commentary is provided on key verses in order to formulate guidelines for preparing an edition of the Greek New Testament that would satisfy the needs of Orthodox users in different contexts. This study offers a foundation for the further development of New Testament textual scholarship from an Orthodox perspective, informed both by modern critical scholarship and Orthodox tradition. It also provides a fresh translation of Antoniades’ introduction in an Appendix.

The book is a synoptic catalogue of a large class of Greek manuscripts: it describes all pre-seventeenth century copies of the Greek New Testament in which the biblical text is accompanied by commentary. Manuscripts where this commentary consists of combined excerpts (catena) from the works of various authors are described in particular detail. Those that have similar content are grouped together, so that the potential relatives of any given manuscript can be easily identified. Several previously unknown types of catenae are distinguished and a number of previously unstudied codices are brought to light for the first time. To ensure its longer shelf-life, the volume systematically references on-line electronic databases (which are regularly updated). It will be of use to anyone interested in Byzantine book culture and in biblical exegesis.

This volume brings together contributions by scholars focussing on peritextual elements as found in Middle Eastern manuscripts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels, intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla that provide additional explanatory content akin to but substantially different from our modern notes and endnotes; images and illustrations that present additional material not found in the main text. These elements add additional layers to the main body of the text and are crucial for our understanding of the text’s transmission history as well as scribal habits.

Indirect evidence, in the form of early translations (‘versions’) and biblical quotations in ancient writers (‘patristic citations’), offers important testimony to the history and transmission of the New Testament. In addition to their value as early evidence for the Greek New Testament, versions have a textual tradition of their own which is often of considerable historical, theological and ecclesial significance. This volume brings together a series of original contributions on this topic, which was the focus of the Eleventh Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. The research described here illustrates not just the ongoing importance and variety of this material, but also the way in which it may shape the theory and practice of text-critical scholarship and lead to new insights about this vast and rich tradition.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

This book consists of a series of studies of Codex Zacynthius (Cambridge, University Library MS Add. 10062), the earliest surviving New Testament commentary manuscript in catena format. A research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has produced new multispectral images of the palimpsest undertext in order to enable a thorough investigation of the manuscript and the creation of a complete electronic edition. This volume, co-authored by the members of the project, will provide a full account of the research undertaken by the project. Many advances have resulted from this research, which will be presented here for the first time in print.

This book is the first-ever edition of the complete palimpsest undertext of Codex Zacynthius (Cambridge, University Library MS Add. 10062), the earliest surviving New Testament commentary manuscript in catena format. It relies on new multispectral images produced by a research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council in 2018.

Nearly a century has passed since Henry A. Sanders first published his editio princeps of the Washington Manuscript of the Epistles of Paul (Codex I or GA 016). Within that time, it has received very little scholarly attention. This new edition provides a fresh, conservative transcription based on two new image sets.

This work presents to the scholarly world the hitherto unpublished trove of over 500 catchwords that were attached to Masoretic doublet notes in the Leningrad Codex. All the doublets with their catchwords are listed both in the chronological order of their first appearance in the Bible and again on their second appearance. The nature of the catchwords, their purpose, and their relation to other Masoretic notes are described in detail, and suggestions are made how they can be of value to biblical scholars.

Lectionary studies were almost abandoned after the mid-twentieth century, and the recent revival of interest in the Greek Lectionary has concentrated exclusively on the Gospel Lectionary. Gibson reintroduces the value of the Apostolos yet incorporates modern methodology in order to build upon the work of recent Lectionary scholarship, analysing New Testament and liturgical textual traditions together, both compilation and continuous text. Through this process, it is shown that the Apostolos witness is not usually copied to another and that consequently there is no ‘Lectionary text’ of Acts and Paul. Instead, Apostolos copies reflect textual variation in the evolving Byzantine tradition. This study concentrates on the Apostolos in its scribal, monastic, liturgical, and theological context as well as in light of other manuscript traditions.

The textual history of the New Testament is a dynamic tradition, reflecting differing readings, interpretations and uses of its canonical writings. These contributions represent original research by an international range of scholars, first presented at the Tenth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine-thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

A new reconstruction of Pelagius's biblical text of 2 Corinthians. It shows how Pelagius's commentary assists us in choosing between variant readings and assessing manuscript reliability. From this new reconstruction, it is now apparent that Pelagius had access to the Vulgate already in the early 5th century.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine-thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

A reprint of Mynatt's 1994 publication, examining all of the sub loco notes in the Torah of BHS. There is an entry for each such note which compares the Mp of Codex Leningradensis, BHS and (where extant) the Aleppo Codex.

This work represents the first time that a major part of the masorah of the great Leningrad Codex, that of the Former Prophets, is being published with an English translation and commentary. Almost nine-thousand notes are transcribed and annotated with biblical references.

This collection of original research papers examines early commentaries on the New Testament and the transmission of the biblical text. Focusing principally on Greek and Latin tradition, it provides new insights into the sources and manuscripts of commentators and catenae.