I beheld the Codex Climaci Rescriptus with mine own eyes

As most of the Biblioverse knows, the Codex Climaci Rescriptus was purchased by Steven Green, owner of Hobby Lobby, and placed within a larger collection entitled Passages which is currently on the first leg of its tour in Oklahoma City.

I am not sure what I expected, but I thought perhaps I would see the codex highlighted and surrounded by a few other items shown on the Passages website.  This was not the case. Whether by lack of marketing were whether by intentional understatement, the extent and quality of the collection is both surprising and overwhelming to the degree that the Codex Climaci Rescriptus is almost swallowed up.

The one weakness of this exhibit is that there was no master list of display items. Had this been available I think the collection would have made a bigger splash; not necessarily for you academic types, but moreso for local pastors and knowledgable lay people who are aware of manuscript, translation, and printing history but have seen historical items only as photos in textbooks or on the internet. It is wonderful to find a high resolution scan of an ancient codex, but it is another thing altogether to read words on the living page.

In the absence of an official exhibit list, I offer here my own incomplete and hastily written list of items on display at the Passages exhibit. Judge for yourself whether the Codex Climaci has found a worthy home. But be aware, my list represents only about a third of the actual exhibit...

"Evanis" Gospel illumination

• Circular menorah hewn from a single stone. Most likely used in the 2nd temple, according to the display.
• Multiple medieval Torah scrolls- Yemenite, Sephardic
• Dead Sea Scroll fragment (was not able to get detail, maybe later)
• Bodmer papyrus XXIV
• Evanis Gospels, Greek, c. 1000.( illuminated on parchment. One of the earliest and smallest examples of calligraphic minuscule.)
• Multiple Greek papyri- 2nd-5th centuries
• Codex Climaci Rescriptus- only two leaves on display, one showing the underlying Greek text (with a handwritten "5" in the corner), the other showing the CPA palimpsest (the rest of the Codex is stored off site, in the possession of the Green family).

"St. Cecilia" Latin Bible

• van Hattem Bible (Latin)
• St. Cecilia Bible (Latin)
• Several Vulgates from 1200s (handwritten margin notes in Latin visible :) )
• Greek parchment "Letter from Theon", 3rd cent.
• Coptic papyrus Psalms 112 (111 in Protestant/Masoretic reckoning), 4th cent.

• Khabouris Codex, (open to show the Acts of the Apostles, ch 3) 11th cent.
• Multiple medieval French and German Bibles & prayer books
• Rosebery Rolle Bible
• Anglo Saxon printed gospels 1573
• Conveyance document (transfer of property title), signed by John Wycliffe's brother Robert and including his seal. 1393
• 1454 Gutenberg "noble fragment" of Romans
  

  

  The Anti-Christ and 15 Signs of the Doomsday

•  1462 Gutenberg Bible printed by apprentice Peter Schöffer, 1 of 4 surviving copies.
• 1480 Latin Bible with papal seal, taken by Napoleon
• The Anti-Christ and 15 Signs of the Doomsday (Der Antichrist und die fünfzehn Zeichen). Block-book. Nuremberg: Hans Sporer, 1470. Only surviving copy.

• 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle
• 1470 edition of "Antiquity of Jews and the Jewish Wars" by Josephus (Latin)
• 1471 edition of "Postilla Litteralis super Bibliam" by Nicholas de Lyna
• 1476 Venetian edition of "Summa Contra Gentiles" by Thomas Acquinas
• "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis, 1st edition. c 1418.
• Genoa Polyglot Psalms, 1516 (Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic). Psalm 19 includes a margin reference to Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World and the prophetic character the Gospel being carried around the world:  Et in fines mundi verba eorum, Saltem teporibus nostris ... mirabili ausu Christophori Columbi  genuensis, alter pene orbis repertus est christianoremus cetui aggregatus.

• Johannes Frobens "Poor Man's Bible" 1491 (Latin)
• Last Will and Testament, Martin Luther, Oct. 1518.
• "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" by Martin Luther, 1520.
• Papal Bull Condemning Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, 1520.
• Papal Bull Condemning Martin Luther, Pope Adrian VI, 1523.
• a 1525 indulgence
• 1522 Erasmus' Commentary on his Latin paraphrase of the NT
• 1516 Erasmus Greek NT (the one that was rushed to print)
• 1521 Erasmus Greek NT
• Complutensian Polyglot, Vol IV, NT (whose typeface begat some of our modern Greek PC fonts)
• 1525 Daniel Bomberg Pentateuch (Hebrew text including Aramaic targum and Rabbinic commentary)
• Martin Luther NT 1524 illustrated/painted/gilded
• Tyndale Pentateuch 1530
• Tyndale NT 1536
• Coverdale Bible 1535
• Coverdale NT English/Latin 1538
• Taverner (Coverdale revision) 1539
• Geneva NT 1557
• Geneva Bible 1560
• "Bishop's Bible" 1568
• Rheims NT 1582
• 1611 1st edition KJV



relief book cover by Salvador 
Dali (click on photo to enlarge)

• several KJV folio editions
• Stephanus Greek NT 1551
• multiple KJVs from 1600s
• "Wife Beater" Bible 1551
• "Child Killer" Bible 1795
• "Wicked Bible" 1631
• "Vinegar Bible" 1717
• multiple illustrated and engraved Bibles.
• 10th cent. Greek Psalter from Constantinople
• Psalterium Gallicannus Ferriatum (?) 1420
• Illustrated Psalter, Master of Jacques de Besancon 1480
• Speculum Humanae Salvationis, 1370, Tyrol
• Metal relief book cover by Salvador Dali for Sigmund Freud's Moïse et Monothéisme

See the NY Times "Passages image slideshow

New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case For Byzantine Priority

From the beginning of the modern critical era in the nineteenth century the Byzantine Textform has had a questionable reputation. Associated as it was with the faulty Textus Receptus editions which stemmed from Erasmus’ or Ximenes’ uncritical selection of a small number of late manuscripts (hereafter MSS), scholars in general have tended to label the Byzantine form of text “late and secondary,” due both to the relative age of the extant witnesses which provide the majority of its known support and to the internal quality of its readings as subjectively perceived. Yet even though the numerical base of the Byzantine Textform rests primarily among the late minuscules and uncials of the ninth century and later, the antiquity of that text reaches at least as far back as its predecessor exemplars of the late fourth and early fifth century...

The article was originally published online by SBL's TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism. The 1st Part can be read on the Preachers' Institute site here.

From Part II:

If a legitimate critique can be made against the Byzantine Textform because early witnesses fail to reflect its specific pattern of readings, the current eclectic models (regardless of edition) can be criticized more severely, since their resultant texts demonstrate a pattern of readings even less attested among the extant witnesses. Read Part II here.

Part III here...

Didascalia Apostolorum: A Syriac text

A treatise claiming to have been written by the Apostles at the time of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), but is really a composition of the third century. It was first published in 1854, in Syriac. The original was in Greek, and this can be to some extent restored by a comparison with the Apostolic Constitutions. 

The contents are the same as those of the corresponding books of the Apostolic Constitutions. Especially noticeable is the treatment which bishops are ordered to give to penitents. The church officials are bishops, deacons, priests, widows (and orphans); deaconesses are also added, in one place rectors, and once subdeacons. These last may have been interpolated.

The place of composition was Syria, though what part cannot be determined. The author was apparently a canonical bishop. It never touches upon dogma but concerns itself entirely with practice. It has been called the earliest attempt at a corpus of canon law. - from the Catholic Encyclopedia Online  (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04781b.htm)

According to Dr. Charlotte Fonrobert (Stanford University), the Syriac translation reveals a Jewish character and a diversity of Jewish heterodox practices consistent with the rabbinic tradition. Fonrobert suggests that "the Didascalia can be read as a counter-Mishnah for the disciples of Jesus."

In addition, the text supports the theory that even in the fourth century, rabbinic Judaism was still in the process of establishing itself as the representative form of Judaism. Simultaneously, the process of the separation between Judaism and Christianity still remained in flux. ("The Didascalia Apostolorum: A Mishnah for the Disciples of Jesus". Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 9, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 483-509).

A Syriac version in Serto (from a German/Latin edition) can be downloaded from Archive.org here:

http://www.archive.org/details/didascaliaaposto00lagauoft

A Syriac version in Estrangelo (from the (Gibson, 1903 English edition) can be downloaded from Archive.org here: http://www.archive.org/details/didascaliaapost00gibsgoog

Its English translation (Gibson, 1903) can be downloaded from Archive.org here: http://www.archive.org/details/didascaliaaposto00gibsuoft

Kevin Edgcombe's online English scanned from the Connolly translation (R. Hugh Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929.) Mr. Edgcombe has added notations to readily identify Scriptural and other citations. It can be read online here: http://www.bombaxo.com/didascalia.html

Side by side Greek and Latin text can be downloaded from Archive.org here: http://www.archive.org/details/didascaliaetcon00funkgoog

Update on the Codex Climaci Rescriptus

If you like old books- I mean reeeaallly old books- you might remember that last year Westminster College in Cambridge, England auctioned off the Codex Climaci Rescriptus with the help of Sotheby's. I first read the news on Steve Caruso's Aramaic Blog (his post here). The announcement on Forbes can be viewed here. And I posted a frustrated note here.

Just as a reminder, the Codex is a 6th century document and an important manuscript witness to the Greek text of the Gospels. It includes the Palestinian Aramaic Old and New Testament and a Syriac copy of writings by St. John Climacus, one of the most important spiritual authors in the Eastern Church. It is thought by some that the Syriac translation was copied directly from the saint's autograph. Based on the combination of languages (Greek/Syriac/CPA) and its original home (St. Catherines monastery on Mt. Sinai), someone could assume the Codex originates from within the Antiochian patrimony.

Word quickly spread around the blogosphere and academic circles were afraid the lucky buyer would simply separate the leaves and resell them individually to wealthy dilettantes looking to impress their friends with historic wall hangings. You can see a discussion of the Codex at the Hugoye Syriac Studies group here.

Here is the update: Just last week I just came across this online article. Here are some excerpts:

Leaders of the Oklahoma-owned Hobby Lobby retail chain have acquired hundreds of Bible artifacts and are helping to open a museum. Portions of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, one of the earliest near-complete Bibles, will be featured in the National Bible Museum...

The museum is a nonprofit organization co-founded by historian Scott Carroll, a [former] professor at Cornerstone University in Michigan, along with D. Jonathan Shipman and Daniel Centurione...

Carroll said Wednesday the museum collections will include one of the earliest-known, near-complete Bibles, recently acquired by Hobby Lobby. He said items destined for the museum are being housed in Oklahoma City...

He said Hobby Lobby recently acquired several items for the museum, including portions of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, which he said is one of the earliest near-complete Bibles in the world.

("Oklahomans help acquire items for Bible museum" BY CARLA HINTON Oklahoman, Published: April 1, 2010)

Notice the article is several months old yet I am just now finding it. So the Codex Climaci Rescriptus is being safely kept somewhere within my home town, Oklahoma City. This relic and icon of the ancient church sits within a small radius of where I now sit, waiting for a museum to be built. I am tempted to go poking around local warehouses. I think of the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark

How would someone go about pulling the right strings so that people could view the this Codex? There is a handful of local academics, clergy, and readers of Greek and Syriac that would love to see it.

Christ speaks to the Magi

[Magi update: Note that in chapter 29, it becomes necessary for the Magi's experience to be validated through their contact with an apostolic figure and through participation in recognizable Christian worship. If the appended, 3rd person story treats Christ in a different manner than the original, then is it possible the addition also refers to the Magi with different terminology?   Read full article here]

After blogging about a book I try to leave the topic and allow others to do their own exploring without ongoing commentary from me. However the Revelation of the Magi is making quite a splash. Patheos.com invited readers to submit questions, to which Dr. Landau responded on the Patheos blog. Within this exchange Dr. Landau identifies what is considered to be "the most pivotal verse in the entire text" in Revelation of the Magi. Christ says the following to the Magi:

And I am everywhere, because I am a ray of light whose light has shone in this world from the majesty of my Father, who has sent me to fulfill everything that was spoken about me in the entire world and in every land by unspeakable mysteries, and to accomplish the commandment of my glorious Father, who by the prophets preached about me to the contentious house, in the same way as for you, as befits your faith, it was revealed to you about me.

Indeed this is beautiful. I feel we will learn more about this portrayal of Christ as time gives us a chance to contemplate where this fits within ancient Christian literature and discover possible parallels with other texts. Until then we can watch RevMagi's journey unfold as popular culture becomes aware of this ancient narrative:

USA Today article

Radio interview with Brent Landau

Landau writes for Huffington Post

Perhaps Landau will present at the North American Syriac Symposium at Duke University in June? Finally, here is some independent research on the Magi...


Did the Magi wear mullets???

"The Revelation of the Magi" and Dr. Brent Landau

Oklahoma has been hiding one of its most interesting secrets for two years, namely its very own Syriac scholar. Dr. Brent Landau, graduate of Harvard Divinity School, is Assistant Professor at University of Oklahoma's Religious Studies Program.

Dr. Landau is noted for providing the first English translation of what has been named the "Revelation of the Magi", a Christian apocryphal work and the most extensive Magi account from the ancient world. The Syriac narrative is preserved in a longer work comprising Vaticanus Syriacus 162, a codex housed in the Vatican Library.

Landau estimates the original "Revelation of the Magi" (ROM) was composed in the late second or early third century and was written from the perspective of the Magi themselves. It was then redacted in the third or fourth century to include the Apostle Thomas in a third-person account. The Vatican manuscript used by Landau for his English translation is from the 8th century.

With the Nativity approaching it is no accident that Harper Collins has released Landau's research entitled Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem, based on his dissertation and edited for the wider audience in mind. The press releases and articles begin with the usual dramatic titles about lost scrolls and Christian origins. My favorite is...

an Ancient Manuscript Lost for Centuries in the Vatican Library Reveals Eyewitness Account of the Christmas Story

This ancient text sheds light on an aspect of the Nativity often taken for granted. Yet the ROM in no way stamps "solved" upon the story of the Wise Men. Just the opposite, it (happily for bibliophiles) raises more questions and suggests relationships with early Christian hymnody and other sources.

ROM is well-crafted and the narrative includes some intriguing points of interest such as; the Magi never refer to Christ by name, their food supplied by Providence appears to have hallucinogenic qualities (or at least that is how it might be described in modern terms), and the original author linguistically equates the Wise Men's title "Magi" with "silent prayer" in some unknown language.

Among the more surprising aspects is the notion that the star of Bethlehem followed by the Magi is far more than an astronomical event. Landau points out the star is actually the pre-existent Christ himself, "a literal representation of St. John's 'light of the world'”. The Johannine connection is certainly a strong one from our 21st century point of view. But when we also take into account the magi/silent prayer connection, the star-as-Christ motif seems to imply that the account is more than just legend and perhaps set within a larger theological context.

Landau recognizes within ROM similarities with Syriac baptismal hymns. I wonder if more light can be shed on these mysterious aspects if it were compared to other existing liturgical material. I cannot immediately recall if the Magi are mentioned in On the Mother of God by Jacob of Serug (trans. Mary Hansbury). If so, it might prove to be an interesting comparison.


If you are interested in seeing the Syriac text (nicely vocalized) and a more technical treatment of the ROM, Landau's dissertation can be downloaded here at Academia.com.

The Sages and the Star-Child: An Introduction to the Revelation of the Magi, An Ancient Christian Apocryphon

A critical edition will be available to the scholarly community when Landau publishes the Syriac text as part of Brepol's Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum.

What does ROM's complex portrayal of the Wise Men tell us about early Christianity or at least about the Nativity itself? The appearance of the star-Child to the Magi is a clear statement of Christ's ability to reveal Himself to whomever He chooses. In other words, evangelization by humans is not always a necessary endeavor. ROM suggests the possibility that this revelation may be "but one of potentially many instances in which Christ has appeared to the people of the world". Indeed this is supported by the Acts of the Apostles. Beyond this, Landau proposes a more universal message, that the "revelatory activity of Christ as the primal cause of humanity’s religious difference." In other words, Christ could reveal himself in the person of Buddha, Mohammed, or as any religious identity.

Even with ROM's atypical treatment of Christ, the concept of a revelation within other religions brought to mind the ancient and ubiquitous "Christ Pantokrator" icon which, like all icons, communicated Christian belief through visual imagery. Not necessarily a triumphalist symbol, Christ Pantokrator suggests that the various religious traditions are echoes of the truth, and Christ, with His unending love for all humankind will at any time abruptly appear in time and space to anyone for the purpose of affirming His identity, as opposed to equating it to all other iconic identities within the world's religious milieu. A traditional perspective doesn't necessitate that other religions are always antagonistic.

Though the message of the Magi as presented by Brent Landau is more ecumenical than many traditional Christians would be comfortable with, he treats conservative Christian beliefs with great respect and sensitivity both on paper and in person. I hope Brent Landau's expertise will be valued and sought out in a state where Christianity is so predominant.

I generally do not purchase pop culture books written by biblical scholars. But in this case I made an exception and was happy to do so, and for several reasons: it is a work by a recognized Syriac scholar in Oklahoma (the only one) and as an Oklahoman, I am intensely proud of this. Secondly, one gets the impression that the full value of ROM is yet to be discovered. The real story of the Magi will continue to unfold.

The Trilingual Icon of Kaftun and its Spiritual Lessons

Dormition of the Theotokos Monastery (Kaftoun, ܠܒܢܢ)

This morning Fr. Elia Khalife posted his third newsletter on the Antioch Centre website. It was anticipated this newsletter would also include information on re-discovered liturgical material... elements of prayers and debheh long forgotten in Antioch. If more detail on that is forthcoming perhaps I will post it here.

Fr. Elia's discusses in this newsletter the use of language in the Trilingual Icon of Kaftun (from the ancient Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Kaftoun, Lebanon) portraying the Theophany and adorned with Greek, Syriac, and Arabic...

Trilingual icon of the Theophany

This use of all three languages on the icon suggests to us the strong possibility that the residents and monks of Kaftun were familiar with each of these languages enough to understand such an icon.

When one considers just how difficult each one of these languages is, to imagine that all three of them were used at the same time and in the same place is truly remarkable, and witnesses to the great heritage of the Antiochian Church and the work still required to uncover that heritage.

It is important for us to remember that we are part of the Living Tradition, and that our witness is for the person Christ Jesus, rather than a specific text. While we must always try to repeat the letter of the text, we must also remember what Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul have said, that the letter kills, while the Spirit gives life (John 6:63 and 2 Cor. 3:6). When Christ asked the lawyer, ‘How do you read?’ (Luke 10:26), He showed us that the Law is written in hearts and minds, as much as in words and books.

Icon Detail: Prophet Isaiah w/ scroll. Passages from Isaiah in Syriac

...as the painter of the icon did not quote the Bible word for word, but creatively and artistically combined different Bible verses to communicate Jesus Christ to those looking on the icon in prayer. We must similarly familiarize ourselves with the Bible and works of the Fathers in order to both remain faithful to the Holy Tradition, and reproduce that Tradition in each unique circumstance that presents itself to us in our own lives.

I recommend downloading the newsletter. He includes beautiful photos and news of his fascinating work. www.antiochcentre.net/newsletter.php

Fr. Elia cross-references some of his material in the 2006 article in Parole de l’Orient, in which he includes the following footnote:

I would like also to bring to attention to the recent and extremely important discovery of the ancient and wonderful frescoes in the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus near the Monastery of the Theotokos in Kaftun. A project was set up to reveal and preserve these frescoes hidden under plaster. These frescoes contain a number of inscriptions in Greek, Syriac Chalcedonian, and Arabic. (Elia Khalifeh, “A project on the Antiochian Chalcedonian Orthodox manuscripts: Syriac, Arabic, CPA and Greek” Parole de l’Orient 31 (2006) 1-9).

With some searching I found photos from Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (taken by Mat Immerzeel) on Medievalart.org. Indeed, the saints are depicted in Byzantine style while their names are written in Syriac. Yacob (St. James, second from left) is clear, and on the far left appears to be Phillip.  If the end of the name being cropped out raises any question,  it is interesting the figure is beardless, an traditionally iconographic portrayal of Phillip. Below is St. Mark (ܡܪܟܘܣ ).