The world’s earliest question mark???

Owner of Jericho Press and author of Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar, Dr. Chip Coakley has identified what may be the world’s earliest example of a question mark...

Manuscripts of the Bible are not even the majority of the collection now in the British Library, but they have their special points of interest. One of these is the way that the graceful and flowing Syriac script is peppered with dots. 

 

Some of these dots are well understood, but some are not – some, indeed, probably not even by the scribes, who did not copy them consistently. All this made for a confusing picture, and it needed a patient scholar to start to make sense of it.

 

 Read more >> http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/08/2011/the-riddle-of-the-syriac-double-dot-its-the-worlds-earliest-question-mark#ixzz1VWptmv4f

Antiochians Participate in Cambridge Institute's Summer Session

The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England, recently wrapped up its 12th annual Summer School session, titled "The Challenge of a Secular Age." (Read Principal David Frost's summary of the week.) The Institute has close ties with the Antiochian Deanery in the United Kingdom, and Antiochian Orthodox Christians from North America have also participated in this distance learning program. Some have even been able to travel to England to attend the summer sessions. 

Dr. Michael Basham, an Antiochian member of the Institute's Board and a Parish Council member of St. Luke Antiochian Orthodox Church in Erie, CO.: "We strive to raise our intellectual awareness while deepening our spiritual growth and in doing so be able to '...confront life’s problems without fear or anger.' "

To assist individuals and parishes do that, Basham explains, the Institute provides a number of resources. "At St. Luke we have used the Institute's resource THE WAY... The distance learning program in Orthodox Christian Studies has been truly transformative for me and I would encourage everyone to experience the Institute for themselves by exploring their online library which features video recordings from worship events, lectures, recitals and interviews with world-class Orthodox scholars and spiritual leaders.”

Read entire article here

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???