A Medieval Manuscript from Constantinople in the Collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (original) (raw)
Don't Judge a Book by its Text-Type: A Study of a Byzantine Manuscript
2020
This paper will discuss the significance of the Greek New Testament manuscript GA 800. GA 800 is a 12th-14th century manuscript of the four canonical Gospels. Since this manuscript has been classified as a member of the Byzantine text-type, others have not considered it worthy of further study. By examining its unique readings, agreements with other manuscripts against the Byzantine text, and wrap-around commentary, this paper will demonstrate that GA 800 has tremendous value for the history of the text of the Gospels and the pursuit of the initial text of the Gospels. This Paper was accepted for the regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in the Southwest Region in March 2020, but the event was cancelled due to COVID-19. Instead, this paper was presented on Zoom on May 7, 2020, and a part of TC Thursdays, put on by the IGNTP.
The Textual Affiliation of Deluxe Byzantine Gospel Books
2016
3 For example, two seemingly closely related illustrated gospel books from the early Palaiologan period (Athos, Iviron 5 and Paris gr. 54) are based on different textual exemplars. See K. Maxwell, Between Constantinople and Rome: An Illuminated Byzantine Gospel Book (Paris gr. 54) and the Union of Churches (Farnham, Surrey, 2014), 51-82. A study reviewing the New Testament textual critics' data for the large group of gospel books of the "decorative" style arrived at different conclusions for the early and middle subgroups of decorative style manuscripts (as defined by Annemarie Weyl Carr, in Byzantine Illumination, 1150-1250: The Study of a Provincial Tradition [Chicago, 1987]) versus the late subgroups. In the latter, manuscripts that are closely related in their decoration may also be closely related in their texts.
The Vienna Genesis in the Light of Early Byzantine Illuminated Theological Manuscripts
The Bible in Byzantium, 2018
This volume, based on several sessions of the ISBL held in Vienna in zot4, addresses the Byzantine experience of the Bible. The wide range of source materials addressed in this collection of essays-from manuscripts and military handbool<s to lead seals and pilgrim guides-allows insights into a vivid liturgical tradition which shapes 0rthodox Christianity ro the present day. The volume draws attention to the multiple strategies for the engagement with the Biblical text and explores the manifold ways in which the Bible message was experienced, articulated and brought to life on a daily basis.
Byzantine Collections of late Antique Authors: Some Remarks on the Excerpta historica Constantiniana
M. Wallraff-L. Mecella (hrsg. v.), Die Kestoi des Julius Africanus und ihre Überlieferung, 2009
It is only in the early ninth century that we first detect signs of the Byzantine cultural renaissance. After the dark ages of seventh and eighth centuries, large quantities of books are systematically removed from various libraries around the empire and placed in the capital Constantinople. The trend begins with the reign of Leo V (813-820), when an impressive amount of forgotten or "lost" works starts being accumulated. The phenomenon is also linked in part to a palaeographical revolution in Greek writing. In the ninth century, the script basically changes and the uncial writing of the late antique period is replaced by a new style of writing, the minuscule. As a consequence, most of the uncial manuscripts brought to Constantinople were transliterated into minuscule, thus enabling the scholars of the time to engage in an impressive study of the texts, from a philological as well as textual perspective. In effect, most of what we know of ancient Greek and Hellenistic has been handed down to us thanks to this activity, a landmark in the history of textual transmission 1 .
"During the Middle Byzantine period (8th-11th century) the Gospel lectionary emerged as one of the most venerated liturgical codices of the Byzantine Church. However, the lectionary has been a neglected primary source in New Testament textual criticism. In this thesis I assess the textual value of the lectionary tradition as a witness to the Greek New Testament and in the process develop a multi-disciplinary methodology for lectionary research. My textual analysis is based on the examination of 126 Greek Gospel lectionaries at 44 selected test passages from the Gospel of John, the data of which appears in the appendix. I places the lectionaries in their Byzantine context, analyse the lectionary evidence as documents, outline the textual and paratextual variation that the lectionary tradition exhibits, arrange the lectionaries into genealogical groups, and investigate the relationship between the lectionary tradition and the continuous text manuscript tradition.” Comments of PhD Examiners “Jordan’s thesis presents, after decades of an almost neglect of lectionary evidence in textual criticism of the New Testament, an all-encompassing new methodical approach to this field of study.” “...apart from textual data, we find a wealth of manuscript data (from palaeography, codicology, art history and the history of liturgy) geared at integrated reflections on the life-cycle and historic embedding (production and use) of the objects that are studied.” "
2016
In a group of 100 manuscripts kept at the Central Archive of the State (CAS), Tirana dating from the Byzantine and the post-Byzantine period, a number of codices present evidence of a manuscript book culture, common in Southern Italy and Byzantine Epirus during the 12th-14th centuries. In this paper I will briefly present some data and preliminary thoughts regarding seven manuscripts from the CAS collection, belonging to the Italo-Byzantine cultural area of book production. The manuscripts are those of Berat, bearing the numbers 24, 14, 31, 33, 34, 49, 40 and 41.