Yesterday I picked up a post on B-Greek about the new NA27/NET Diglot from The Biblical Studies Foundation. Check out the photo. This looks exactly like the classic NA27/RSV English diglot, only instead of the RSV it has the NET translation, and instead of the English apparatus it has the oh-so-useful NET text-critical notes.

Thinking about this (yeah, I'm gonna buy one) I was thinking about the usefulness of the NA27 apparatus to the average Greek dude (or dudette, as the case may be). The apparatus is unapproachable for most because it is hopelessly cryptic unless one has diligently taught himself the language of the apparatus. If one desires to use the apparatus, he dooms himself to looking up MSS in the table in the back. And even then, not much info on the MSS are given. The date/century is helpful, but do I really care about what library the MSS is in currently? I'd rather know more about the provenance, not the current location.

Anyway, there are two primary classes of cited MSS for each major portion of the NT (gospels, acts, paulines, catholic epistles, and the apocalypse). These are the “Consistently Cited Witnesses” and the “Frequently Cited Witnesses”. The primary and most important are the “Consistently Cited Witnesses” as all variants of these MSS are cited for the given range (book/portion). No citation means the MSS either agrees or is missing the reading in question. These consitently cited witnesses are, for larger sections, selected on a book-by-book basis.

I think the most useful and innovative thing that the GBS could do with the NA27 would be to devise a running footer for each two-page spread that lists the consistently cited uncial witnesses for the current book with a short bit of info about each. Not much info — there isn't much room left on the page. But they may be able to squeeze the sigla and century/date if they stretch the list in one or two lines across the two-page spread. It would be great if the uncial data from the witness/abbreviation pamphlet could be used. This way folks would at least get familiar with the sigla for the consistently cited witnesses. Some may object because this focuses on the date, which may or may not be misleading text-critical information. I say it's better than the bupkes that's there now, and it sure beats flipping to the back to look things up. It gets people actually starting to use the information in the apparatus on a regular basis because the barrier to entry is much lower.

Or, one could just use the electronic version ... :)