The Bryn Mawr Classical Review (anyone know why they don't have an RSS Feed yet? That would be so cool!) recently published a review of The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria. Here are the bibliographic details:

James D. Ernest, The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria. The Bible in Ancient Christianity 2. Leiden: Brill, 2004.  Pp. xiv, 482. ISBN 0-391-04176-2. €133.00.

More spendy books. The review by Hugh Houghton is well worth reading.

Unfortunately, this review also made me aware of Brill's series The Bible in Ancient Christianity series. This one is too spendy for me to pursue, even though the following title is tempting:

Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis. The Bible in Ancient Christianity 1. Leiden: Brill, 2004. 2 vols (approx. 1500 pp total).  ISBN 90 04 09815 1. €295.- / US$ 339.-

But WOW does it sound like a fun book:

Through this Handbook of Patristic Exegesis, the reader will obtain a balanced and cohesive picture of the Early Church. It gives an overall view of the reception, transmission, and interpretation of the Bible in the life and thought of the Church during the first five centuries of Christianity, the so-called patristic era. The handbook offers the context and presuppositions necessary for understanding the development of the interpretative traditions of the Early Church, in its catechesis, its liturgy and as a foundation of its systems of theology.

And other folks too, of course. Here it is:

If/when there are ever any little Ricos (or little Rico-ettes) running around, please remind me of this article.

That is all.

If you have any interest in Gnostic literature, you should know that G.R.S. Mead's translation of the Pistis Sophia is now available online at sacred-texts.com.

I should note that the way the HTML is set up, it really only works on IE. There are marginal notes that use CSS positioning in an IE-specific manner. The "Production Notes" state:

PRODUCTION NOTES: In the original book, running comments are placed in the margins. The web version of this text uses Cascading Style Sheets and DHTML to emulate this layout. Hence, to get the best view of this you will need a recent browser: older browsers will still produce readable results, though not as pretty.

However, when I view in FireFox, the marginal stuff is overwritten by the primary text, making areas difficult to read.

Searching through old email of mine looking for information on a current problem, I ran across a quote I used to have in my email signature:

The worst criminals should be neither executed nor sentenced to forced labor, but should be condemned to compile dictionaries, because all the tortures are included in the work.

Wow. Lexicography isn't easy but that's a little harsh. Wish I had some context on that. The best I can find is this:

There can be no doubt that lexicography is a very difficult sphere of linguistic activity. Many lexicographers have given vent to their feelings in this respect. Perhaps the most colourful of these opinions based on a lexicographer's long experience is that of J.J Scaliger (16th-17th cent.) who says in fine Latin verses that the worst criminals should neither be executed nor sentenced to forced labour, but should be condemned to compile dictionaries, because all the tortures are included in this work. — LADISLAV ZGUSTA Manual of Lexicography (1971)

This is found on p. 5 of "CELEX: A Guide for Users". I have no idea what "CELEX" is, though.

I found the quote on this page as well. I don't know Chinese, but I also see a quote from Samuel Johnson, so the page has got to be good. Here's the Johnson quote:

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach ...

And, since we're on the topic of lexicographers and quoteable quotes, I'll end with a favorite quote from Frederick W. Danker:

Change spells pain, but ... scholar's tasks are "not for sissies"

My brother is getting married. Friday, July 15. 1:00 pm.

He's my only sibling, so this is a first for me (and for him!).

Chuck and Barb, I wish you both the best. My prayer is that your marriage will be centered on seeking and following Jesus Christ. It seems redundant to say, but I love you both.

And Barb -- welcome to the family! Don't worry, we're not that weird once you really get to know us!

As a result of the festivities, blogging will be light (perhaps non-existent) through at least Saturday. Y'all enjoy your weekend, now -- especially if you're in the Pacific Northwest as it looks like we'll finally have some nice weekend weather!

In a recent blog entry where I asked questions about scribal habits, Wieland Willker pointed me to an article by Peter Head. The article is short (10 pages) and easy to read -- I should know, I read it tonight, and it got me thinking. That's why I have to blog this now, otherwise my mind will be racing and I won't get much sleep tonight.

One of the papyri that Head discusses is P.Oxy XV.1781,* which has some content from Jn 16.14-30. One of his conclusions (sorry to ruin it for those of you who haven't read the article) is that in papyri of this era (2nd-3rd centuries) omission is a more common scribal blunder (intentional or not) than addition.** So I thought P.Oxy XV.1781 would be good to discuss because it has a notable omission in Jn 16.23-24. It was also good for me to look into further because I have access to a copy of Oxyrhynchus Papyri XV and could look further into what was going on. Note I'm using a pseudo-uncial (that is, all-caps) style here; Greenfell & Hunt are all lower-case. Brackets are from Greenfell & Hunt:

[P.Oxy XV.1781 lines 34-36, Jn 16.23-24]
...
ΑΝ ΤΙ ΑΙΤΗ[Σ]ΗΤΕ [ΤΟΝ ΠΡΑ ΔΩΣΕΙ ΥΜΕΙΝ
ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝ[Ο]ΜΑΤ[Ι ΜΟΥ ΑΙΤΕΙΤΕ ΚΑΙ
ΛΗΜΨΕΣΘΕ Ι[ΝΑ Η ΧΑΡΑ ΥΜΩΝ Η
...

Now, P.Oxy XV.1781 is corrected at the foot of the page. So someone recognized the issue and offered a correction on the bottom of the page. Here's that, which is slightly different (word-order wise) from NA27. Note that I can't assume the actual lines of the papyrus here, the line breaks are my own.

[P.Oxy XV.1781 Jn 16.23-24 (correction inline, bold text is added)]
...
ΑΝ ΤΙ ΑΙΤΗΣΗΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΑ ΔΩΣΕΙ ΥΜΕΙΝ
ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ ΕΩΣ ΑΡΤΙ ΟΥΚ
ΗΤΗΣΑΤΕ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ
ΑΙΤΕΙΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΛΗΜΨΕΣΘΕ ΙΝΑ Η ΧΑΡΑ ΥΜΩΝ Η
...

For comparison, the NA27 has the following. Note that text omitted from P.Oxy XV.1781 is bold in the below text.

[NA27, Jn 16.23-24]
... ΑΝ ΤΙ ΑΙΤΗΣΗΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΑTΕΡΑ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ ΔΩΣΕΙ ΥΜΙΝ ΕΩΣ ΑΡΤΙ ΟΥΚ ΗΤΗΣΑΤΕ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ ΑΙΤΕΙΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΛΗΜΨΕΣΘΕ ΙΝΑ Η ΧΑΡΑ ΥΜΩΝ Η ...

I should offer a disclaimer: I'm not a text critic, but I play on on the internet.*** I have zero training apart from reading the basics (Metzger, Aland & Aland, and some other stuff). But I understand the basic lingo.

Of this particular situation in P.Oxy XV.1781, Head writes:

This is most plausibly attributed to confusion caused by the repetition of ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ at either the beginning of successive lines in his exemplar (homoioarcton) or at the end of successive lines (homoeoteleuton). (Head, 404).

Head is a little more cautious than Greenfell & Hunt, who describe the error as:

The first sentence of verse 24, εως αρτι ... ονοματι μου, was originally omitted owing to homoeoteleuton. This mistake has been corrected at the foot of the page, where l. 35 has been rewritten in a smaller and probably different hand with the missing words incorporated. A symbol calling attention to the correction was presumably entered in the right-hand margin. (Greenfell and Hunt, 12)

So, the question I asked myself: Assuming the corrected version of P.Oxy XV.1781 reflects the exemplar, how could the scribe have made this mistake? Should be easy to find out. Let's make the second assumption that the error is due to homoeoteleuton (same ending of line), as Greenfell & Hunt suggest.

[P.Oxy XV.1781 Jn 16.23-24 (assumed exemplar w/homoeoteleuton)]
...
ΑΝ ΤΙ ΑΙΤΗΣΗΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΑ ΔΩΣΕΙ ΥΜΕΙΝ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ
ΕΩΣ ΑΡΤΙ ΟΥΚ ΗΤΗΣΑΤΕ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ
ΑΙΤΕΙΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΛΗΜΨΕΣΘΕ ΙΝΑ Η ΧΑΡΑ ΥΜΩΝ Η
...

Here, the thought is that while the scribe was copying the end of the first line, his attention wandered to the identical text beneath it (which would line up better in the MS), and continued from there. Here is the same text, this time assuming homoioarcton (same beginning of line):

[P.Oxy XV.1781 Jn 16.23-24 (assumed exemplar w/homoioarcton)]
...
ΑΝ ΤΙ ΑΙΤΗΣΗΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΑ ΔΩΣΕΙ ΥΜΕΙΝ
ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ ΕΩΣ ΑΡΤΙ ΟΥΚ ΗΤΗΣΑΤΕ ΟΥΔΕΝ
ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ ΜΟΥ ΑΙΤΕΙΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΛΗΜΨΕΣΘΕ ΙΝΑ
Η ΧΑΡΑ ΥΜΩΝ Η ...

And here, the thought is that as the scribe began the new line, his attention wandered down to the identical text below and he continued from there.

But isn't it also possible the scribe skipped the line on purpose? Here's the text in the ESV with the omitted part in bold:

²³ In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. ²⁴ Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (Jn 16.23-24)

To answer that question, I'd guess one would have to examine the rest of the omissions and see what their character was. As this is a fragment, that's hard to do. The other omissions and differences mentioned are nothing of that sort; this is the only significant textual issue. The most logical explanation for the missing text is the obvious one: the scribe accidentally skipped a line.

Well? Which one was it? Homoeoteleuton or Homoioarcton? Both are possible. I don't know which one it was; but that doesn't really matter now, does it? The cool thing is seeing how an inadvertent error such as this one happened. It also appears to represent the problem(s) of homoioarcton and homoeoteleuton fairly clearly, so if you didn't know those words before, now you can use them in conversation sometime today. (really, try it!) And it was fun to think through to boot.

Update (2005-07-13): In the comments, Dr. Carl Conrad points out that in talking about scribal errors, I've unwittingly committed one. A common blunder for those who type in Greek Beta Code, I had 'ΞΑΡΑ' instead of 'ΧΑΡΑ'. The above has been corrected. Thanks to Dr. Conrad for bringing it to my attention. That particular error is common enough that we really need to come up with a fancy Latin name for it.

Update II (2005-07-13): Eli Evans leaves a comment with a good point. I was imprecise in my language when questioning whether the omission was intentional. So, I've changed "the scribe skipped a line" to "the scribe accidentally skipped a line" to remove ambiguity.

* P.Oxy XV.1781. Let me demystify the abbreviations. 'P.Oxy' is the standard abbreviation denoting "Oxyrhynchus Papyri". The roman numerals represent a volume number. In this case, it's vol. XV, which was published in 1922. The '1781' is the papyrus number. This citation informs one to look up papyrus 1781 in volume 15 of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri volumes. Please be aware that, unfortunately, this one isn't on the Oxyrhynchus site. To confuse matters, this particular papyrus is also known as P⁵ in the context of New Testament textual criticism. So, in textual apparatuses like the NA27 or UBS4 editions, you'll see P⁵, not P.Oxy XV.1781.

** Significant because one of the basic rules of textual critics is, as I understand it, to "prefer the shorter reading". That is, many think scribes were more apt to add text to smooth things over, so the shorter reading (when a variant occurs) may therefore make more sense to consider. Head is saying that in papyri of this era, one cannot make that jump to the shorter reading; or at least not that easily. A preference for a shorter reading, if appropriate, must be justified on other grounds.

*** Flashbacks to American TV commercials in the 1980s (?). Scene: Guy staring into bathroom mirror, we see him waist-up from the back. Voiceover: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV ... " He then goes on to give medical advice, schlepping some pharmaceutical. That's how it went, as I recall. My recollection in such things has proven wrong in the past, however.

Now, I know Paul has some lengthy lists of vices (cf. Gal 5.19-21). But I just came across the following in Philo, Sacr. 32:

Know, then, my good friend, that if you become a votary of pleasure you will be all these things: a bold, cunning, audacious, unsociable, uncourteous, inhuman, lawless, savage, illtempered, unrestrainable, worthless man; deaf to advice, foolish, full of evil acts, unteachable, unjust, unfair, one who has no participation with others, one who cannot be trusted in his agreements, one with whom there is no peace, covetous, most lawless, unfriendly, homeless, cityless, seditious, faithless, disorderly, impious, unholy, unsettled, unstable, uninitiated, profane, polluted, indecent, destructive, murderous, illiberal, abrupt, brutal, slavish, cowardly, intemperate, irregular, disgraceful, shameful, doing and suffering all infamy, colourless, immoderate, unsatiable, insolent, conceited, self-willed, mean, envious, calumnious, quarrelsome, slanderous, greedy, deceitful, cheating, rash, ignorant, stupid, inharmonious, dishonest, disobedient, obstinate, tricky, swindling, insincere, suspicious, hated, absurd, difficult to detect, difficult to avoid, destructive, evil-minded, disproportionate, an unreasonable chatterer, a proser, a gossip, a vain babbler, a flatterer, a fool, full of heavy sorrow, weak in bearing grief, trembling at every sound, inclined to delay, inconsiderate, improvident, impudent, neglectful of good, unprepared, ignorant of virtue, always in the wrong, erring, stumbling, ill-managed, ill-governed, a glutton, a captive, a spendthrift, easily yielding, most crafty, double-minded, double-tongued, perfidious, treacherous, unscrupulous, always unsuccessful, always in want, infirm of purpose, fickle, a wanderer, a follower of others, yielding to impulses, open to the attacks of enemies, mad, easily satisfied, fond of life, fond of vain glory, passionate, ill-tempered, lazy, a procrastinator, suspected, incurable, full of evil jealousies, despairing, full of tears, rejoicing in evil, frantic, beside yourself, without any steady character, contriving evil, eager for disgraceful gain, selfish, a willing slave, an eager enemy, a demagogue, a bad steward, stiffnecked, effeminate, outcast, confused, discarded, mocking, injurious, vain, full of unmitigated unalloyed misery.*

Whoa. There are some gems in there. I think I sense fodder for a "Philo Insult Generator" much along the same lines of the famous Shakespearean Insult Generator. Implementations of the Shakespeare generator abound; the linked version is the least junky-looking based on the few I poked at.

* Philo, Sacr. 32. From Yonge, C. D. (1996, c1993). The works of Philo complete and unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson. p. 98.

I've just read Michael Wade Martin's Summer 2005 JBL article Defending the "Western Non-Interpolations": The Case for an Anti-Separationist Tendenz in the Longer Alexandrian Readings. Don't worry, I'm not going to comment on the article.

But reading the article did bring up a question in my mind: What were copyists/scribes thinking? We've got manuscripts that are mostly the same, but have differences. Some differences can be ascribed to error (e.g. dittography). Other differences have to be intentional. And here, I'm thinking of the intentional differences.

I'm curious of the mechanics of interpolation or omission. Let's say there is a scribe in the middle of the second century. He's copying a gospel manuscript. What sorts of things cause him to make the decision to add or omit content? And then how does he go about actually adding or removing such content?

If he's adding content, does he just make it up as he goes along, adding bits here and there as he sees fit? Does he mark up his exemplar and then copy from the marked-up version? (and could such marking-up be one of the sources of marginal or inter-linear scribal 'correction' we see on extant manuscripts?) Could he simply be integrating 'corrections' made by a previous scribe or scribes into the text flow?

I'm sure the answer to all of the above questions something like, "yes, sometimes". If anyone has any references (online or print) to share on how scribes/copyists of NT manuscripts did their thing* -- the mechanics of the process -- please feel free to post a comment with a pointer or send me an email. Thanks!

Another question, perhaps more difficult to answer: If scribes made changes to early manuscripts to address particular controversies (as some claim) this sort of action seems to implicitly acknowledge that the NT documents were appealed to as authoritative in such circumstances/contexts. Yet scribes/copyists still (apparently) felt some freedom to enhance the authority to which both sides of the argument appealed. Why is that? How could the documents that would become the New Testament be at the same time authoritative yet in need of enhancement?

OK, I'm done for now. Move along, nothing to see here.

Update (2005-07-12): Wieland Willker responds with some citations from a Maurice Robinson article:

• James R. Royse, "The Treatment of Scribal Leaps in Metzger's Textual Commentary," NTSt 29 (1983) 539-551.
• ———, "Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament," in Ehrman and Holmes, Text of the NT, 239-252.
• ———, "Scribal Habits in the Transmission of New Testament Texts," in Wendy D. O'Flaherty, ed., The Critical Study of Sacred Texts (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1979) 139-161.
• Peter M. Head, "Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, especially on the 'Scribal Habits,'" Biblica 71 (1990) 240-243.
• ———, "Re-Inking the Pen: Evidence from P. Oxy. 657 (P13) concerning Unintentional Scribal Errors," NTSt 43 (1997) 466-73.
• Maurice A. Robinson, "Scribal Habits among Manuscripts of the Apocalypse" (PhD Diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1982).

Next I'll have to locate some of them. The Royse essays sound most interesting (based solely on title). If anyone else has read these and can make recommendations, please feel free to do so.

Wieland also pointed me to an article in Biblica (which I didn't know was online, but that's my fault) by Peter M. Head: The Habits of New Testament Copyists: Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John. This is available as HTML and PDF.

Thanks for the info, Wieland!

* I'm already on the hunt for Ernest Cadman Colwell's essay "Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text" (from Bible in Modern Scholarship: Papers read at the 100th meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1965). Abebooks (how could I live without them!) has several copies priced at $15 and under.