David C. Parker

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David Charles Parker OBE (born 1953) was the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology (2005-2017) and the Director of the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham. His interests include New Testament textual criticism and Greek and Latin palaeography.

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Commenting on the text of the Greek New Testament, he said:

The text is changing. Every time that I make an edition of the Greek New Testament, or anybody does, we change the wording. We are maybe trying to get back to the oldest possible form but, paradoxically, we are creating a new one. Every translation is different, every reading is different, and although there’s been a tradition in parts of Protestant Christianity to say there is a definitive single form of the text, the fact is you can never find it. There is never ever a final form of the text. [1]

Regarding a textual change in Codex Sinaiticus:

There is also a fascinating place in the codex in the Sermon on the Mount where we can see a change to the text altering the attitude to anger. Jesus says the person who is angry with his brother deserves judgement. But there is a variation on that. If you look at the page in Codex Sinaiticus you will see that somebody’s added a little word in the margin in Greek which changes it to “the person who is angry with his brother without good reason deserves judgement,” and there you’ve got two very different views of Christian life. [1]

In consideration of the challenges of biblical text reconstruction, D. C. Parker said:

There is a sense in which there is no such thing as either the New Testament or the Gospels. What is available to us is a number of reconstructions of some or all of the documents classified as belonging to the New Testament - some of these reconstructions are manuscripts, say P75 or Codex Vaticanus; others are printed texts like Nestle-Aland. Textual criticism makes it clear that the text is in a sense inaccessible to us. The fact that the recovery of the original text is a task that remains beyond all of us sets a question mark against any claim that we can in any sense 'possess' the text literally or metaphorically. [2]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Sinaiticus</span> 4th-century handwritten Bible copy in Greek

The Codex Sinaiticus, designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01, δ 2, also called Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and the Greek New Testament, with both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas included. It is written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible, and contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. It is a historical treasure, and using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the mid-fourth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Vaticanus</span> 4th-century Bible manuscript in Greek

The Codex Vaticanus, designated by siglum B or 03, δ 1, is a Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the 4th century.

In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Western text-type is one of the main text types. It is the predominant form of the New Testament text witnessed in the Old Latin and Syriac translations from the Greek, and also in quotations from certain 2nd and 3rd-century Christian writers, including Cyprian, Tertullian and Irenaeus. The Western text had many characteristic features, which appeared in text of the Gospels, Book of Acts, and in Pauline epistles. The Catholic epistles and the Book of Revelation probably did not have a Western form of text. It was named "Western" by Semmler (1725–1791), having originated in early centers of Christianity in the Western Roman Empire.

<i>Textus Receptus</i> Greek critical text of the New Testament

Textus Receptus refers to the succession of printed Greek New Testament editions starting with Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) and including the editions of Stephanus, Beza, Elzevir, Colinaeus and Scrivener. Additionally, although not being derived from the work of Erasmus, some such as the Trinitarian Bible Society also associate the Complutensian Polyglot with the Textus Receptus tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Alexandrinus</span> 5th-century handwritten Bible copy in Greek

The Codex Alexandrinus, designated by the siglum A or 02, δ 4, is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the fifth century. It contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices. Along with Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Claromontanus</span> New Testament manuscript

Codex Claromontanus, symbolized by Dp, D2 or 06 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1026 (von Soden), is a Greek-Latin diglot uncial manuscript of the New Testament, written in an uncial hand on vellum. The Greek and Latin texts are on facing pages, thus it is a "diglot" manuscript, like Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. The Latin text is designated by d (traditional system) or by 75 in Beuron system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener</span> British theologian

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible. He was prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of Hendon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uncial 0171</span> New Testament manuscript

Uncial 0171, ε 07 (Soden) are two vellum leaves of a late third century Greek uncial Bible codex containing fragments of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. The Luke fragment, in two parts, is preserved in the Laurentian Library collection in Florence, and the Matthew fragment is in the Berlin State Museum.

A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures to huge polyglot codices containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curetonian Gospels</span> Manuscript of the New Testament in Old Syriac

The Curetonian Gospels, designated by the siglum syrcur, are contained in a manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament in Old Syriac. Together with the Sinaiticus Palimpsest the Curetonian Gospels form the Old Syriac Version, and are known as the Evangelion Dampharshe in the Syriac Orthodox Church.

Uncial 089 in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 28 (Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 6th century. The codex now is located at the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg. It came to Russia from Sinai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 208 + 1781</span> New Testament 3rd century papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John in Greek

Papyrus 5, designated by siglum 𝔓5, is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John dating palaeographically to the early 3rd century. The papyrus is housed in the British Library. It has survived in a very fragmentary condition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dura Parchment 24</span> New Testament manuscript

Dura Parchment 24, designated as Uncial 0212, is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament. The manuscript has been assigned to the 3rd century, palaeographically, though an earlier date cannot be excluded. It contains some unusual orthographic features, which have been found nowhere else.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minuscule 157</span> Greek minuscule of the New Testament, circa 1122

Minuscule 157, ε207, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament Gospels, written on parchment. According to the colophon it is dated to the year 1122. The date had been wrongly deciphered formally as 1128. It has complex contents and full marginal notations.

Minuscule 209, δ 457 and α 1581 (Soden), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 14th century, with an exception to the Book of Revelation which was added to the codex in the 15th century. It has marginalia.

Stanley E. Porter is an American-Canadian academic and New Testament scholar, specializing in the Koine Greek grammar and linguistics of the New Testament.

Ernest Cadman Colwell was an American biblical scholar, textual critic and palaeographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great uncial codices</span> Four ancient, handwritten copies of the Bible in Greek

The great uncial codices or four great uncials are the only remaining uncial codices that contain the entire text of the Bible in Greek. They are the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Library, and the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minuscule 1582</span> Greek minuscule manuscript of the four Gospels

Minuscule 1582, ε183, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the four Gospels, written on parchment. It is dated by a colophon to 948. The manuscript was written by a monk named Ephraim, of which there are at least four other manuscripts known to have been written by him, including another New Testament manuscript, minuscule 1739. It is considered to be part of a group of manuscripts known as Family 1 (ƒ1) as a leading member, with a very similar text to minuscule 1.

References

  1. 1 2 BBC Radio 4 programme "The Oldest Bible"
  2. ↑ Parker, David C. (7 August 1997). The Living Text of the Gospels. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-59951-1.
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