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A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents

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A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents Editors Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D. ( James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Eldon J. Epp, Ph.D. (Harkness Professor of Biblical Literature Emeritus and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences Emeritus, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio) VOLUME 48 New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (NTTSD) combines two series, New Testament Tools and Studies (NTTS) and Studies and Documents (SD). The former was founded by Bruce M. Metzger in 1965 and edited by him until 1993, when Bart D. Ehrman joined him as co-editor. The latter series was founded by Kirsopp and Silva Lake in 1935, edited by them until the death of Kirsopp Lake in 1946, then briefly by Silva Lake and Carsten Høeg (1955), followed by Jacob Geerlings (until 1969), by Irving Alan Sparks (until 1993), and finally by Eldon Jay Epp (until 2007). The new series will promote the publication of primary sources, reference tools, and critical studies that advance the understanding of the New Testament and other early Christian writings and writers into the fourth century. Emphases of the two predecessor series will be retained, including the textual history and transmission of the New Testament and related literature, relevant manuscripts in various languages, methodologies for research in early Christianity. The series will also publish a broader range of studies pertinent to early Christianity and its writings. The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ntts A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus Codicology, Palaeography, and Scribal Hands By W. Andrew Smith LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, W. Andrew. A study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus : codicology, palaeography, and scribal hands / by W. Andrew Smith. pages cm. — (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents ; 48) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-26783-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27485-3 (e-book) 1. Bible. Gospels— Criticism, Textual. 2. Bible. Gospels. Greek—Versions—Codex Alexandrinus (Biblical manuscript) 3. Codex Alexandrinus (Biblical manuscript) I. Title. BS2555.52.S66 2014 226’.0486—dc23 2014016760 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0077-8842 isbn 978 90 04 26783 1 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 27485 3 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations viii Abstract x Introduction 1 Objective 1 Overview of the Following Chapter 3 Manuscript Page Notation 5 A Note on the Manuscript Images 6 1 Codex History 7 Codicology and the History of Codex Alexandrinus 7 1627 to Present 8 Codex History Prior to 1627 12 2 Codicology 35 The Codex 38 Materials 38 Composition and Binding 40 Dimensions and Formatting 48 Contents 60 Ordering of the New Testament Books 70 Numbering 74 Closing Remarks on the Codicology of Alexandrinus 100 3 Palaeography and Paratextual Features of the Gospels 102 The Hands 102 Use of Color 122 Superscriptions, Subscriptions, and Tailpiece Designs 127 Eusebian Apparatus 139 Kephalaia and Titloi 156 Conclusion 179 4 Scribes 182 Overview of the Scribal Hands 182 Unit Delimitation 190 Nomina Sacra 219 vi contents Other Abbreviations and Ligatures 225 Orthography 225 Conclusions 244 Conclusion 247 Creation of the Codex 247 The Eusebian Apparatus and Use of Numbers 248 Palaeography and Statistical Analysis 249 Updating the Alexandrinus Knowledge Base 250 Final Words 252 Appendix A. Tables of Concordance 255 Appendix B. Orthographic Data 303 Appendix C. Statistical Analysis 327 Appendix D. Eusebian Apparatus Data 333 Appendix E. Unit Delimitation Data 347 Works Cited 368 Index: Name and Subject 379 Manuscript Index 382 Index of Biblical References 383 Acknowledgements When I was exploring the possibility of pursuing Ph.D. work, I met with Prof. Larry Hurtado for the first time at the SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego in 2007. It was apparent from that meeting that I would enjoy working under his direction, and the experience met my expectation. Prof. Hurtado provided an excellent model for deliv- ering helpful, critical feedback on research and writing. I have always felt assured that when my written work has passed his inspection it can be presented with great confi- dence. Additionally, his congeniality, humor, and encouragement made the disserta- tion process as painless as such an intense labor can be. In manuscript studies, one may find oneself wading into deep and uncharted waters. I would like to thank those who shared their wisdom and experience when the waters seemed darkest: Prof. Pat Easterling at Cambridge University, for her time and interest; Dr. Christian Lange at the University of Edinburgh, for his skills in Arabic; Dr. Paul Parvis at the University of Edinburgh, for his expertise in neo-Latin; and Dr. Roger Woodard at North Carolina State University and Valerie H. Smith, M.Stat., for their expertise and guidance in statistical analysis. I am grateful to the scholars and staff at Tyndale House for a most productive and encouraging summer of research. Also, for providing access to manuscript information otherwise unavailable, I would like to thank Dr. Kathleen Doyle and Dr. Philippa Marks at the British Library. Additionally, I appreciate the accommodation provided by the Special Collections librarians at the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Finally, for her long-suffering patience, love, and support, I would like to thank my wife, Valerie. Without her, this Ph.D. work would have been impossible. She went far beyond the call of spousal love and duty by sharing me with this research, which— all-consuming as it was—often sat at our dinner table as an uninvited phantom. Abbreviations AJP American Journal of Philology BASP Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia BNP Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Ed. H. Cancik et al. Leiden, 2006–2011 CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers ExpTim Expository Times JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JGRChJ Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism JR Journal of Religion JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JTS Journal of Theological Studies LL Lower left LM Lower middle LR Lower right LSJ Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford, 1996 LXX Septuagint MT Masoretic Text NA27 Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 27th ed. NovT Novum Testamentum NT New Testament NTS New Testament Studies Orig. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive Originum Libri XX OT Old Testament PW2 Pauly, A. F. Paulys real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Zweite Reihe. Stuttgart, 1914–. RFNT The Codex Alexandrinus (Royal MS. 1 D v–vii) in Reduced Photographic Facsimile: New Testament and Clementine Epistles RFOT The Codex Alexandrinus (Royal MS. 1 D v–vii) in Reduced Photographic Facsimile: Old Testament SBL Society of Biblical Literature SD Standard Deviation SE Studia evangelica SPap Studia papyrologica st. n. stilo novo abbreviations ix st. v. stilo vetere SwJT Southwestern Journal of Theology UL Upper left corner of a folio UR Upper right corner of a folio ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik Abstract The fifth-century manuscript known as the Codex Alexandrinus contains the entirety of the Greek Old and New Testaments and is a landmark in the history of the Bible. Though Alexandrinus represents a primary witness to the biblical text, no modern pal- aeographical or codicological analysis of the manuscript has been performed: the most in-depth studies of the codex pre-date the great papyrological finds of the twen- tieth century. By executing both palaeographical and codicological analyses of the manuscript in light of a modern understanding of the textual history of the Bible and of Hellenistic Greek, and introducing statistical analysis into what has traditionally been a subjective field of research, this study processes the textual and paratextual data of the manuscript to a degree previously unattained. The focus of the analysis is on the Gospels, which are unique in Alexandrinus: they stand at the headwaters of the Byzantine text form; they contain the earliest extant implementation of the Old Greek chaptering system; and the interaction between the unit delimitation and the Eusebian Apparatus is unique among the great uncial manu- scripts. However, the analyses extend to both the Old and New Testaments to provide a context in which to study the Gospels. This study overturns the view that a single scribe was responsible for copying the canonical New Testament books and demonstrates that the orthography of the Gospels can no longer be used to argue for the Egyptian provenance of the codex. As the first in-depth study of unit delimitation in the Gospels of Alexandrinus, it reveals the com- plex relationship between the paragraphing system, the chaptering structure, and the incorporation of the Eusebian Apparatus from a separate exemplar.
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