The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts

Rating:
Summary: New Edition of Comfort && Barrett.
Review: ...I just received my copy of the latest edition of Comfort & Barrett.

Philip W. Comfort & David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts. New and Complete Transcriptions with Photographs (A Corrected, Enlarged Edition of the Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts) Tyndale House (Wheaton, Illinois, 2001). ISBN 0-8423-5265-1 (First printinfg April 2001) 670 pages Hardbound with jacket...

The book is an invaluable and indispensable tool for the text critic. It is a comprehensive expose of 65 papyri and four uncials that predate AD 300. The new edition received the collegial assistance of twenty-six palaeographers, papyrologists, and NT Text Critics that reads like a Who's Who in the Acknowledgments.

The format of each entry has; (1) the Gregory-Aland number and its Accession number in its current collection in parenthesis; (2) Contents: giving the actual verses in enumeration; (3) Date; sometimes with useful comments (not as extensive as K. Aland, Repertorium der griech. Christ. papyri. I.); (4) Provenance: sometimes detailed with useful information; (5) Housing Location: City, Country, Institute, Accession number; (6) Bibliography: cites critical editions (not as extensive as K. Aland, Repertorium der griech. Christ. papyri. I.) (7) Physical features: number of leaves, physical dimensions, number of lines per page; type of hand; (8) Textual character: an opinion on the exemplar and comment on evident agreements.(9) Photo (50 of the 65 listed papyri and 3 of the 4 uncials).

Most of these are presented twice. The first time concisely as a summary of salient points for quick and easy reference. The second time expanded on in a very useful and handy narrative with commentary. Some of the information differs from previous authoritative works. The dimensions, for example, of P1 published by Aland, Repertorium, 215 says it measures 25 X 13 cm, where these editors say it is 12 X 25 cm. I have not yet physically examined this specimen and cannot confirm which is correct. I merely point out that some of the details presented in this book are new and will require extensive research in order to appreciate their worth as contributions to the advancement of knowledge. The expanded section also at times contains additional entries to those of the nine cited above. All entries have excellent footnotes citing the best recent articles on the papyri specimen. In this respect it serves as a comprehensive survey of contemporary and current research. This allows the reader to examine current thinking where DSS are concerned. For example, although the editors date P64 to c. AD 150-175, they offer a lengthy discussion of the dating showing the research of Thiede for the first century based on palaeographic features closely aligned with 8HevXIIgr (c. 50 BC-c. AD 50). The transcriptions include the nomina sacra, and footnotes. Some footnotes serve to comment on superlinear inscribed characters correcting the text. Others point to elided characters, dots, markings, and bibliographic references.

Unlike the photos in the IGNTP editions these were printed on matte acid paper rather than high quality glossy paper. One unpleasant feature is that a few of the photos, like P108, were printed too dark and obscured the text. This, however, is not always the case but of the 64 Gregory-Aland numbered papyri and the additional P. Antinoopolis 2.54, and four uncials there are photos of 50 papyri and 3 uncials. The best plates are of P9, P23, P32, P39, P46, P49, P65, P52, P66, P72, P75, P95, P100, P101, P102. The majority of the rest were average and still quite useful despite the tendency of the printed photo to be dark. This can be shown, for example, in P47 printed dark but legible. P53 was printed well except for a few dark spots that obscure a few letters.

Contents

List of Manuscripts in Canonical Order List of Manuscript Photos Preface Acknowledgments Introduction List of Abbreviations

Papyri

P1 P4/64/67 P5 P9 P12 P13 P15/16 P17 P18 P20 P22 P23 P24 P27 P28 P29 P30 P32 P35 P37 P38 P39 P40 P45 P46 P47 P48 P49/65 P50 P52 P53 P66 P69 P70 P72 P75 P77/103 P78 P80 P86 P87 P90 P91 P92 P95 P98 P100 P101

P102 P104 P106 P107 P108 P109 P110 P111 P113 P114 P115 P. Antinoopolis 2.54

Early Uncials

0162 0171 0189 0220

Peace in Christ, John N. Lupia <><

Rating:
Summary: New Edition of Comfort & & Barrett.
Review: ...I just received my copy of the latest edition of Comfort & Barrett.

Philip W. Comfort & David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts. New and Complete Transcriptions with Photographs (A Corrected, Enlarged Edition of the Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts) Tyndale House (Wheaton, Illinois, 2001). ISBN 0-8423-5265-1 (First printinfg April 2001) 670 pages Hardbound with jacket...

The book is an invaluable and indispensable tool for the text critic. It is a comprehensive expose of 65 papyri and four uncials that predate AD 300. The new edition received the collegial assistance of twenty-six palaeographers, papyrologists, and NT Text Critics that reads like a Who's Who in the Acknowledgments.

The format of each entry has; (1) the Gregory-Aland number and its Accession number in its current collection in parenthesis; (2) Contents: giving the actual verses in enumeration; (3) Date; sometimes with useful comments (not as extensive as K. Aland, Repertorium der griech. Christ. papyri. I.); (4) Provenance: sometimes detailed with useful information; (5) Housing Location: City, Country, Institute, Accession number; (6) Bibliography: cites critical editions (not as extensive as K. Aland, Repertorium der griech. Christ. papyri. I.) (7) Physical features: number of leaves, physical dimensions, number of lines per page; type of hand; (8) Textual character: an opinion on the exemplar and comment on evident agreements.(9) Photo (50 of the 65 listed papyri and 3 of the 4 uncials).

Most of these are presented twice. The first time concisely as a summary of salient points for quick and easy reference. The second time expanded on in a very useful and handy narrative with commentary. Some of the information differs from previous authoritative works. The dimensions, for example, of P1 published by Aland, Repertorium, 215 says it measures 25 X 13 cm, where these editors say it is 12 X 25 cm. I have not yet physically examined this specimen and cannot confirm which is correct. I merely point out that some of the details presented in this book are new and will require extensive research in order to appreciate their worth as contributions to the advancement of knowledge. The expanded section also at times contains additional entries to those of the nine cited above. All entries have excellent footnotes citing the best recent articles on the papyri specimen. In this respect it serves as a comprehensive survey of contemporary and current research. This allows the reader to examine current thinking where DSS are concerned. For example, although the editors date P64 to c. AD 150-175, they offer a lengthy discussion of the dating showing the research of Thiede for the first century based on palaeographic features closely aligned with 8HevXIIgr (c. 50 BC-c. AD 50). The transcriptions include the nomina sacra, and footnotes. Some footnotes serve to comment on superlinear inscribed characters correcting the text. Others point to elided characters, dots, markings, and bibliographic references.

Unlike the photos in the IGNTP editions these were printed on matte acid paper rather than high quality glossy paper. One unpleasant feature is that a few of the photos, like P108, were printed too dark and obscured the text. This, however, is not always the case but of the 64 Gregory-Aland numbered papyri and the additional P. Antinoopolis 2.54, and four uncials there are photos of 50 papyri and 3 uncials. The best plates are of P9, P23, P32, P39, P46, P49, P65, P52, P66, P72, P75, P95, P100, P101, P102. The majority of the rest were average and still quite useful despite the tendency of the printed photo to be dark. This can be shown, for example, in P47 printed dark but legible. P53 was printed well except for a few dark spots that obscure a few letters.

Contents

List of Manuscripts in Canonical Order List of Manuscript Photos Preface Acknowledgments Introduction List of Abbreviations

Papyri

P1 P4/64/67 P5 P9 P12 P13 P15/16 P17 P18 P20 P22 P23 P24 P27 P28 P29 P30 P32 P35 P37 P38 P39 P40 P45 P46 P47 P48 P49/65 P50 P52 P53 P66 P69 P70 P72 P75 P77/103 P78 P80 P86 P87 P90 P91 P92 P95 P98 P100 P101

P102 P104 P106 P107 P108 P109 P110 P111 P113 P114 P115 P. Antinoopolis 2.54

Early Uncials

0162 0171 0189 0220

Peace in Christ, John N. Lupia <><

Rating:
Summary: Comfort and Barrett's work on 69 NT papyri
Review: This is basically the 2nd edition of this work. The first edition was a very amateurish work. This present edition is an improvement in that some corrections were made and photographs were added as well as numerous papyri. Their introduction in this edition of "underdots" helps but may introduce more errors! Scholars (including this reviewer) severly ridiculed the earlier 1999 edition -- and justifiably so.

This 2001 edition consists of 697 pages on alkaline paper (though not ANSI certified stock). It is bound via glue-injection, and is thus a pudgy book which will not lay open. Add to this the fact that the inner margins of the right-hand pages are very narrow and you have a poorly laid-out volume. The main body text is not leaded enough and is thus not very pleasant upon the eyes. The typography is rather poor, due in part to the shortcomings of the Greek font selected for the work, and also due to the software used to construct the text. The photographs are helpful but not useful for testing the accuracy of Comfort and Barrett's collations/transcriptions of these 69 papyri, many are poorly printed and not on a glossy stock.

The work will hopefully become a standard work on the papyri of the New Testament, but it needs years more of testing and correcting. The transcriptions are full of conjectures; that is -- the editors supplied many words from modern Greek texts which are NOT in the papyri. These conjectural additions can be misleading, especially since they are not clearly indicated with BOLD (or properly visible) brackets.

For the most part the transcriptions are accurate. Papyrus P86 was nearly perfectly transcribed, but P46 needs more effort. For example, Comfort repeats an earlier conjecture in suggesting that at I Corinthians 2:1 (page 252) the reading is:

TO MYS] THRION, yet as per the length of the prior lines the following reading could easily be the original...

TO SW] THRION, which some later minuscules (i.e. 489, 927, 2629, [and Von Soden adds minuscule 5]) do actually read. Hence their conjecture (MYSTHRION) can be misleading. In numerous instances we may note that some of the probable original readings are not conclusively found in the papyri, but rather in later copies from the north (not from Egypt).

Some of their bibliographic references are missing or accidentally overlooked. For example, they miss Klijn's work on the corrections of P66 (perhaps because Klijn's hypothesis exposes a weakness in Comfort's and Barrett's). Also in P49 they miss the work done to a later identified fragment by Susan Stephens, and her reconstruction of this fragment conflicts with Comfort's and Barrett's -- so who is correct and who is in error?

A major ideological flaw is that Comfort and Barrett propose that these manuscripts from Egypt represent the text nearest to the original text. Their focus is too limited; they need to also see original readings existing outside Egypt in later manuscripts. With such a philosophy they are overtly biased in their conjectures. They also have a naive understanding of the other text-types as well (they cannot see early Antiochian readings). They seem to be overly influenced with the popular theory (i.e. that the earliest manuscripts are the most accurate) projected by the Germans (Aland and Nestle) and exemplified in Westcott and Hort of England.

Yet despite these shortcomings, the text is well worth the purchase price. It is a needed work and every New Testament textual critic should have a copy. Perhaps in the next editions we will get good, properly contrasted, glossy photos and a better layout. I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for a perfectly accurate work with good photos and more papyri (such as P61, P14, P11, P68 et al). Hopefully, in time, this work will evolve into such an accurate standard. Courtesy of: Mr. Gary S. Dykes

Rating:
Summary: Comfort and Barrett's work on 69 NT papyri
Review: This is basically the 2nd edition of this work. The first edition was a very amateurish work. This present edition is an improvement in that some corrections were made and photographs were added as well as numerous papyri. Their introduction in this edition of "underdots" helps but may introduce more errors! Scholars (including this reviewer) severly ridiculed the earlier 1999 edition -- and justifiably so.

This 2001 edition consists of 697 pages on alkaline paper (though not ANSI certified stock). It is bound via glue-injection, and is thus a pudgy book which will not lay open. Add to this the fact that the inner margins of the right-hand pages are very narrow and you have a poorly laid-out volume. The main body text is not leaded enough and is thus not very pleasant upon the eyes. The typography is rather poor, due in part to the shortcomings of the Greek font selected for the work, and also due to the software used to construct the text. The photographs are helpful but not useful for testing the accuracy of Comfort and Barrett's collations/transcriptions of these 69 papyri, many are poorly printed and not on a glossy stock.

The work will hopefully become a standard work on the papyri of the New Testament, but it needs years more of testing and correcting. The transcriptions are full of conjectures; that is -- the editors supplied many words from modern Greek texts which are NOT in the papyri. These conjectural additions can be misleading, especially since they are not clearly indicated with BOLD (or properly visible) brackets.

For the most part the transcriptions are accurate. Papyrus P86 was nearly perfectly transcribed, but P46 needs more effort. For example, Comfort repeats an earlier conjecture in suggesting that at I Corinthians 2:1 (page 252) the reading is:

TO MYS] THRION, yet as per the length of the prior lines the following reading could easily be the original...

TO SW] THRION, which some later minuscules (i.e. 489, 927, 2629, [and Von Soden adds minuscule 5]) do actually read. Hence their conjecture (MYSTHRION) can be misleading. In numerous instances we may note that some of the probable original readings are not conclusively found in the papyri, but rather in later copies from the north (not from Egypt).

Some of their bibliographic references are missing or accidentally overlooked. For example, they miss Klijn's work on the corrections of P66 (perhaps because Klijn's hypothesis exposes a weakness in Comfort's and Barrett's). Also in P49 they miss the work done to a later identified fragment by Susan Stephens, and her reconstruction of this fragment conflicts with Comfort's and Barrett's -- so who is correct and who is in error?

A major ideological flaw is that Comfort and Barrett propose that these manuscripts from Egypt represent the text nearest to the original text. Their focus is too limited; they need to also see original readings existing outside Egypt in later manuscripts. With such a philosophy they are overtly biased in their conjectures. They also have a naive understanding of the other text-types as well (they cannot see early Antiochian readings). They seem to be overly influenced with the popular theory (i.e. that the earliest manuscripts are the most accurate) projected by the Germans (Aland and Nestle) and exemplified in Westcott and Hort of England.

Yet despite these shortcomings, the text is well worth the purchase price. It is a needed work and every New Testament textual critic should have a copy. Perhaps in the next editions we will get good, properly contrasted, glossy photos and a better layout. I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for a perfectly accurate work with good photos and more papyri (such as P61, P14, P11, P68 et al). Hopefully, in time, this work will evolve into such an accurate standard. Courtesy of: Mr. Gary S. Dykes