TY - JOUR
AU - Elliott, J K
AB - This four-volume set of Acts in the series Editio critica maior (= ECM) has been produced with exemplary dispatch. It follows the second edition of the ECM Catholic Epistles in 2013 (reviewed in JTS 64 [2013], pp. 636–42). The 1,088 pages containing the text and apparatus criticus maintain the commendable spaciousness of presentation (e.g. see Part I, pp. 1029–33); this feature was duly praised in the earlier and pioneering editions. On average only about one verse of Acts and its variants appear on each near-quarto page presentation. The numbering of spaces and words in each verse and the ‘letter-addresses’ a, b, c, etc. assigned to every variant make this edition easy to follow and notate. The other two sections (Parts II and III) contain important background details and scholarly essays, essential for on-going serious work on this New Testament book. Editors and co-workers are deserving of hearty praise for this fine academic achievement. ECM Acts is in three parts, the third of which is a volume of essays, called Studien/Studies. (I note that the promises made in many places regarding a comparable third volume for volume 4 on the Catholic Letters (to be called ‘Begleitende Studien’) have been quietly dropped.): (a) Part I of ECM Acts is in two halves; these contain the introductory matter and the text of Acts. (b) Part II is entitled Begleitende Materialien/Supplementary Material; this contains detailed and helpful lists of the Greek manuscripts cited including the Codices Byzantini (= 1 papyrus, 10 majuscules, 56 minuscules, 5 lectionaries); the seven ‘solid Byzantine witnesses’ are manuscripts 1, 18, 35, 330, 398, 424, 1241. We are told here (II, p. 8) that only 622 of the 7,400+ instances of variation (7,446 precisely according to I, p. 28*) betray a difference between Byz and the primary line (a) and that 105 of the 155 split readings contain one reading that agrees with Byz (adopting this edition’s abbreviation and typography). Many passages agree with the Byzantine text-type and therefore differ from ‘the established [sic] text’ (I, p. 19*). Among the 52 readings where ECM differs from NA28 (I, pp. 34*–35*) 36 move towards Byz. Only three move away from Byz. Klaus Wachtel’s influential work on the Byzantine text of the Catholic Epistles (particularly in his doctoral monograph printed in 1995 in the series Arbeiten zur neutestamentichen Textforschung [= ANTF 25]) continues to bear fruit here in Acts. Lists of lacunae and errata in manuscripts (30 pages’ worth!); all patristic citations and full sections on the four main versions used, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic occur in Part II. Variants peculiar to the versions do occur in the apparatus in Part I, usually with the reading in the language of one version listed (e.g. see 5:27, numbers 10–14b in the apparatus and with the change transliterated into Greek in the conspectus of readings (I, p. 157)). In Part II we find also a section of supplementary information on the nature of fragmentary readings in papyri (mainly). This volume concludes with what is called a ‘Brief Commentary’ on versional readings—the brevity runs to 119 pages! (The Introduction speaks of ‘an’ additional volume [sic] that is to follow (I, p. 18*); why not simply say ‘Part II’?) (c) Part III: Studien/Studies contains not only a long-awaited and welcome commentary (by Klaus Wachtel) on all the new readings, including the split readings, in ECM Acts but, additionally, a selection of further miscellaneous readings. The Coherence Based Genealogical Method (= CBGM) has revealed interesting findings and these manifest themselves in some of these changes. (In the volume on the Catholic Epistles CBGM was applied only piecemeal, but here it was applied ab initio.) Comments in III, ch. 1 are prefaced by GC (= ‘Genealogical Coherence’); others are prefaced by TP (= ‘Transcriptional Probability’). As a so-called thoroughgoing textual critic I was pleasantly surprised to see how often Wachtel reports on editorial decisions to print as the Ausgangstext in ECM readings that agree elsewhere with firm examples of authorial style, language, and usage, e.g. see the commentary at 2:3; 7:22pr.; 9:12sec. Laconic though many of Wachtel’s comments be, they are nonetheless most helpful clues to editorial thinking and decision-making. These may well be a first port of call for readers wanting conclusions about why certain readings were selected here. But they cannot be the last word on these variants. Obviously, Metzger’s long-standing Textual Commentary (the second edition of which was published in 1994) will survive as the on-going and useful vade mecum it has always been. Old habits die hard: re Acts 11:3 we read Wachtel’s comment ‘the decision is left open because the slightly harder reading is attested only by a relatively small fraction of early witnesses’ (III, p. 17)—an echo of earlier days in Münster! The rest of Part III is made up of 11 further essays by ten writers. Six essays are in German only and six, including chapter 1, Text-Critical Commentary, are in English only. Four chapters concern the so-called Western Text, and four essays concern the versions. The editors here are unconvinced that Luke issued two versions of Acts or that there ever was a Western text as such—merely distinctive readings by Codex Bezae with or without slight support from elsewhere. Three essays concern patristic citations; two of them are short pieces by Georg Gäbel, of which one is on Fortunatianus, whose long-lost commentary on the Gospels has finally emerged, although the variants in it are, however, not relevant to this ECM edition of Acts. (The German edition of Fortunatianus is now published, as too is an English translation of the commentary.) Most readers will be concerned with the differences between the new and resultant biblical text in this edition compared with that in the latest hand-editions of Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece (= NA28) or of the United Bible Societies’ The Greek New Testament (= UBS5). The ECM text will of course become the text printed in NA and UBS and it will also be of interest to see the extent to which the latter two editions’ apparatus will be able to replicate those found in ECM. Many new readings do not unduly affect meaning or cause modern vernacular versions to require change. Several concern word order or the addition or deletion of particles and pronouns. But all are of importance and significance. If there is a choice between an Attic and a Hellenistic reading, I would have expected ECM to print the Hellenistic word, but in the case of αχρις and v.l. αχρι at 11:5; 20:6, 11; 28:15 the Attic αχρι is read; for the imperfect tense of the verb ‘to be’ see the split line at 27:37; ɛρωταν and ɛπɛρωταν occur indiscriminately, although the two should be differentiated (meaning ‘request’ and ‘ask’ respectively) at 1:6 q.v.; 3:3; 18:20; 23:18, 20, etc. and see Acts 5:27–8. At Acts 24:27, however, we read the Hellenistic χαριτα instead of the Attic χαριν and ουθεν plus other forms with theta not delta at 15:9; 19:27; 26:26 (cf. also Hellenistic feminine μεγαλην agreeing with λιμην at 11:28). I note also that at Acts 13:33 we still read δευτερω and not v.l. πρωτω. I had also hoped we may see Θεου not ανθρωπου at Acts 7:56, number address 24. Doubts in NA28 that resulted in the use of square brackets around a word have now sometimes been resolved and an undisputed reading can be printed in ECM at Acts 3:13bis; 7:22; 9:12; 16:28, for instance. Not surprisingly, some changes in the text or split lines occur in the troublesome verses from previous analyses, that is variants reluctantly printed in earlier editions of UBS with a ‘C’ rating (e.g. 17:3). A conjectured reading, i.e. one without any Greek support, is found in NA28 at Acts 16:12. It is given the lowest rating letter, ‘D’, in UBS5. (The grades A, B, C, D were applied there to all variants to indicate the editors’ confidence in printing one reading as the Ausgangstext.) ECM Acts 13:33 (number address 16) has the only new conjectural reading, ημιν simpliciter. There is no Greek nor versional support. This change is, however, not unexpected; NA28 reads [αυτων] ημιν, the brackets indicating that the word enclosed could be jettisoned. Metzger’s Commentary ad loc says that minuscule 142 carries the reading ημιν but his statement is contradicted in Teststelle 44 of Text und Textwert (= TuT) Acts. My only niggle with accepting this conjecture is to ask if all original authors (here probably Luke) always wrote sense. One area where changes will need to be made is in lexicons and concordances that refer to all biblical occurrences of each word in a given edition. Statistical and reference tools in the future will need to reflect changes to the NA28 text, e.g. Acts 2:7 απαντες; 2:22, 36 word order; 4:12 ουτε/oυδε (cf. τε/δε passim). Inevitably, those interested in a full apparatus will need to consult ECM—or the appropriate volumes of TuT where relevant. Part I, pp. 34*–35* set out the 52 changes from NA28/UBS5 plus on pp. 35*–36* the 155 places where there is a split line giving two or three choices of equally viable readings. (As this review is in English, note that here and elsewhere in references to ECM Acts I quote only the pagination for the English translation and not the page numbers of the German original.) We note that Leitzeile is translated as ‘guiding line’ whereas a closer approximation to the German such as ‘leading line’ may have been a better translation. The editors wisely remind us that the sequence of these alternatives or choices is immaterial. Why then ad loc is the reading that happens to be the one printed above the other(s) not given a diamond? Our choice may therefore be biased in that the reading printed (by chance) as the topmost is not printed with a prefatory diamond either in the overview of readings or in the apparatus. Most split lines are a choice of two readings (generally these are a and b in the apparatus, but 16 are a and c, 9 are a and d, 2 are a and e, 3 are a and f). Sometimes a split is a choice between a longer and a shorter reading. In such cases this often represents what in NA/UBS are the ubiquitous square brackets around a word or words or parts of a word. Such is the case at Acts 11:22; 23:5. Now of course by using split lines our editors are able to display their dilemmas not only with reference to longer and shorter readings but also to places where words are in a changed order or/and where words may have been substituted. At 5:28 number 23 the split concerns punctuation—where if επερωταν indeed means ‘to ask’ as argued above, then only a question should follow. (This split does not occur in the list on p. I, 35*.) Three readings only have a three-way split (at Acts 13:46, 21:13, and 17:3). However, an inconsistency of presentation is noticeable there: according to I, p. 36* the split at 13:46 is a επειδη, b επει δε, and c επειδη δε, but only two lines appear at the top of p. 486 (a and b, with reading b given a rhombus [diamond] siglum). The other two threefold splits are correctly printed. References are made passim to the several databases in existence that may be consulted online by readers needing to understand sources available to and used by the editors of ECM Acts. This is a good indication of the twenty-first century’s technological developments behind editions like this. In these days of listener and readership choices and of consumer demand in most commodities, it is not surprising that editors, honestly and without dereliction of duty, inevitably must leave some choices to their readers. Editors may choose manuscripts, select and arrange variants, and then adopt readings but they cannot now choose to make every last decision for their readership. Editors may be truly selective and rely and act upon words in NA27, pp. 45*–46* which state ‘[The twenty-seventh edition of NA] intends to provide the user with a well-founded working text together with the means of verifying it or alternatively of correcting it’ (italics mine). Those words may well have been jettisoned in NA28 but not in the intentions behind that hand edition nor in the present ECM Acts themselves. In four passages in Acts ECM places the disputed longer readings as the running text, albeit printed within double square brackets, a symbol not explained in the list of ‘Abbreviations and Sigla’ (II, pp. 3–4). The passages are 8:37; 15:34; 24:6–8; 28:29. At Acts 24:6–8 the apparatus in I, p. 910 may need careful unravelling: (20–8/14) in the apparatus to [[24,6]] refers to the number address 8 in verse 6 and the longer text runs into verse 8, word 14. Normally the device of double square brackets is used as in NA28 at the end of Mark or at the end of John 7 up to John 8:11 to show early, important but secondary insertions. In ECM it may prove confusing to have the device used for the leading line of text, a, especially when a is then shown to be an omission. Readers will need to exercise caution; editors may need to revisit these apparatus. Readers should also study or at least observe the manuscripts on which the text is based. According to I, p. 19* these are in part founded on the manuscripts identified in the TuT volumes on Acts (published over 20 years ago under Kurt Aland’s direction) even if now some differing witnesses were selected—presumably thanks to Münster’s homespun methodology, CBGM, for dealing with the m(or)ass of minuscule witnesses. We are informed in the editors’ opening words in their Introduction that the text of ECM gives us the New Testament text of the first Christian millennium. Obviously, most extant minuscule manuscripts are later than 1000 ce. 33 and 2466 seem to be the only ones used here that are dated prior to the tenth century, although several others are from the tenth century. Many are late, even from the sixteenth century (1884 and 1704). The lectionaries are dated from the tenth through to the sixteenth century, which seems to nuance the editors’ introductory statement (II, p. 15). II, p. 15 (English) strangely contradicts the sixteenth-century dating in the German above it, as well as the dating of l1825 in II, p. 6 itself. The ECM editors using the CBGM specify that it is the texts that such witnesses carry that matter, not the dates given by palaeographers to their physical manuscripts bearing that text. (In fact one may argue that most deliberate changes to the New Testament text were probably made prior to the fixing of the canon as authorized Scripture.) Readers may be astonished to see minuscule 180e in the list of manuscripts containing Acts in II, p. 6. I assume that this should read 180eap (the former 180r is now renumbered 2918). Re Old Latin witnesses: II, pp. 3, 136–7 list 16 manuscripts. Several (e.g. 56, 57, 70, 72, 73) were not used in NA and of those 56, 57, 70 seem to be lectionaries. Work at the University of Mainz (under Prof. W. Blümer’s direction) is under way on this version and his final opinions of this version and the manuscripts are acknowledged and awaited. The 104 Teststellen (= TS) in TuT chosen to examine exhaustively manuscript witnesses have occasionally created the split lines of text in ECM: e.g. at 2:7; 3:8, 11bis; 4:33; 18:17. Obviously, not all the manuscripts used for TuT were necessarily used in ECM, and in any case many idiosyncratic and singular readings may only be unearthed in the TuT volumes, e.g. the distinctive texts of 1724 or of 1767 at TS52 (Acts 15:24) The distinctive reading of 04* in TuT in TS52 is now labelled f (= Fehler) in ECM Acts. Where ECM has changes and where a Teststelle exists we have a golden opportunity to observe further variants such as at TS54 at Acts 16:28 or TS69 at 19:14. Strangely perhaps, few Teststellen seem to have been in places where changes from NA28 in ECM are observed. The TuT volumes reported some 550 manuscripts (from a possible total of 607); obviously those that were fragmentary and had no text where a Teststelle occurs were excluded. The translation of the German originals has been rendered into American English (see e.g. labeled on I, p. 20*, favor I, pp. 29*, 31*, or favoring III, p. 15, n. 54) and are generally good and fluent (although one may wish to quibble about the style and meanings in I, p. 22*, note 19 or ‘seldom’ at the top of I, p. 22*, col. 1, for example); the translators are duly praised by the editors in their Preface. The following need attention: in II, p. 138 the spelling Mozzarabic is bizarre in English, where only a single z is expected. A doubling of z seems to ape German spelling. The usual and preferred English spelling Fayyumic is found in II, pp. 145, 150 bis etc. but not at I, p. 21*bis, where the English is given as ‘Faiyumic’! One essay in English in III, p. 203 inconsistently uses the German place name Rom. ‘Acts’, rather than the abbreviation ‘Act’ in II, pp. 21ff.; 128f.; 177, should appear as the preferred English form. Part III, p. vii read Lyons. In part I, p. 19* add ‘to’ following ‘approximating’. ‘E’ preceding the date of papyrus 48 in II, p. 5 is not in the list of abbreviations. (It presumably stands for Ende/End.) There are references to the supplementary volume (sic) in I, pp. 19*, 24*. The ‘supplement’ here must refer to Part II, i.e. Supplementary Material. The misplaced comma in I, p. 19*, col. 2, line 14 and also that in I, p. 20*, col. 2, line 21 need adjusting. Among other slips some German words escape untranslated; see hier in I, p.,19*; nach (II, p. 5); g-k (for Coptic) at II, p. 5; Kath (for Catholic Epistles) at II, pp. 5–6; 1K (for 1 Corinthians) at II, p. 6. The English version wrongly repeats Ä = Ethiopic in the list of versions (I, p. 21*)—the German is correct. Confusingly, the English has an unnecessary paragraph (re the abbreviation ‘v’ and its reference to James) in II, p. 4—again, the German original is correct. In I, p. 21* note that the German ‘gegen’ for two of the Coptic abbreviations is represented in the English section merely by a solidus (/) which elsewhere is usually used of alternatives (= ‘or’). What is needed in the English translation is something like ‘in contrast to’. On matters bibliographical, the volumes generally seem to prefer giving a place of publication and not a publisher’s name (see, for instance, the essays in Part III by Richter, Kiel, Juckel, Strutwolf, and Büsch, as well as, more generally, throughout the editorial matter elsewhere). But occasionally both place of publication and publisher are provided, e.g. by Gäbel in his three articles in Part III. Authors’ and editors’ names are in some cases given in capitals, or small block capitals (e.g. in Falluomini’s essay or in Kiel’s). Uniquely Parker’s 2008 Introduction lacks a place of publication, and has only the publishing house (passim). In Part III, Studies, the editors of ECM have generously allowed the writers of the various articles to adopt their own idiosyncratic practices. However, this practice has proved to be inconsistent and ought to be standardized in any reprinting. Such inconsistencies can readily be altered and are not going to confuse anybody. At other times the editor(s) of a title within both the English or German sections may appear with either a German form (such as ‘hg’ or, more commonly, ‘hrsg’) or at other times as ‘ed.’ regardless of what the original book has on its title page. ECM claims (Part I, p. 19*) to have used 12 manuscript supplements. The list in II, p. 7 correctly shows only 11 (014S, 206S, 323S, 1739S, 1827S, 1831S, 1874S, 1890S1, 1890S2, l156S, 1188S), which allows the calculation of 183 continuous-text and lectionary manuscripts. Supplements to these manuscripts do not occur in Kurzgefasste Liste2. In any case, should not all supplements now be given a new and distinctive Gregory-Aland number? Again, as in ECM volume 4, Catholic Epistles, it is welcome in Acts too that a few lectionaries are also included here. They are lectionaries l23, l60, l156, l587, l809, l1178, l1188, l1825, l2010. Among the minuscules not in NA28 several, including 35, 43, 94, 103, 181, are here. Rare or new minuscules are also welcomed; these include 1292, 1297, 1490, 1501. Only Greek fathers and versions close to the underlying Greek (see I, pp. 19*–20*) are regularly to be found in the apparatus. All Greek Fathers to the sixth century plus a few later patristic sources to the ninth century are included (see I, p. 19*). I was pleased to see that the late Albert Devine’s work on Chrysostom has been recognized (I, p. 20*; III, Büsch’s essay). Normally only the four oldest versions are regularly included, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic. (Only a tiny fragment of Acts in Gothic has survived; see III, pp. 81–2.) We also find three other versions in the apparatus, Georgian, Armenian, Old Church Slavonic (Slavic), sparsely referred to. According to II, p. 127 3,100 passages have evidence that includes the early versions. I, p. 28* refers to 183 variation units where only patristic and/or versional evidence are given. Are those passages listed? In I, p. 24* we are promised to expect footnotes that give Old Testament references to citations in Acts. I fail to find any such footnotes even for extended passages like that from Joel in Acts 2:17f. Footnotes were in the earlier volume on the Catholic Epistles. Forthcoming volumes of ECM will be 6, Revelation and 2, John. Earlier plans for volumes to run from 1 to 5 were recently changed because the intention now is to follow certain ‘popular’ biblical manuscripts containing the whole of the New Testament and certain printed editions where the Catholic Epistles (ECM 4) precede the Pauline Corpus (ECM 5). These four volumes (ECM 3, Die Apostelgeschichte/The Acts of the Apostles) are dedicated on the reverse of their second title page to the previous Direktorin, Prof. Barbara Aland, on her eightieth birthday. That is a tactful, welcome, and appropriate gesture. We too toast her: ‘Ad multos annos’. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices)
TI - Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior. Edited by the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung/The Institute for New Testament Textual Criticism. Volume 3: Die Apostelgeschichte/The Acts of the Apostles. Edited by Holger Strutwolf, Georg Gäbel, Annette Hüffmeier, Gerd Mink, and Klaus Wachtel
JF - Journal of Theological Studies
DO - 10.1093/jts/fly007
DA - 2018-04-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/novum-testamentum-graecum-editio-critica-maior-edited-by-the-institut-XUIrr9bVDZ
SP - 286
EP - 294
VL - 69
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -