When compared to the scribal tendency of writing πνεῦμα ubiquitously as a nomen sacrum in the New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus and the minimalist scribal tendency in the New Testament of Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus (02) demonstrates a consistent scribal tendency that prefers the nomen sacrum form. The codex also preserves selective scribal deviations from … Read more
Scholars generally assume that the first quire of John in Washingtonianus (032) replaced a lost or damaged quire of the fifth-century codex and itself dates to the seventh (Frederic Kenyon) or eighth (Kenneth Clark) century. However, the original editor of the manuscript, Henry Sanders, concluded from his very detailed examination that this quire predated the … Read more
Thirty years ago, in a WUNT volume I propelled the NT use of secretaries to a more prominent stage. Scholars often noted two points: (a) secretaries were commonly used by ancient writers, and (b) secretaries had enough influence to render typical “style analyses” ineffective for evaluating authorship. While well received, the concept has recently fallen … Read more
This paper briefly describes the nomina sacra system – graphic textual demarcations of words such as “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Christ” and “Spirit” – and its significance in the New Testament manuscript tradition, as well as provides an explanation of why nomina sacra is emphasised in the biblical text. In early Christian Greek Bible manuscripts, we … Read more
In this paper, I study the textual variants in Revelation 20 (specifically the major additions and omissions) to determine how they reflect the book’s struggle to gain canonical status. The book of Revelation has fewer extant witnesses than any New Testament book and its placement within codices is sporadic, often appearing among collections of non-biblical … Read more