I was just informed that the PDF version of my PhD dissertation and it's accompanying data are now available freely on the University of Birmingham's Ethesis Repository. The PDF of the dissertation is available at the following link.
https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/13692/
I won't re-post the abstract as it can be read at the above link. The summary of my findings are these;
1) The so-called Family Π is actually a group because the manuscripts do not originate from a lost archetype.
2) The origin of the Π Group readings are that they arose as a result of copying from commentary manuscripts (catenae). The scholia acting on the text reintroduced Π Group readings into the text throughout the centuries.
3) As Π Group manuscripts were copied, the text was standardized through a process of the copyists conforming the text to the readings they were used to hearing during their lectional readings.
If you do not want to read the entire thesis, I recommend reading Chapter 1 as it will give a really good backdrop to the study. Then read the concluding summaries of Chapters 2 and 3. Read all of Chapter 4 as this chapter contains the core arguments of the thesis. Skip Chapter 5 as it contains a long list of group readings obtained from the collation. Finally, read all of Chapter 6 as it discusses the arguments surrounding the origin of the Π Group.
The accompanying data can be found at the following links.
Accompanying data for "A Collation of Family Π in Mark" https://doi.org/10.25500/edata.bham.00000983
A Collation of Family Π in Mark [Online Edition] https://purl.org/itsee/mitchell
A positive apparatus of Family Π in Mark https://epapers.bham.ac.uk/4289
Transcriptions of 27 Manuscripts of the Gospel according to Mark https://epapers.bham.ac.uk/4290
[EDIT: I began the research for this dissertation way back in 2017. See the earlier post here where I first mentioned my dissertation topic.]
Hi Tim - enjoyed reading your Phd Thesis; thanks for sharing the link. :) Other than demonstrating that Fam. Π isn't in fact a family as such, were there any of the minuscule manuscripts which stuck out to you as being more interesting than just mainly witnesses to the Byzantine majority?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for taking the time to read through the dissertation. Honestly, I thought several of the manuscripts were interesting and deserve closer examination. 389 stands out because of it's high level of omissions. I argue that it was copied directly from a commentary manuscript. It might prove interesting to comb through some of these and try to determine if it's exemplar is extant. Also, 041 and 017 deserve full studies into scribal habits, etc. 041 in particular has a high number of corrections in Mark. It would be interesting to do a study of these corrections. My argument in the dissertation is that 041 was prepared to be used as an exemplar in copying. Likely do to it's age, beauty, and clear script. Another manuscript would be 2404. There were a few places where I noticed that the scribe responsible for writing in the red lectionary markings noticed some omissions and corrected the text using the same red ink. It would be an interesting study to go through this manuscript and locate all the places where this occurred.
DeleteThanks for the insights, Tim. I'd love to see more studies of copyist habits of other manuscripts (uncials and minuscules). Can only serve to enrich our understanding of copyist practices and how they may or may not have affected the evolution of the textual stream of not just the NT, but other works as well. :)
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