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Photographing a Forgery?

One warm October day last year, I got an unusual email from Ed Bianchi, the chairman of the board of Christ for the Nations. This school, located in south Dallas, has been preparing young people for the mission field for many decades. About ten years ago, the school was bequeathed an unusual gift from a donor. It was seven leaves of excellent quality vellum, with very faint writing on one side only. The unbound leaves came with a typed cover letter that looked to have been produced in the 1960s or 1970s on an electric typewriter. The letter told an amazing, though rather improbable story of a man named Louis Meccia who was given a 31-leaf Greek manuscript by a stranger because of a simple act of kindness on Mr. Meccia’s part. This event took place in 1919, the letter stated. The manuscript was allegedly written by Joseph of Jerusalem, a disciple of Jesus. It was wrapped in a Latin cover sheet, allegedly written by Constantine’s mother. Whether the documents now in Mr. Meccia’s possession were supposed to be the autographs of Joseph’s narrative or Constantine’s mother’s notes is unclear by the letter that Meccia wrote. Read more...

Glasgow Manuscript Images Posted

CSNTM announces the posting of eight New Testament manuscripts from the University Library of the University of Glasgow, Scotland. These manuscripts include P22, a third century fragment of John’s gospel. Others include GA 560, GA 561, GA 562, GA lect 162, GA lect 239, GA lect 240, and GA lect 241. The manuscripts are posted on the “Manuscripts” section of the website. CSNTM is grateful to the University of Glasgow for permission to post these images.

CSNTM Posts Two Uncatalogued Manuscripts from the UK

During the 2008–2009 expedition season, CSNTM photographed two previously uncatalogued manuscripts in the United Kingdom. The first, Fragment B at Christ’s College in Cambridge, is an eleventh century, two-leaf minuscule from John’s gospel. The second is a tenth century, 284-leaf gospels minscule manuscript held in a private collection. Both of these manuscripts are now posted in the “Manuscripts” portion of the website.

Eight Newly Discovered Manuscripts from the Benaki Museum, Athens

In its Spring 2009 expedition to the Benaki Museum in Athens, CSNTM initially expected to photograph thirty catalogued Greek New Testament manuscripts. In addition to these, however, the Museum yielded eight additional, previously uncatalogued manuscripts (two minuscules, six lectionaries). CSNTM is pleased to post the images of these finds in the “Manuscripts” portion of the website.

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Five Albanian Manuscripts Catalogued by INTF

Jeff Hargis

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

In 2007, the Center photographed the collection of New Testament manuscripts at the Albanian National Archives in Tirana, Albania. Some of these were already cataloged in the Kurzgefasste Liste der griechishen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (the “K-Liste”), while many others were previously unknown to scholars. In addition, the identities of several of the manuscripts remain uncertain as they have not been examined thoroughly for many decades, if at all.

Since the time we made these discoveries, CSNTM, with the assistance of other scholars as well as the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF, translated as Institute for New Testament Textual Research) in Münster, Germany, have been working to clarify the identity of all of the Albanian manuscripts and to assign new catalog numbers to those whose existence was previously unknown.

We are pleased to announce that INTF has now assigned Gregory-Aland Numbers to five of the manuscripts from the Albanian National Archives as follows:

ANA 7 = GA lect 2439
ANA 11 = GA lect 2440
ANA 13 = GA lect 2441
ANA 16 = GA lect 2442
ANA 77 = GA lect 2443

On the “Manuscripts” page of the CSNTM website, these five manuscripts have been reassigned from their original status as “not yet cataloged” to their new designation as cataloged lectionaries. The Center is grateful to INTF for their work in cataloging these new manuscripts.