Textual criticism (Classics)

The present paper investigates the contributions of the astrological author Julianus of Laodicea. The authenticity of a work ascribed to him is re-examined, the genuine fragments are collected and evaluated, and possible further traces of his work in later literature are explored to correct and update his scholarly image. In an appendix,
a critical edition of F18 is offered.

Questions about areas of controversy or conflict between the Christian faith and the academic discipline can (and sometimes do) assume an easy dichotomy between the two. One's dual commitments to "the Faith" and the guild are often seen as competing allegiances, each vying for possession of the Christian soul. The guild may even be perceived as intolerant or antagonistic toward the Christian faith. Would-be Ph.D. students of evangelical backgrounds, for example, are often warned not to be naïve, but to be suspicious of secular institutions of higher learning. Such was my experience, as I left Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div.; Th.M.) for doctoral work in NT at Emory University. The problem with the aforementioned formulation, however, is the a priori "us versus them" mentality it fosters-a mentality that can foreclose genuine learning opportunities and undermine the very faith it seeks to defend. It also assumes a broad consensus among Christians on the identity and definition of those items of the faith in need of safeguarding vis-à-vis "the guild." Little did I know that upon returning to my alma mater, I would be the one suspected of having wavered from "the Faith."

The present volume comprises eleven lectures delivered under Tattvabodha lecture series at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Art, New Delhi. This article provides an introduction about the trends of textual interpretation in Indian scholarship, problems of understanding with regard to texts from different denominations and the need for systematic compilation, using ancient grammatical and interpretative texts and modern technology, for inducing correct understanding of the Indian devotional and scholastic tradition.

The first part of this paper argues that Orpheus' telling of Hyacinth's story in Ov. Met. 10, 162-219 is a reworking of his own personal grief for Eurydice, narrated by Ovid shortly before. The second part analyses the extant Hellenistic models for the Ovidian version of the myth.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme est une comédie-ballet en cinq actes de Molière, alternant entre prose et vers pour les ballets, jouée pour la première fois le 14 octobre 1670 au château de Chambord.
La pièce brille de par le succès immédiat qu’elle rencontre, et de par les figures de génie qui en accompagnèrent la création. La musique est de Jean-Baptiste Lully, les ballets de Pierre Beauchamp, les décors de Carlo Vigarani, et les costumes turcs, dans une certaine mesure, comme l’appuie notre préface, du chevalier d’Arvieux.
Son succès s’explique premièrement par le goût affirmé de la cour pour les turqueries. À l’époque, l’Empire Ottoman est un sujet de conversation important, dans lequel tous cherchent à briller, et les échanges culturels existent bel et bien entre les deux contrées. On fait remonter à la visite de l’ambassadeur Soliman Aga auprès du roi l’origine directe de la pièce. De la discorde née entre les deux hommes, Louis XIV aurait demandé à Molière de ridiculiser sur scène les mœurs ottomanes.
Deuxièmement, Molière y adjoint finalement le goût vain, la volonté de bourgeois, courtisans en tous genres de se vouloir faire nobles, de se découvrir des généalogies dignes de louange. C’est ainsi que s’explique la méfiance des courtisans à l’encontre de Molière et de sa pièce, qu’ils accueillent très froidement, à l’exception du roi lui-même, charmé par la création en question.
M. Jourdain est donc le représentant parfait de cette nouvelle mode qui peu à peu envahit le panorama social français. Comment se faire noble et, surtout, comment en acquérir les mœurs et les manières ? Car si obtenir l’argent est ouvert à tous, ce dernier élément, on le verra avec M. Jourdain, est une autre affaire !

Resumen: Edición crítica y traducción del primer tratado de pedagogía del Humanismo español: el Brevis tracta Brevis tractatus de arte, disciplina et modo alendi et erudiendi filios, pueros et iuvenes (ca. 1453) de Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo. Resumo: Edición crítica e traducción do primeiro tratado de pedagoxía do Humanismo español: el Brevis tractatus de arte, disciplina et modo alendi et erudiendi filios, pueros et iuvenes (ca. 1453) de Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo. Abstract: Critical edition and translation of the first work on pedagogy in Spanish Humanism: Rodrigo Sánchez Arevalo's Brevis tractatus de arte, disciplina et modo alendi et erudiendi filios, pueros et iuvenes (ca. 1453).

L’any 1494 l’impressor barceloní Pere Miquel va fer un tiratge de mil exemplars de les "Transformacions" de Francesc Alegre (ca.1452–ca.1508), una versió catalana de "Les metamorfosis" del poeta romà Publi Ovidi Nasó. A continuació, en el mateix incunable, Alegre va fer estampar les seves "Al·legories", un comentari mitològic compost a partir de la "Genealogia deorum gentilium" de Giovanni Boccaccio. El present volum inclou l’edició crítica i annotada de les "Transformacions" de Francesc Alegre, amb èmfasi especial en l’estudi dels originals usats pel traductor. Per a dur a terme aquest estudi s’ha comparat l’obra amb les traduccions d’Ovidi en vulgar més difoses dels segles XIV i XV, i amb tants còdexs llatins de les "Les metamorfosis" com ha estat possible. Un cop conformada aquesta xarxa, s’ha analitzat el català en relació a tots aquests textos. Com es mostrarà, Alegre tradueix, principalment i de manera sostinguda, de dos textos: l’original llatí d’Ovidi i la versió italiana de Giovanni Bonsignori (s. XIV). A més d’aquestes fonts habituals, Alegre inclou passatges concrets que provenen de la "Genealogia" de Boccaccio. Un cas a part, que analitzem, són alguns passatges relacionats amb la producció de Joan Roís de Corella, i la relació de Corella i Alegre amb la traducció catalana anterior de "Les metamorfosis" feta per Francesc de Pinós.

In 1544 the Greek-Latin editio princeps of most of the Archimedean texts known today and the related commentaries by Eutocius was published: this is the Latin Archimedes who, between the end of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was known and studied by Galileo and inspired a radical change in the way of conceiving mathematics. In order to remedy the lack of attention paid to the true architect of the Archimedean rediscovery, Iacopo da San Cassiano, the first part of the volume follows his movements between the Studio of Pavia, the Gonzaga court and the curia of Niccolò V, striving to enlight on the acquaintances in which the translation of the Archimedean corpus was maturing and on the contexts in which, in the second half of the fifteenth century, it spread. Emerges from all that  the vivacity of the Pavia and Mantuan academic environment, as well as that of the humanistic circles of Milan, Bologna, Ferrara and Rome, the versatility of the circle of Bessarione, the philological acribia of the Regiomontano, and the scientific curiosity of a Piero della Francesca, of a Francesco dal Borgo or a Leonardo da Vinci.

The second part of the volume examines the contemporary evidence on the Latin version and its manuscript tradition. The analysis of the latter allows to identify among the surviving codes the primum exemplar of the translation, that is the autograph draft of Iacopo;  the copy on which Regiomontanus -- starting from a codex owned by Bessarion now preserved in the Marciana National Library -- carried out the revision of the text and of the geometric figures which merged into the princeps of 1544; and also the two codes on which Francesco dal Borgo and Piero della Francesca studied Archimedes, verifying the geometric constructions in close collaboration.

According to J.L. Heiberg, Iacopo would have based his work on a code of the IX century, later owned by Giorgio Valla and today known as codex A. According to Marshall Clagett, he used also the medieval translation of William of Moerbeke. The examination of these theses and the parallel study of various places in Jacopo's version and the corresponding lesson of the other Archimedean witnesses, to whom the third part of the volume is dedicated, leads instead to the conclusion that he not only disregards the precedent of William, but it is based on a Greek text different and independent from the one carried by Valla's Byzantine code. For this reason the Iacopo's translation is certainly of interest also in relation to a more satisfactory reconstruction of the text and of Archimedes' thought itself.

The critical edition of Circuli dimensio and Quadratura parabolæ, housed in the fourth and last part of the volume, gives the reader the ease of evaluating the many unpublished aspects of this complex framework. Accompanied by a triple critical apparatus, by an Italian translation and by succinct commentary notes, it not only allows to grasp Iacopo's hesitations, but also the differences of its version with respect to the surviving Greek tradition, but it highlights the main characters of the subsequent transmission of the text.

Conventional approaches to the Synoptic gospels argue that the gospel authors acted as literate spokespersons for their religious communities. Whether described as documenting intragroup "oral traditions" or preserving the collective perspectives of their fellow Christ-followers, these writers are treated as something akin to the Romantic Poets speaking for their Volk-a questionable framework inherited from nineteenth-century German Romanticism. In this book, Robyn Walsh argues that the Synoptic gospels were written by elite cultural producers working within a dynamic cadre of literate specialists, including persons who may or may not have been professed Christians. Comparing a range of ancient literature, her groundbreaking study demonstrates that the gospels are creative works produced by educated elites interested in Judean teachings, practices, and paradoxographical subjects in the aftermath of the Jewish War and in dialogue with the literature of their age. Walsh's study thus bridges the artificial divide between research on the Synoptic gospels and classics.

This paper is of a historic and genealogical nature. It is one piece of a gigantic puzzle of ancient history. My work, which includes this paper, was written to lay the groundwork for a new awakening in terms of the study of history, in that it shows by example what may be discovered when history is examined as literature and by following certain specific rules which apply only when history has been done in an entirely different context than has been previously thought. And that is, that it was an inside job. It was an inside job in the sense that it was written by those in power from within a royal oligarchy which had been maintained over the course of thousands of years. This is the correct way to study and learn from history as it was meant to be known at a future date from when the authors had written it. They wrote it in such a way that only those with the same knowledge of what they were doing could truly understand it.

This essay proposes to share with the readers some of the experiences of using commentaries on Sanskrit texts, particularly philosophical texts. No Sanskrit work can be
understood properly or adequately without the help of commentaries yet the commentators were not and could not be omniscient. After providing an overview of how ancient texts in India were taught by the gurus and how in course of time commentary writing side by side oral instruction
came into being, it is shown that all commentaries cannot be reliable on all occasions. The time lag between the base text and the commentaries thereon often disables the commentators to be certain about the collocation of the words, especially technical words in the base text. Secondly,
lack of historical sense often makes the commentators opt for untenable significations of certain terms occurring in the base text. Thirdly, the personal philosophical affiliation of the
commentators often misleads them to interpret the text in a way inconsistent with the intention of the original author. All this has been shown with examples selected from various texts, philosophical and otherwise, and their commentaries. The essay concludes that commentaries are doubtless necessary and helpful and should be made use of wherever available; nevertheless it
must be kept in mind that ancient commentators were no less, if not more, fallible than we are and their works should be treated with caution, not regarding them as the last word, as some students and scholars still do.
Keywords Commentaries · Guru-sishya parampara · Nyaya · Philosophical texts · Reliability · Smrti.

Revisions to the Greek NT in NA28 are restricted to the Catholic Epistles—the product of the Münster Institute’s ongoing work on the Editio critica maior. The text of the rest of the NT remains unaltered. The updated manuscript data, however, spans the apparatus of the entire NT and signals a new day for its textual history. The revised correctors of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus make the point. The proposed revisions have direct and far-reaching implications for the book’s textual history. Corrections once placed in the fourth through sixth centuries now occupy the seventh. The changes appear slight, even inconsequential—“touch ups” in support of the task of reconstruction. The clarification and re-dating of the correctors, though, represent a material shift with instant repercussions. The inclusion of new and additional witnesses—alongside of and in juxtaposition to the corrections—further portend altered textual alignments and disclose forgotten chapters in the history of textual criticism. The clarity of the new data also facilitates an examination of their limitations and unclutters the landscape for renewed textual research. The stage is set for a reappraisal of the Apocalypse’s textual history.

An overview of the variety of textual differences that exist between the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus and the book in modern critical editions, thereby offering a window into the book's early readership. There is also a YouTube link to the lecture version of this paper, which was recently delivered at Samford University for their Holley Hull Lecture Series: https://vimeo.com/878444925/a35492dd8b?share=copy&fbclid=IwAR10Iu7HKuAjjcEcDdxgfT7XKqe2F6W6Bwb1cVHafNO0Yz6g4VhsIhXHMz4

Η "Κριτική Κειμένου" είναι ο κλάδος της φιλολογικής επιστήμης που μελετά τα κείμενα της αρχαιοελληνικής και λατινικής γραμματείας υπό ένα συγκεκριμένο πρίσμα και με έναν σαφώς προσδιορισμένο στόχο: την αναγωγή των κειμένων αυτών στην αρχική μορφή τους (ή όσο πιο κοντά γίνεται σε αυτήν). Η διαδικασία αυτή της ανασυγκρότησης του κάθε κειμένου συνίσταται σε μια σειρά κριτικές ενέργειες· μελέτη των χειρογράφων, εξέταση της γνησιότητας του κειμένου, διόρθωση σφαλμάτων, εντοπισμός νόθων παρεισφρήσεων.
Το παρόν εγχειρίδιο καλειδοσκοπικά εστιάζει σε συγκεκριμένες πτυχές τεχνικής και λειτουργικής φύσεως της Κριτικής Κειμένου· αφενός παρέχει έναν συγκεντρωτικό κατάλογο, όπου αναγράφονται και ερμηνεύονται οι βασικές συντομογραφίες, οι τεχνικοί όροι και τα λοιπά κριτικά σύμβολα της Κριτικής επιστήμης, και αφετέρου παρουσιάζει δειγματικές αναγνώσεις (με συνοδευτικά επεξηγηματικά σχόλια) για τα τρία είδη υπομνημάτων που παρατίθενται σε κριτικές εκδόσεις κειμένων, δηλ. Υπόμνημα Πηγών, Κριτικό Υπόμνημα και Υπόμνημα Παραλλήλων Χωρίων. Ωσαύτως, στο εγχειρίδιο παρατίθεται μια σύντομη ιστορική ανασκόπηση της Κριτικής Κειμένου (με αναφορές στη στεμματική θεωρία και το στέμμα κωδίκων), καθώς και ενδεικτική περαιτέρω βιβλιογραφία.
Συναφώς, στόχος του εγχειριδίου αυτού είναι να προσφέρει ένα συμπαγές υπόβαθρο από τεχνικές γνώσεις, οι οποίες συνιστούν απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση τόσο για την κατανόηση της διαδικασίας της παράδοσης των κειμένων και του συνακόλουθου πλέγματος διεργασιών της Κριτικής επιστήμης, όσο και για τη σφαιρική προσέγγιση του αρχαίου ελληνικού και λατινικού γραπτού λόγου.
Εν κατακλείδι, το εγχειρίδιο αυτό φιλοδοξεί να καλύψει το έως τώρα βιβλιογραφικό κενό και να καταστεί ένα χρήσιμο εργαλείο έρευνας για φιλολόγους, φοιτητές φιλολογίας αλλά και κάθε είδους μελετητές των αρχαίων κειμένων.

Did druids really exist? Did Celts perform human sacrifice? The aim of this paper is to scrutinise our sources on Celtic religion. We can see that our sources are not only unreliable, but they were also consciously used to manipulate the readers’ image of Celts. Rome’s long-standing fear of the Galli had made way for a fear of the druids by the 1st century A.D. The Romans were increasingly interested in the Celts/Galli in the 1st century B.C., catalysed by Caesar campaigning in Gaul and Britain. But despite first-hand knowledge, authors used obsolete topoi. The reasons for this changed through time and the ‘Celts’ became increasingly instrumentalised. This leads us to another important question: can we use these Graeco-Roman sources for the study of Celtic religion? Are the information on deities, rituals, priesthoods, re-incarnation and Pythagoreanism reliable? These are some of the questions addressed in this paper.

Заявляя тему: «О приложении разума к текстологии», я не стрем люсь с самого начала определять значение термина разум, -смысл, при даваемый мной этому слову, станет, надеюсь, ясен из дальнейшего. Напротив, термин текстология настоятельно требует определения, по скольку множество людей, включая даже и тех, кто берется обучать этому предмету других, не знают, что это такое. Существуют книги, провозгласившие себя введениями в текстологию, в которых не найти ни единого слова о текстологии от первой страницы до последней; они посвящены палеографии, рукописям, коллации, а к текстологии име ют отношения не больше, чем если бы в них говорилось о морфологии и синтаксисе. Без сомнения, палеография -одна из наук, в знакомстве с которыми текстолог нуждается; то же можно сказать и о грамматике. Обе они необходимы -и обе, во всей совокупности, не способны ни на йоту приблизить нас к текстологии.

For Lucretius, history means something surprisingly different than we ordinarily think. Instead of thinking of history in terms of time, he thought of it in terms of motion. This book unpacks the implications of this unique kinetic philosophy of history.

In the final volume of his trilogy on Lucretius, Thomas Nail argues that in books five and six of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius described a world born to die – long before humans theorised about thermodynamics or began to see the catastrophic consequences of man-made climate change. What does it mean to live in such a world; a world that is increasinly obviously our world? Nail shows us how De Rerum Natura provides a guidebook for us to answer this question.

Redazione informatica: Margherita I. Grasso È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, non autorizzata, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, compresa la fotocopia, anche a uso interno e didattico. L'illecito sarà penalmente perseguibile a norma dell'art. 171 della Legge n. 633 del 22.04.1941 ISBN 978-88-7694-967-8 Volume stampato con il contributo di fondi COFIN 2003 Prototipi, interpretazioni e deformazioni: Callimaco e l'epinicio, Teocrito e Virgilio nell'esegesi antica che ho contratto in questi anni sono numerosi. Desidero ringraziare, in primo luogo, professori e colleghi del Dipartimento di Scienze dell'antichità dell'Università di Firenze, dove un primo nucleo del commento ha preso forma come tesi di laurea, e di quello di Glottologia e Filologia classica dell'Università di Udine, dove è proseguito come tesi di dottorato. Ringrazio in particolare Augusto Guida, che mi ha seguito in qualità di tutor offrendomi un sostegno non solo intellettuale, Gianpiero Rosati, che ha avuto la pazienza di leggere alcune parti del commento, Franco Maltomini, coordinatore del dottorato medesimo. A quest'ultimo, e al compianto Roberto Pretagostini, questo lavoro fu sottoposto come tesi di dottorato. A entrambi sono grata per i suggerimenti che mi diedero in quella circostanza, e al prof. Pretagostini per avermi seguito anche nella fase di revisione successiva.

Desde los comienzos de la Baja Edad Media y hasta el siglo XVII circularon por Europa una enorme cantidad de libros que prometían revelar a sus lectores los misterios de la naturaleza y de las artes. Estos «libros de secretos» constituyen un tipo muy particular de literatura técnica, situado a medio camino entre los recetarios y los textos herméticos, y abierto a gran cantidad de temáticas, desde la fisiognomía hasta la magia, aunque las más extendidas fueron la alquimia y la medicina.
En este volumen se presenta la primera edición crítica del De secretis mulierum, un tratado bajomedieval de origen alemán que se inserta dentro de esa tradición de los libros de secretos y que constituye el primer representante de los secreta mulierum o «secretos de las mujeres», un subgénero muy particular, relacionado tanto con la filosofía natural como con la medicina y dedicado a desvelar los misterios del proceso de la generación humana. El De secretis mulierum, que conoció una amplísima difusión durante varios siglos, hecho al que no fue ajena su adscripción, errónea, a Alberto Magno, es un documento de gran importancia no sólo para los investigadores interesados en la filosofía natural y la medicina de las épocas medieval y renacentista, sino también para los que trabajen en campos como la astrología, la fisiognomía o la historia de las mujeres. Todos ellos encontrarán en la edición crítica del tratado una base textual sólida y segura sobre la que llevar a cabo sus investigaciones. El volumen incluye además una traducción del texto latino al castellano, así como un estudio introductorio en el que se realiza un acercamiento general a los libros de secretos medievales, prestando especial atención a los de contenido médico y, dentro de estos, a los "secreta mulierum."

The collection of writings known today as the New Testament has been  preserved in more witnesses than any other text in antiquity. Such a multitude of witnesses has also yielded greater textual plurality, constituted by the ubiquitous presence of textual variation. The present article aims to introduce the notion of textual plurality in the New Testament more generally,  followed by a discussion of various means of scribal involvement in its origin as well as the subsequent scribal interaction with it.

L’articolo anticipa e compendia la monografia edita, nella sua versione integrale, da Carocci Editore (2021) col titolo "Pirandello e l'ossessione dantesca. Uno, nessuno centomila riscrittura allegorica della Commedia" (introduzione di Lia Fava Guzzetta), con la quale l’autrice analizza - alla luce di Dante - le scelte stilistiche, gli snodi dell’intreccio, i personaggi e gli oggetti messi in campo da Luigi Pirandello nel suo ultimo romanzo. Si svela così una tessitura narrativa mai casuale, generata da un'intensa manipolazione stilistica del sotto-testo dantesco (doppi sensi, omografie, paraetimologie, sinonimie di natura etimologica, uso intensivo delle figure della dispositio, delle leggi della fonetica e della grammatica storica). Emerge, cioè, un'operazione stilistica che riscrive pedissequamente e ridà vita alla biografia e all'opera  di Dante di cui Vitangelo Moscarda è in tutto fedele reincarnazione, naso storto incluso. L'opera, ridotta troppo spesso a "romanzo filosofico", si dimostra così  un grandioso omaggio a Dante, e opera letteraria nel senso pieno della parola, in cui Pirandello (dantista appassionato e autore di saggi danteschi sfortunatamente poco studiati) nell'arco di quindici anni ha profuso la sua raffinata cultura umanistica e una profonda conoscenza stilistica della nostra più nobile tradizione letteraria. Il pdf propone il manoscritto nella versione originariamente consegnata per la pubblicazione alla Rivista di Letteratura Italiana.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal incompetency or inconsistency in their spelling practices. To find the same word both spelled correctly and misspelled with a single manuscript b the same scribe is not uncommon. It approaches the  norm. The critical editions of our Greek NTs have therefore opted, on good grounds, to exclude textual variants displaying non-standardized spelling. To include them would make it impossible for anyone to use the critical apparatuses in a meaningful way. The deluge of senseless errors would drown out variants of demonstrable textual significance.

The publication of Josef Schmid's landmark work on the textual history of the Apocalypse seemingly established the Andreas Text Type as a fourth-century product. The primary evidence for Schmid's claim came from the fourth-century corrections of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus, corrections which bore a close resemblance to the Andreas text of the Apocalypse. Schmid's reconstruction, however, is flawed. The fourth-century corrections he identified are actually from the seventh-century. The data supporting a fourth-century Andreas text type does not exist. Schmid's widely influential error appears to have been based on a misreading of Milne and Skeat's "Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus."

The steady stream of provocative and popular text-critical works by Bart Ehrman has been stirring the apologetic's hornet's nest for a few years now. There has been no shortage of responses to his claims about proto-orthodox scribes tampering with the text of the NT. Wallace's Revisiting the Corruption of the NT is one of the latest apologetic works to attempt to set the record straight. The volume is successful in demonstrating that textual matters are more complex than is often portrayed and proffers viable, alternative explanations for textual variants in Ehrman's narrative of orthodox corruption. The collection of essays is nonetheless beset by a number of deficiencies, not least of which are its understandings of the text, scribal activity, and history. The book's naked apologetic intent is its greatest liability. Evidence appears to have been used selectively, and partial and misleading comparisons are made for the sake of apologetic gain.

A short article on the origin and development of the longer Trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7-8 as found in the Textus Receptus. The typos that are present in this draft will be corrected before the final version is submitted for publication. These include: Lachman > Lachmann; 1881 > 1831; Montifortianus > Montfortianus; [Ayuso] Ionneum > Ioanneum; [Bludau 1903-1] Bibeldruchen > Bibeldrucken; [Bludau 1919-1] den Glaubensbekenntnis > dem Glaubensbekenntnis; [Fischer] pseudo-autustinischen > pseudo-augustinischen; obiectarum. > obiectarum.’; [Rivière] es trois > des trois. Thanks to Jeff Cate, Peter Gurry, and especially Jan Krans for alerting me to these when it was originally posted on academia in 2015. The data of this DRAFT will also fully updated and footnoted in the 2020 peer-reviewed version in "Early Christianity."

Currently, within Academia, the narrative concerning how the Roman general Vespasian rose to power to become Emperor portrays this man as a great general and military genius who gained the throne of Rome thanks to the army. Vespasian may indeed have been a great general, but the understanding that he was Rome’s first non-noble ruler is flawed.
The narrative of Vespasian being from very modest and humble origins is given by many professors of history and the Classics, including Professor Barry Strauss:
Romans expected their rulers to have the prestige that came with noble birth. They all did, in one way or another, until Vespasian. He was Rome’s first nonnoble ruler. The first commoner on the Palatine Hill. The first plebeian emperor - Ten Caesars, Chapter 4, Vespasian The Commoner
and British Historian Barbara M. Levick:
His beginnings could be presented by detractors as degrading. A poverty-stricken boyhood, involving manual work on his parents’ farm and preventing him from acquiring an educa- tion, was ascribed to Gaius Marius, the great general from near Arpinum. Origin outside Rome (Arpinum had not received Roman citizenship until 188 bc) made a man liable to attacks that were hard to disprove when he had grown up in obscurity...Vespasian rose unthinkably high for a man of his origins, whatever his gifts and industry. - Vespasian, Chapter 1, A New Man In Politics

Coming to an understanding that Vespasian was from a very humble background is logical, it is based on the information presented by the ancient Historian known to us as Suetonius, in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, under Vespasian. However, I am of the position that we usually only learn something new when preconceptions are put aside and we discover we have been mistaken about something.

"As a letter writer Peter Abelard is known best for the autobiographical Historia calamitatum, which presents itself ostensibly as a consolatoria [epistola] to an unnamed friend, and his correspondence with Heloise, which amounts to seven letters, often subsumed into the so-called Personal Letters (Letters 2–5) and the so-called Letters of Direction (Letters 6–8). These eight letters are now most often numbered continuously from one through eight, although confusingly they have been presented sometimes with the Historia calamitatum unnumbered and the letters from and to Heloise numbered one through seven, rather than two through eight. (This is to say nothing of the so-called Lost Love Letters, which have been argued recently and controversially to be excerpts from the billets doux exchanged by Heloise and Abelard during their love affair.) All of these texts have been made easily accessible in good editions and translations and are generally familiar to medievalists. Less studied have been at least a half dozen other letters, among which are Letters 9–14, which were edited definitively by the late Edmé Smits (1950–1992). These other writings have the disadvantages of not being as closely associated with the personal engagement of Peter Abelard and Heloise, of having separate addressees, and of being transmitted separately rather than in an organic collection. But several of them stand out for being as extraordinary in their own right as is the personal correspondence, and they hold the potential to repay the effort of close examination. In this case I would like to probe two of them to glean insights into Peter Abelard’s practice as a historian and as a textual critic. Letters 11 and 10 will be treated chronologically, not according to the traditional numbering."

Westcott and Hort assessed the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament according to the principles of textual criticism. Based on their investigations, they claimed that the Byzantine text was not the closest to the authentic writings as the King James promotes. It appeared to possess consolidated accounts from other text families, and some readings seemed to have been altered for greater transparency and perception. Thus, they concluded it was at minimum two steps separated from the original writings. These other text families include: Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, Great, and Geneva Bibles.  In addition, they discovered no evidence of its existence in the documents of the early church fathers, and there are no texts older than the fourth century...

This brief study offers a fresh reevaluation of the text of Gal 1.4, namely the variation unit involving the exchange of the prepositions ὑπέρ and περί. Having surveyed and appraised both external and internal evidence, the author concludes that, other things being equal, the reading περί is more likely to be initial.

L'indagine sul pensiero dei giuristi romani intorno ai rapporti fra ius e natura può ricevere nuovo impulso -e persino sperimentare un rinnovamento di prospettivadall'inclusione, nel novero delle fonti pertinenti, delle declamationes di I e II secolo d.C., che restituiscono casi e ragionamenti che possono essere utilmente confrontati con quelli proposti dalla letteratura giuridica, della quale le declamationes riflettono l'attuazione giudiziale, sia pur con i limiti derivanti dalla loro origine didattica.