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Saturday, September 9, 2017

Versional Manuscripts at the Library of Congress

            The website of the Library of Congress provides page-views of dozens and dozens of Greek New Testament manuscripts, to which I provided links in earlier posts.  It also contains quite an impressive assortment of versional New Testament manuscripts – Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, Slavonic, and Syriac are all represented.
            The members of the 1949-1950 expedition that photographed these manuscripts must have worked in a preternatural energetic flurry in order to collect all these page-views.  The manuscripts listed here represent just a fraction of the work involved; a total of 1,073 manuscripts were photographed.  They included not only manuscripts of Scripture but also patristic and liturgical works. Some of the compositions fall into such obscure categories that one might need a jargon-dictionary to sort it all out.  Such a resource is provided at the Library of Congress’ website, helping viewers to know the difference between a Sticherarion and a Synaxarion.  Also provided at the Library of Congress’ archives:  a tour of Saint Catherine’s monastery in pictures! It’s like visiting the monastery as it existed seventy years ago, minus the sand.    
            Without further ado, here is a list of 163 versional New Testament manuscripts at Jerusalem and Sinai, consisting of 56 Arabic manuscripts (this is not all of them!), 20 Armenian manuscripts, 1 Ethiopic manuscript, 27 Georgian manuscripts, 6 Slavonic manuscripts, and 53 Syriac manuscripts:      

Arabic New Testament Manuscripts at Jerusalem:
A page from Arabic MS
68 at St. Catherine's
.

Arabic 15 – Evangelion (Made in 1700s)
Arabic 18 – Evangelion (Made in 1500s)
Arabic 29 – Apostolos (Made in 1642)
Arabic 30 – Evangelion (Made in 1405)
Arabic 60 – Evangelion (Made in 1615)
Arabic 71 – Apostolos (Made in 1764)
Arabic 226 – Apostolos (Made in 1764)
Arabic 236 – Evangelion (Made in 1738)

Some Arabic New Testament Manuscripts at St. Catherine’s:
Arabic MS 74, page-view 68,
at Saint Catherine's.

Arabic Manuscripts 68 – Four Gospels (1300s), a decorated copy
Arabic Manuscripts 151 – Epistles and Acts (made in 867)  Unusual formatting of the text.
Arabic Manuscripts 310 – Epistles of Paul (late 900s)  Neatly written.

Armenian New Testament Manuscripts: 
A page from the
King Gagek Gospels
.

Armenian 1924 – Four Gospels (A.D. 1064) braided cross frontispiece

Ethiopic New Testament Manuscript: 
Saint John in Ethiopic MS 11,
at Jerusalem.

Georgian New Testament Manuscripts at St. Catherine’s:

            Braided cross page.

Georgian New Testament Manuscripts at Jerusalem:
A page from Georgian MS
102 at Jerusalem.

            Also notable: 

Slavonic New Testament Manuscripts:
Slavonic (Slavic) Manuscripts 1 – Four Gospels (at St. Catherine’s) (production-date unknown)
Slavonic (Slavic) Manuscripts 2 – Four Gospels (at St. Catherine’s) (Made in 1532)
Slavonic (Slavic) Manuscripts 3 – Four Gospels (at St. Catherine’s) (production-date unknown)
Slavonic (Slavic) 39 – Apostolos (production-date unknown)
Slavonic Abraam 3 – Four Gospels (at Jerusalem) (1200s)
The beginning of Matthew
in Slavonic MS Abraam 3.


Syriac New Testament Manuscripts at St. Catherine’s:    

Syriac MS 3 – Epistles of Paul (c. 600) – An important manuscript.
Syriac MS 30 – Gospels (late 300s/early 400s) This is the Sinaitic Syriac palimpsest.  The upper writing consists of biographies and martyrologies of female saints.  The lower writing is the Gospels text.
Two pages from Syriac MS
159 at St. Catherine's.

            Also notable:
            Syriac MS 59 – Homilies on John (c. 800)
            Syriac MS 19 – Homilies on Song of Songs (c. 700)

Syriac New Testament Manuscripts at Jerusalem:
Syriac 1 – Evangelion (Made in 1679)

That is a lot of versional New Testament manuscripts!


This post is presented in memory of Vickey Rose McCorkle, cherished sister in Christ.
“She has been a helper of many, and of myself also.”



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you very much for your effort.
May you inform us also about Persian copies of the Gospels?
Thanks in advance!