The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove (Text-Critical Studies) (Archaeology and Biblical Studies)
Pages
308
Publisher
SBL Press
Published
2006
ISBN-13
9781589832084
The six biblical manuscripts that reside in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., are historically significant artifacts for tracing the early history of the transmission of the writings that make up the New Testament and the Septuagint. The manuscripts, all purchased in Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century by Charles Freer, date to the third through fifth centuries and include codices of the four Gospels, Deuteronomy and Joshua, the Psalms, and the Pauline Epistles, as well as a Coptic codex of the Psalms and a papyrus codex of the Minor Prophets, which, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was the earliest Greek manuscript of the Minor Prophets known. The ten essays in this volume are a notable collection of fresh scholarship with long-term value for the study of what is a small but highly valuable treasure trove of biblical manuscripts.
Reviews
Review of Biblical Literature (RBL) (Juan Hernández Jr.)
December 1, 2007
December 1, 2007
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2006. Pp. x + 308. Paper/cloth. $34.95/$149.00. ISBN 1589832086/9004146792. Juan Hernández Jr. Bethel University St. Paul, Minnesota Introduction By any measure, the imaginative task of reconstructing the past through an interrogation of its artifacts remains a daunting one, often complicated by the neglect of primary sources. Such appeared to be the fate of the Freer Codices, long overshadowed by the twentieth-century discoveries of the Egyptian papyri and the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the publication of Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove, edited by Larry W. Hurtado, fills a long-standing lacuna in the study of these codices and lays the groundwork for further historical inquiry. This volume covers three of the six available manuscripts in the Freer Collection: a papyrus codex of the Minor Prophets and two parchment codices—W (containing the four Gospels) and I (containing the Pauline Epistles). With the exception of the initial (“Paleography and Philanthropy: Charles Lang Freer and His Acquisition of the ‘Freer Biblical Manuscripts,’ ” by Kent D. Clarke) and final (“Manuscript Markup,” by Timothy J. Finney) contributions, each article explores unresolved yet relevant text-critical issues. Codex W garners the lion’s share of the attention, with six articles devoted to the study of its Gospels, five of which focus on Matthew either entirely or in part.
[Full Review]