classics digests, reflections and reviews
Background and Disclaimer Catholic blogger Eamonn Clark wrote that I was “intellectually lazy”, because I didn’t address his arguments made in response to my defense of sola sriptura. Although his criticism of my laziness is valid in general, it is invalid, not to mention uncharitable, in this particular case. I would be more than happy to engage further, as long and hard as necessary, if I believed that this type […]
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This is the eighth instalment of my blog series on the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB). As I wrote in the prelude, this exercise has a three-fold purpose, to satisfy my personal curiosity, to demonstrate as a proof of concept how information technology (IT) can boost NT studies, and how valuable scholarly resources like LDAB can be used to educate the general reader. IT can and will definitely further […]
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A historical question that interests me personally is the formation of the New Testament Canon, viz. how the 27 books of the New Testament, which were separately composed and transmitted, became collected into one body and regarded as the standard for Christian doctrine and practice. The word “canon” is derived from a Greek word meaning rule or standard. I’d like to explore, by examining the manuscript metadata, whether the New […]
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The following table lists the earliest dated Greek manuscripts of all 27 books of the New Testament, sorted by the dates assigned according to Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB)[1] and New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR) [2]. It includes all manuscripts dated to between the 2nd and 4th century by both LDAB and NTVMR. The Gospels and the majority of Paul’s epistles are dated to before mid-3rd century. P52 […]
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