Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 73:1 (NA 2022)
Article: Dissertation Summary The Scribes And Correctors Of Codex Vaticanus A Study On The Codicology, Paleography, And Text Of B(03)
Author: Jesse R. Grenz

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Dissertation Summary
The Scribes And Correctors Of Codex Vaticanus
A Study On The Codicology, Paleography, And Text Of B(03)¹

Jesse R. Grenz

[email protected]

For many, the field of New Testament textual criticism and manuscript studies can appear increasingly niche, while others continue to question its value altogether. Nevertheless, most readers will be familiar with the famous Codex Vaticanus and will recognise it by the siglum ‘B’ or the Gregory-Aland number ‘03’ in standard editions of the Septuagint (Rahlfs) or the Greek NT (NA28/UBS5). However, despite wide recognition of the codex and its importance for Septuagint and NT textual scholarship, there have not been any full-length treatments of the manuscript’s production and text. The current lacuna has become particularly evident in recent years as studies of individual manuscripts abound. While we have access to published monographs on Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Bezae, P46, and P47, there has not yet been a similar undertaking with Codex Vaticanus. The manuscript remained heavily guarded by the Vatican Library (BAV) for much of its modern history, resulting in many failed attempts to investigate the codex, especially by Protestant scholars. In 1999, however, the Vatican published an impressive photo-facsimile edition of the whole manuscript and subsequently released the high-resolution images online. As a result, scholars from around the world have been able to investigate the codex without needing direct access to the BAV.1

This doctoral thesis examines Codex Vaticanus (B[03]), beginning from its material construction, continuing to the palaeographic and paratextual features

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(Part I), and concluding with the early corrections in the manuscript (Part II). As is clear from the study’s title, the project finds its inspiration from the seminal monograph of H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat, Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (1938). At the end of their study, Milne and Skeat printed a four-page appendix on the scribes of B(03), where they applied several criteria to present a new division of scribes in the codex. By examining the coronides at the end of each book, the paragraphing, line fillers, nomina sacra, and orthography, the two scholars suggested that two scribes were involved in copying the whole pandect. This project returns to the data presented by Milne and Skeat, as well as Ludwig Traube before them,2 and examines additional evidence that instead supports a threefold division of the scribes of B(03) (Table 1).

Tabl...