Greek Paleography Course

A Greek paleography crash course is being offered this summer in Leiden for interested students that is worth consideration. 

EPHE-PSL Seminars on Ancient Scripts

On the Scriptish mailing list Andreas Stauder announces French-language program of seminars on a wide range of ancient scripts. The recorded sessions are also available on YouTube. See below details from the email.

Cycle « Les écritures dans les mondes anciens »,  

de l’Institut des langues rares (Ilara) de l’EPHE-PSL (Paris) : 

 

- Le programme : 

https://ilara.hypotheses.org/files/2022/02/Conferences-ecritures-anciennes.pdf 

 

- La prochaine conférence :  

« Observations sur les écritures d’Asie Centrale au Ier millénaire de notre ère »,  

par Georges-Jean Pinault, le mercredi 20 avril, à 18h30 (inscription gratuite, obligatoire, sur eventbrite) : 

https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/billets-conference-8-cycle-de-conferences-les-ecritures-dans-les-mondes-anciens-316661361657  

 

- La chaîne YouTube, avec les sept conférences déjà données :  

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT__n1OePD2jGdJTR0hNVdUrYYF-Nl3c5 

Scribes and Their Remains

T&T Clark has a new book out called Scribes and Their Remains. From the website, the book includes the following chapters, mostly on early Christian scribes, manuscripts, and scribal practices:

About Scribes and Their Remains

Scribes and Their Remains begins with an introductory essay by Stanley Porter which addresses the principal theme of the book: the text as artifact. 

The rest of the volume is then split into two major sections. In the first, five studies appear on the theme of 'Scribes, Letters, and Literacy.' In the first of these Craig A. Evans offers a lengthy piece that argues that the archaeological, artifactual, and historical evidence suggests that New Testament autographs and first copies may well have remained in circulation for one century or more, having the effect of stabilizing the text. Other pieces in the section address literacy, orality and paleography of early Christian papyri. 

In the second section there are five pieces on 'Writing, Reading, and Abbreviating Christian Scripture.' These range across numerous topics, including an examination of the stauros (cross) as a nomen sacrum.

Table of contents

Editors Introduction 
Abbreviations
Text as Artifact: An Introduction - Stanley E. Porter, McMaster Divinity College, Canada
Part I: Scribes, Letters, and Literacy
1. Longevity of Late Antique Autographs and First Copies: A Postscriptum - Craig A. Evans, Houston Baptist University, USA
2. Greek Writ Plain: Village Scribes, Q, and the Palaeography of the Earliest Christian Papyri - Gregg Schwendner, Wichita State University, USA
3. My Lord and Protector: Papyri and Skepe Patronage in Sirach and 3 Maccabees - Christopher J. Cornthwaite, Canadian Institute in Greece, Greece
4. Hilarion's Letter to His Wife, Child Exposure, and Early Christianity - Jeremiah J. Johnston, Houston Baptist University, USA
5. Fetishizing the Word: Literacy, Orality and the Dead Sea Scrolls - Ian C. Werrett, St Martin's University, USA
Part II: Writing, Reading, and Abbreviating Christian Scripture
6. Signed with an “X”: Stauros and the Staurogram Among the Nomina Sacra - Benjamin R. Overcash, Macquarie University, USA
7. New Light from the Papyri: The Sacred Background of Biblos in Matthew 1:1 - Michael P. Theophilos, Australian Catholic University, Australia
8. The Early Papyri, “Gospel-Parallel” Variants, and the Text of the New Testament in the Second Century - Roy D. Kotansky, Independent Scholar
9. Terms of Kinship from Usage in Everyday Language to Official Christian Life - Eleonora Angela Conti, University of Florence, Italy 
10. Early Christian Rolls - Marco Stroppa, University of Florence, Italy
Index

Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS)

I just got word today that my Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS) article has now been published online:

https://www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de/record/8898#.YGVy0i0RpbU

Thanks again to all who contributed, and especially Eugenia Sokolinski for all her help getting it ready and online.

The article stems from several observations of parallels between different scripts in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which I then developed in greater detail. This is my attempt to explain many of the most prominent stylistic developments in the Hebrew/Aramaic scripts, whose causes have to my mind never been sufficiently elucidated. I hope to build this into a larger comparative manuscript studies project.

Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS): Script Interactions and Hebrew/Aramaic Writing Culture

Longacre, Drew

    Writing is an expression of culture and is subject to intercultural influences. In this comparative study, I argue that Egyptian and Judean Hebrew/Aramaic scripts from 400 BCE–400 CE were heavily influenced by Greek and later Latin writing cultures, which explains many previously inexplicable phenomena. Jewish writers in the third century BCE adopted the Greek split-nibbed reed pen, which dramatically changed the appearance of Hebrew/Aramaic scripts. At the same time, the normal size for Hebrew/ Aramaic scripts shrank considerably, the pen strokes became mostly monotone and unshaded, and the scripts became more rectilinear, angular, bilinear, and square.
    Each of these features appears to be due to direct imitation of contemporary Greek formal writing. Beginning in the first century BCE, Hebrew/Aramaic writers began to decorate their formal scripts with separate ornamental strokes like those of contemporary Greek and Latin calligraphic scripts. And from the second or third century CE, Hebrew/Aramaic calligraphic scripts seem to be increasingly characterized by horizontal shading, parallel to the contemporary rise of Greek and Latin shaded scripts. Furthermore, in the late Roman period, the traditional Hieratic-derived Aramaic numeral system was replaced by an alphabetic numeral system under the influence of the Greek Milesian alphabetic numerals.

New 8ḤevXII gr Fragments and Radiocarbon Dating

There have been several news reports that the new Greek fragments of 8ḤevXII gr were radiocarbon dated to the 2nd century CE, which has raised concerns online. I confirmed with Joe Uziel of the IAA that the new fragments were in fact NOT subjected to radiocarbon dating, so we remain dependent upon the same arguments from paleography and archeological context for the date of the scroll.

The Damascus Psalm Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī

Ahmad Al-Jallad (with a contribution by Ronny Vollandt) has published an open access volume on a fascinating Arabic psalter written in Greek script: The Damascus Psalm Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī.