Peter Kirby

Hello,

Suppose that someone wanted to do some text criticism with the texts of the Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, or Tertullian. Where would he start?

I'm also interested in the manuscripts of Eusebius.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

andrewcriddle

For some of the above the Loeb edition is quite useful.

For Clement of Alexandria any serious text criticism has to start with Stahlin's great edition.

For Eusebius the major edition is Eusebius Werke in the GCS series which IMS includes a critical text of the early Latin translations of Eusebius.

For the Apostolic Fathers Lightfoot's work might still be useful.

Andrew Criddle

Peter Kirby

Just to be clear, do these editions make regular reference to manuscript variants?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

andrewcriddle

The major editions like Stahlin and Eusebius Werke do so exhaustively the Loeb editions are much more selective.

(One important point. For many of these writers the manuscript tradition is late and limited and hence conjectural emendation is sometimes required. Many of the variants listed in such a critical edition are previously suggested emendations not manuscript variations as such.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

One other point; many of the major editions are in German. (Not the text which is Greek or Latin but the comments)

Given the extreme weakness of my academic German I find this a problem but those more fluent will have no difficulty.

Andrew Criddle

Peter Kirby

Is there a dictionary of German designed especially for historical, classical, or biblical studies?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

pogo

I wouldn't think that historical studies use a special vocabulary in German. Anyways, if you need help with some German text just ask.

Steven Avery

In my (albeit very limited experience) there appears to be a danger of making church writer text-criticism interrelated with bible verse text criticism. Thus if a manuscript references a verse in a manner considered low on UBS, that will could be a factor making that manuscript low in church writer land. There is a lot of circularity in textcrit land, so caveats should be emptored.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

How often are church fathers and the New Testament written down on the same manuscript? Other than with some apostolic fathers (1 Clement, e.g.).

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Haran

I'm always late to TC threads these days...

Anyways, I agree with Andrew. I have the Loeb editions of the Apostolic Fathers and of Clement of Alexandria. They do list manuscript variants.

Another more recent resource that I would recommend is Michael Holmes' The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. It also lists manuscripts and gives variants below the text.

He used to frequent the online text crit e-lists...not sure if he still does.