Casper

How would that compare to something (almost) equally as popular, like the works of Euclid?

Roger Pearse

I don't know anything about the textual transmission of Euclid's works -- do you? What manuscripts exist?

In general the works with the really big numbers of witnesses are the bible, and then the Greek fathers (because what exists is mainly what monks chose to copy and preserve). On the other hand, the Byzantine school education remained classical and pagan and atticist right until the end.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Casper

I'm sorry I don't know either. I know that is a work in extremely wide circulation, and it was definitely Greek in origin, so I suggested it, but I didn't intend to exclude any other. I also realize this may be excluded from your statement because it isn't exactly literature.

Roger Pearse

No, I would certainly include it, as it is transmitted by copying in the same way.

You say that it "is a work in extremely wide circulation" -- can I ask how you know this? Also do you mean in antiquity, or during the middle ages?

The problem with knowing the transmission of Greek literature in general is that there is no equivalent to L.D.Reynolds, "Texts and transmissions" (which covers Latin literature). So to find out one has to go to the critical editions, which of course list the mss at the front.

From time to time I've written notes on those I've come across here. But of course these are just a drop in the ocean.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Elements

This page suggests that the oldest manuscript of his Elements is 9th century (which is what might be expected), announcing a digital version of it online. There seems to be an Arabic tradition.

Here is a link to the digital version of the manuscript, which is from the Bodleian, shelfmark was D'Orville 301 but seems to have changed.

Here are lists of the mss of the translation(s) into Latin and Arabic. Euclid was translated in Latin ca. 500 by Boethius; mss of bits exist from the 9th century. Translations from the Greek into Arabic by translators such as Hunain ibn Ishaq and Tabit also exist from the 10th century.

Here is a papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus (POxy I. 29), dated either 3-4th century or else 75-125 AD!

The same site says:

"What other really ancient items from Euclid's Elements are there still around?

Not much from before the ninth century, mostly small fragments like this one. You can find a pretty complete list in Chapter 6 of David Fowler's book The Mathematics of Plato's Academy, which also has a collection of images.

One of the two oldest complete manuscripts is the Greek manuscript D'Orville 301, dated 888 A.D, at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. A single image from that manuscript is available on-line. The frontispiece of T. L. Heath's translation is from this manuscript, and The Mathematics of Plato's Academy contains an image of two pages concerned with II.5. Incidentally, the manuscript is not normally accessible even to authorized readers at the Library, presumably on account of its fragility, but a micro-film of the full manuscript is available for examination. It is not really of very high quality, I am afraid . (It would be great if the Bodleian would have the whole book photographed and made available on the Internet, wouldn't it?)

The other of the two is at the Vatican.

David Fowler estimates that less than 1% of Euclid's Greek text is available from any source earlier than 888. "

Other works

I've not seen anything on the Optics yet.

Casper

Wow, great resource you have put together Roger, I can't believe I've missed this in the past.

I was referring to wide circulation today, which was where I was starting as comparison from. We know it was written in the 4th century BCE, and it gained popularity in the 5th century CE, so I think it might be a good comparison for today's Bibles. Maybe I went off tangent and that is not what you meant?

A soft reference is =Wiki's entry on Elements which includes the Boyer's reference on circulation. I don't think anyone would dispute it being extensively distributed, even if Boyer was engaging in Hyperbole.

Roger Pearse

You're very kind. But it's the sort of thing that any of us can do; just upload factual data at our disposal, as and when we feel like it.

Wide use today, undoubtedly; but based on a normal, slender textual tradition, by comparison with the 5,000 odd mss of the NT.

But... yes, I suppose it is a good comparison. Technical works are indeed somewhat different in various respects to literature -- they tend to get 'updated' rather more, for one thing, and they often have Arabic versions, as the Moslems were very keen to get their hands on Greek technology. But it looks as if Euclid's Elements otherwise has a quite typical transmission, and our knowledge of it relies on two early Greek manuscripts -- of the 9th century!

We could wonder whether Dr Ehrman would consider that the text of Euclid -- which is based on so much fewer and later manuscripts -- is likewise full of errors? (If that is genuinely the argument that he makes)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Casper

This has piqued my interest.

There is apparently an existing Arabic Manuscript from the 8th century, and reason to believe the predecessor came from the Byzantine empire through Caliph al-Mansur (754-775), or Caliph al-Ma'mun (813-833).

The oldest surviving that I can find mentioned is the work of Al-Hajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Matar, and this I've web-traced to Heath:

Heath, Thomas L. (1956). The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements (3 vols.), 2nd ed. [Facsimile. Original publication: Cambridge University Press, 1925], New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-60088-2 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-486-60089-0 (vol. 2), ISBN 0-486-60090-4 (vol. 3).

This really does have some interesting fruit for the study of text evolution. There are even two books considered Apocryphal (books 14 & 15), and some of the errors are easily traceable, I surmise because there was no need of philosophical interpretation. After all, why wouldn't a txtbook be corrected unless maybe the error is not noticed?

Thanks Roger, you gave me my browsing task for the day.

Roger Pearse

Glad to help! Yes, it *is* interesting, isn't it?

It's worth remembering that the Caliphate included Greek cities. Hunain ibn Ishaq was able to search for manuscripts of Galen within the Moslem world, and find them, albeit in bad repair. The prefaces to his works in which he recounts this sort of thing do not seem to exist in English, other than in extracts.

Al-Mamun presided over a lot of the translation work, if I recall correctly.

We should also recall that usually texts were not translated directly from Greek to Arabic, but first from Greek to Syriac (for which process a methodology already existed) and then from Syriac into the closely related Arabic (indeed Syriac speakers can make themselves understood in Arabic).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Casper

It gets better. Oldest surviving fragment:

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/euclid/...s/papyrus.html

Possibly late first early second century.