Re: correctors of Codex Aleph

From: Michael Holmes (holmic@bethel.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 29 1996 - 12:13:05 EST


At 09:56 AM 3/29/96 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Hello, all.
>
>I had always understood that the first corrector of Sianaticus was the original
>scribe, but Aland (in the introduction to the NA27, p. 48*) dates the first
>corrector "4th-6th century." Am I wrong about the first corrector being the
>original scribe? Or is Aland regarding several different correctors/hands
>together under the 1st corrector sign?
>
>Further: if the first corrector of Sianaticus *was* the original scribe, what
>value is there in differentiating between the original hand and the first
>corrector when they differ? Shouldn't it be clear that the variant was a
>scribal error, corrected when the scribe checked his copy against the exemplar,
>and thus useless for determining the better reading, etc.?
>
>Grace and peace,
>
>Perry L. Stepp, Baylor University
>
>
Yes, NA26/27 does subsume more than one corrector under a single symbol. At
least some of the corrections are contemporaneous with, if not actually by,
the orignial scribes (there were three, which raises interesting questions
about who corrected what). As for your second paragraph: the scribe of p66
corrected his work against a *second* MS, which represented a different
textual tradition. I don't recall if there is evidence of this among the
very earliest corrections of Aleph, but the case of p66 indicates that one
cannot simply assume that corrections by the original scribe are w/o value.
The seventh century correctors of Aleph certainly did use a diff. MS (one
with a Byzantine character) as the basis for their work.
Mike Holmes
Bethel College



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