Curetonian Gospels
Encyclopedia
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
in Old Syriac
Old Syriac
The term Old Syriac can refer to either* an early stage of the Syriac language* or the two Syriac manuscripts of the separate gospels that some think predate the standard Peshitta version:** the Curetonian Gospels**and the Sinaitic Palimpsest...
, a translation from the Aramaic originals, according to William Cureton
William Cureton
-Life:He was born in Westbury, Shropshire. After being educated at the Adams' Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became chaplain of Christ Church, sublibrarian of the Bodleian, and, in 1837, assistant keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum...
differing considerably from the canonical Greek texts, with which they had been collated and "corrected"; Henry Harmon concluded, however, that their originals had been Greek from the outset. The order of the gospels is Matthew, Mark, John, Luke. The text is one of only two Syriac manuscripts of the separate gospels that possibly predate the standard Syriac version, the Peshitta
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
; the other is the Sinaitic Palimpsest
Sinaitic Palimpsest
The Syriac Sinaitic , known also as the Sinaitic Palimpsest, of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai is a late 4th century manuscript of 358 pages, containing a translation of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament into Syriac, which have been overwritten by a vita of female saints...
. A fourth Syriac text is the harmonized Diatessaron
Diatessaron
The Diatessaron is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic. The term "diatessaron" is from Middle English by way of Latin, diatessarōn , and ultimately Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων The Diatessaron (c 160 - 175) is the most prominent Gospel harmony...
. The Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest appear to have been translated from independent Greek originals.
Text
The Syriac text of the codex is a representative of the Western textWestern text-type
The Western text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts...
. Significant variant readings include:
- In Matthew 4:23 the variant "in whole Galilee" together with Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, Codex BobiensisCodex BobiensisCodex Bobiensis is a fragmentary Latin manuscript of the bible. Specifically, it is an example of a Vetus Latina bible, which were used from the 2nd century until Jerome's Latin translation, the Vulgate, was written in the 5th century. The text contains parts of the Gospel of Mark and Gospel of...
, ℓ 20Lectionary 20Lectionary 20, designated by siglum ℓ 20 , is a Greek manuscript of the New Testament, on vellum leaves. It is dated by a colophon to the year 1047.- Description :...
and copsaCoptic versions of the BibleThere have been many Coptic versions of the Bible, including some of the earliest translations into any language. Several different versions were made in the ancient world, with different editions of the Old and New Testament in all four of the major dialects of Coptic: Bohairic , Fayyumic, Sahidic...
. Matthew 12:47 is omitted. - In Matthew 16:12 the variant leaven of bread of the Pharisees and Sadducees supported only by Codex SinaiticusCodex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
and Codex Corbeiensis ICodex Corbeiensis IThe Codex Corbeiensis I, designated by ff1 or 9 , is a 8th, 9th, or 10th century Latin New Testament manuscript. The text, written on vellum, is a version of the old Latin...
. - In Luke 23:43 the variant I say today to you, you will be with me in paradise supported only by unspaced dot in Codex VaticanusCodex VaticanusThe Codex Vaticanus , is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible , one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, where it has been stored since at least the 15th century...
and lack of punctuation in earlier Greek MSS.
History
The manuscript gets its curious name from being edited and published by William CuretonWilliam Cureton
-Life:He was born in Westbury, Shropshire. After being educated at the Adams' Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became chaplain of Christ Church, sublibrarian of the Bodleian, and, in 1837, assistant keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum...
in 1858. The manuscript was among a mass of manuscripts brought in 1842 from a Syrian monastery in the Wadi Natroun, Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the fertile Nile Delta region, which stretches from the area between El-Aiyat and Zawyet Dahshur, south of modern-day Cairo, and the Mediterranean Sea....
, as the result of a series of negotiations that had been under way for some time; it is conserved in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
. Cureton recognized that the Old Syriac text of the gospels was significantly different from any known at the time. He dated the manuscript fragments to the fifth century; the text, which may be as early as the second century, is written in the oldest and classical form of the Syriac alphabet
Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
, called Esṭrangelā, without vowel points.
In 1872 William Wright
William Wright (orientalist)
William Wright was a famous British Orientalist, and Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. Many of his works on Syriac literature are still in print and of considerable scholarly value, especially the catalogues of the holdings of the British Library and Cambridge University Library...
, of the University of Cambridge, privately printed about a hundred copies of further fragments, Fragments of the Curetonian Gospels, (London, 1872), without translation or critical apparatus. The fragments, bound as flyleaves in a Syriac codex
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
in Berlin, once formed part of the Curetonian manuscript, and fill some of its lacuna
Lacuna (manuscripts)
A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...
e.
The publication of the Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest enabled scholars for the first time to examine how the gospel text in Syriac changed between the earliest period (represented by the text of the Sinai and Curetonian manuscripts) and the later period. The Syriac versions of the New Testament remain less thoroughly studied than the Greek.
The standard text is that of Francis Crawford Burkitt
Francis Crawford Burkitt
Francis Crawford Burkitt was a British theologian and scholar. He was Norris Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, from 1905 until shortly before his death. Burkitt was a sturdy critic of the notion of a distinct "Caesarean Text" of the New Testament put forward by B. H...
, 1904; it was used in the comparative edition of the Syriac gospels that was edited by George Anton Kiraz, 1996.
External links
- Thomas Nicol, "Syriac Versions of the Bible" A simplified on-line introduction.
- Curetonian Syriac