Minuscule 546
Encyclopedia
Minuscule 546 ε 511 (in Soden's numbering), is a Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 minuscule manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, on parchment. It is dated palaeographically
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

 to the 13th century. It has some marginalia
Marginalia
Marginalia are scribbles, comments, and illuminations in the margins of a book.- Biblical manuscripts :Biblical manuscripts have liturgical notes at the margin, for liturgical use. Numbers of texts' divisions are given at the margin...

, the scribe has made numerous errors.

The manuscript has survived in bad condition and some parts of it were lost. It is housed at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

.

Description

The codex contains the text of the four Gospel
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...

s, on 276 thick parchment leaves (size ) with some lacunae
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...

 at the beginning and end (John 18:30–21:25). It has no covers. The manuscript has survived in bad condition and many of its leaves were misplaced in binding.

The text is written in one column per page, 22 lines per page. The text is divided according to the (chapters), whose numerals are given at the margin, and the (titles of chapters) at the top of the pages.
There is no a division according to the smaller Ammonian Sections
Ammonian Sections
Eusebian canons or Eusebian sections, also known as Ammonian Sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts date only from the 13th and 16th centuries, respectively...

; it was not prepared for liturgical reading.

It contains tables of the (tables of contents) before each Gospel, and portraits of the John Evangelist before the Gospel of John. The other portraits probably were cut out. There are the decorated head-pieces at the beginning of each Gospel. The list of the to Matthew is not complete, it begins with the 52nd . The list of the are complete before the other Gospels. The portrait of Saint John is defaced.

The nomina sacra
Nomina sacra
Nomina sacra means "sacred names" in Latin, and can be used to refer to traditions of abbreviated writing of several frequently occurring divine names or titles in early Greek language Holy Scripture...

 are contracted in an usual way.

Errors

There are no signs of iota adscript
Iota adscript
In Greek polytonic orthography, the iota adscript is a iota written after a long vowel in a long diphthong, as opposed to below the vowel as a small vertical stroke ....

 or iota subscript
Iota subscript
Iota subscript in Greek polytonic orthography is a way of writing the letter iota as a small vertical stroke beneath a vowel. It was used in the so-called "long diphthongs" in Ancient Greek, that is, diphthongs the first part of which is a long vowel: and...

. N εφελκυστικον is met with 63 times.

There are 21 omissions by homoioteleuton (Matthew 1:12; 5:22; 7:10.19; 10:33; 12:31; 18:18; 19:9; Mark 10:34; 11:28; 13:20; 14:46; 15:41; Luke 7:20; 22:30; John 7:28; 9:32; 12:34; 17:18; 18:7).

Errors of iotacism
Iotacism
Iotacism is the process by which a number of vowels and diphthongs in Ancient Greek converged in pronunciation so that they all sound like iota in Modern Greek....

 are 387 (the first hand), some of them were corrected by a later hand. Scrivener enumerated all errors of the first hand: η
ETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 for ι
Iota
Iota is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh . Letters that arose from this letter include the Roman I and J and the Cyrillic І , Yi , Je , and iotified letters .Iota represents...

 (28), ι for η (17), ε
Epsilon
Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He...

 for αι (15), αι for ε (22), η for ει (54), ει for η (37), ι for ει (43), ει for ι (10), ω
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...

 for ο (62), ο for ω (52), η for ε (4), ε for η (16), η for υ (5); υ
Upsilon
Upsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet.  In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw. The name of the letter is pronounced in Modern Greek, and in English , , or...

 for η (4), besides ημεις and υμεις interchanged 24 times; ω for ου (5), ου for ω (1); η for οι (10); οι for η (5); οι for υ (2); ι for υ (4); ει for υ (1); οι for ι (4). The augmentum
Augment (linguistics)
In linguistics, the augment is a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages, most notably Greek, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages such as Sanskrit, to form the past tenses.-Indo-European languages:...

 is omitted five times (Matthew 18:23.28; 27:44; Luke 5:13; 7:41; John 1:20).

It reads μελλει for μελει twice; always κυλος.

The only Alexandrian forms are in Matthew 5:36; in Luke 5:19; ουτω is found 13 times.

Text

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type
Byzantine text-type
The Byzantine text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts, though not in the oldest...

. Hermann von Soden classified it to Ak, related to the Antiocheian commentated text (Antiocheian = Byzantine). Aland
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...

 placed the Greek text of the codex in Category V.
According to the Claremont Profile Method, it forms a textual group with the codex 1167, in Luke 1
Luke 1
Luke 1 is the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It describes the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. It is written to Theophilus, who could be a real person or could simply mean a fellow Christian as theo philus is Greek for God lover...

; Luke 10; Luke 20.

Textual variants
The words before the bracket is the reading of the Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...

.
Matthew 2:22
Matthew 2:22
Matthew 2:22 is the twenty-second verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The young Jesus and the Holy Family have just left Egypt after hearing of the death of King Herod....

 — (upon) ] omitted
Matthew 3:11
Matthew 3:11
Matthew 3:11 is the tenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse occurs in the section relating the preachings of John the Baptist. In this verse he predicts that he will be followed by someone much greater than himself...

 — (and fire) ] omitted
Matthew 3:13
Matthew 3:13
Matthew 3:13 is the thirteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse introduces the section describing the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist....

 — (upon) ] (toward)
Matthew 3:15
Matthew 3:15
thumb|The Baptism of Christ, by [[Piero della Francesca]], [[1449]]Matthew 3:15 is the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has come to John the Baptist to be baptized, but John balked saying that he should be the one baptized...

 — (us) ] omit
Matthew 6:1
Matthew 6:1
Matthew 6:1 is the first verse of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse begins the discussion of how even good deeds can be done for the wrong reasons....

 — (pray) ]
Matthew 6:8
Matthew 6:8
Matthew 6:8 is the eighth verse of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse continues the discussion on the proper procedure for praying....

 — ]
Matthew 23:8 — (leader) ] (teacher)
Matthew 23:14 — (of heavens) ] θυ (of God)
Mark 10:30 — ] πρα και μρα (father and mother)
Mark 11:4 — omit ] (to the doors)
Luke 22:18 — omit ] (from now)

History

The manuscript is dated by the INTF to the 13th century. The early history of the manuscript is unknown. In 1864, the manuscript was in the possession of a dealer at Janina
Ioannina
Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...

 in Epeiros. It was then purchased from him by a representative of Baroness Burdett-Coutts
Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts , born Angela Georgina Burdett, was a nineteenth-century philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and the former Sophia Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts...

 (1814–1906), a philanthropist, together with other Greek manuscripts (among them codices 532
Minuscule 532
Minuscule 532 , ε 255 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century.Scrivener labeled it number 545....

545
Minuscule 545
Minuscule 545 , ε 511 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on paper. It is dated by a colophon to the year 1430....

). They were transported to England in 1870–1871.

The manuscript was presented by Burdett-Coutts to Sir Roger Cholmely's School, and was housed at the Highgate (Burdett-Coutts III. 41), in London. In 1922 it was acquired for the University of Michigan. It is currently housed at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 (Ms. 27) in Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...

.

It was added to the list of the New Testament manuscripts by F. H. A. Scrivener (559) and C. R. Gregory (546). Gregory saw it in 1883. It was examined by Dean Burgon, who described it in his The Revision Revised. Scrivener examined and collated its text. His collation was edited posthumously in 1893. The manuscript was digitised by the CSNTM on 7 February 2008.

See also

  • List of New Testament minuscules
  • Biblical manuscript
    Biblical manuscript
    A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek biblia ; manuscript comes from Latin manu and scriptum...

  • Textual criticism
    Textual criticism
    Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...


Further reading

(as r)
  • Kenneth W. Clark, A Descriptive Catalogue of Greek New Testament Manuscripts in America (Chicago, 1937), pp. 300–302.

External links

  • Images of the minuscule 546 at the CSNTM
    Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
    The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts is a non-profit organization set out to preserve ancient manuscripts of the Christian Scriptures New Testament. This aim is accomplished by taking high resolution digital photographs of all extant Greek New Testament manuscripts. The...

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