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Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the Latin version of the Christian apocryphal text known as the Acts of Timothy (AT). It includes a history-of-research focusing on critical editions and the present state of the manuscripts, tentatively postulating groups of Latin texts and highlighting differences in the Latin and Greek versions that shed light on recent examinations of this text. A short sample text based on approximately half of the known Latin witnesses demonstrates preliminary manuscript affiliations. All known Latin manuscripts are listed in an appendix with a new English translation of the entire (Latin) work.
Abstract
This essay offers a brief review of Joel Marcus, John the Baptist in History and Theology.
Abstract
According to Acts 13, after Barnabas and Paul confront the Jewish magician Bar-Jesus on Cyprus and successfully win the allegiance of Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, the fellow travelers visit Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath in Pisidian Antioch, Paul gives his first and only speech to Jews in Acts (13:16b-41). William M. Ramsay, subscribing to the “province” or “Southern Galatian” hypothesis, understands the addressees of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians to be those converted in response to this speech. Ramsay goes so far as to draw connections between the speech and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. In contrast, H.D. Betz argues that Galatians was written to Gentiles in Northern Galatia. Betz sees no proof of the historicity of the Acts account and finds no compelling reason, therefore, to associate it with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. A prolegomenon for both Ramsay and Betz is the purpose of Acts. Kirsopp Lake once asked whether it was “an accident that he [“Luke”] describes Paul’s first dealings with the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, and the Thessalonians,” noting that “Galatia was the remaining church which Paul founded and wrote to.” This essay argues that both Ramsay and Betz are in a sense correct. Paul’s visit to Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13 provides grounds for Paul’s foundation of the Galatic churches, irrespective of the historicity of its presentation in Acts. Further, it argues that such a stopover has a distinct narrative advantage; namely, it affords an attractively Romanesque stopover early in Paul’s travels for this Roman-born, Roman-named, Rome-bound missionary.
Abstract
The Muratorian Fragment is one of the key pieces of evidence for establishing the early canon of the New Testament. Preserved in an eighth-century manuscript (Ambr. I 101 sup.), it enumerates most of the books of the traditional twenty-seven book canon. The Muratorian Fragment’s rich cache of orthographical idiosyncrasies has not been overlooked by scholars. Muratori published the Fragment as an example of the neglect of Latin letters in the Middle Ages. This essay explores the hypothesis that the copyist of Ambr. I 101 sup. was not incompetent but had difficulty reading the Fragment’s archetype. This is the best explanation for the introduction of abbreviations into the text.
Second Clement suffers from a lack of clarity about its historical and literary contexts. The anonymous text’s date and provenance have defied precise determination and, although it is referred to a few times in the history of tradition, it seems not to be cited at all. Moreover, its first two verses maintain a history of translation into modern languages employing expressions long out of date. The word, μικρά occurs four times in the first two verses, twice as part of the expression, μικρὰ φρονεῖν. This article identifies the outmoded nature of current translations of these words and proposes an updated translation that better reflects important new interpretations of the text’s purpose, values, and assumptions.
Abstract
Today scholarship has reached an impasse as to the origin of the well-known fragment published by L. A. Muratori. Approximately half accepts a second-century Roman provenance based on views held by, for example, Adolf von Harnack and Samuel Tregelles. The other half, following Albert C. Sundberg Jr., accepts a fourth-century Eastern provenance. This paper argues that the Fragment represents an attempt to provide a venerable second-century precedent for a later position on canon. The present essay restricts itself to three aspects of the debate: (1) initial discovery; (2) Fraternity Legend and Catalogue of Heresies; and, (3) historical settings in which such a text might have emerged.