Daniel B. Wallace
June 11, 2010
A team from CSNTM photographed several New Testament manuscripts at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens in May, 2010. We are grateful to Dr. Anastasia Lazaridou for permission to digitally photograph a portion of this important collection.
Although the New Testament manuscripts housed at the Byzantine Museum are well known to the curators and librarians of this institute, some of them are not yet known to NT scholars because they have not received a Gregory-Aland number by the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster. Consequently, we have been giving reports about these ‘new finds’ in reports of our recent expedition to Greece and Romania.
One of these manuscripts bears the shelf number MS 10 [BXM 3529]. It is a 12th or 13th century Gospels manuscript, written on paper. The manuscript measures 21.2–21.4 cm (L) x 15.2–15.5 cm (W) x 5 cm (D). The text spreads over 353 leaves (706 pages), with 17 lines per page. It is thus a larger than average minuscule.
The manuscript has wide margins, possibly suggesting that it was meant to be read in public. However, it has almost no wax drippings, suggesting that it was rarely used.
Almost the entirety of the four Gospels are to be found within its covers. It includes both hypotheses and kephalaia for them, as well as a few adornments. An indecipherable note occurs at the bottom of 162 verso, marking Mark 16.8. : “θν” — over what looks like “‘εω Γ [with horizontal bar over it] :”. The long ending of Mark follows 16.8. The pericope adulterae is found on 303 verso with no markings.