Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a little blog-posting about manuscript discoveries in Greece and Romania by CSNTM. These include manuscripts that are known to the libraries but were not hitherto known to New Testament scholars because they had not yet received a Gregory-Aland number by the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster, Germany. Some of the manuscripts that CSNTM ‘discovered’ will still not receive such a number for some time because we did not photograph these documents. But this summary is meant to give virtually all the details as we have them to date. It is easiest to put it the data in tabular form.
What we have left off from the table are manuscripts at the City Library in Kozani, Greece. Our information on them is sparse, though besides the three manuscripts that INTF has catalogued (Lect 2050, 2051, 2052) Kozani has at least four other Greek NT manuscripts and as many as eight. Also, another manuscript at the University of Iaşi in Iaşi, Romania, has not been catalogued by INTF, but we were not allowed to see it since it was being restored. It bears the shelf number Ms. 160/IV-139 and the name Lecţionarul evanghelic de la Iaşi, and is thus reported to be a Gospels lectionary. But we could not confirm its status because we have not seen it. Thus, the total number of uncatalogued manuscripts found on this expedition were at least 13 and as many as 17 (or 18 if we count the manuscript at the University of Iaşi).
We have informed INTF of all these finds, including the ones housed at the City Library in Kozani. It should be noted that some of these manuscripts, because the data we have on them is minimal—and especially so if we did not photograph them—will most likely take some time for INTF to catalog. We appreciate how careful the institute is with new finds and are grateful for their partnership in preserving, documenting, and analyzing newly discovered manuscripts.
| Location | Institute | Shelf number | Date | Dimensions | Content | Columns | Lines per column | Leaves | Material | Photographed by CSNTM | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Athens | Byzantine Museum | BXM 19513 | XII–XIII | 32.3-7 x 24.8 x 5.8 cm | Lect | 2 | 21 | 224 | Parchment | √ | |
| 2 | Athens | Byzantine Museum | BXM 3529 | XII–XIII? | 21.2–21.4 cm x 15.2–15.5 cm x 5 cm | e | 1 | 17 | 353 | Paper | √ | |
| 3 | Athens | Byzantine Museum | 227/BXM 19561 | 1154 | 22.5–23.5cm x 16–17cm x 6.5cm | e | 1 | 26–27 | 188 | Parchment | √ | |
| 4 | Athens | National Library | 13 | XIII | 20 x 15.5 x 5.25 cm | l+a | 1 | 15 | 3651 | Paper | 0 | |
| 5 | Iaşi, Romania | Museum of Literature | 7030 | XI–XIV | 34.2–34.4 x 25.2–25.7 x 9.2–9.8 cm | Lect† | 2 | 23–24 | 400 | Parchment | √ | |
| 6 | Meteora, Greece | St. Stephen’s Monastery | ? | VII? | 24 x 20 cm2 | U-Lect | 2 | 18 | 2+ | Parchment | 0 | |
| 7 | Craiova, Romania | Museum of Oltenia | 535 (formerly 00022) | XII | 25 x 20.5 cm3 | e† | 2 | 19–22; 30–32 (suppl) | 293 | Parchment | 0 | |
| 8 | Bucharest | Romanian Academy | Gr. 9364 | XIV? | 21.5–22 x 16.5–17 x 2.5 cm | Lect | 1 | 27 | 3 | Parchment | 0 | |
| 9 | Bucharest | National Museum of Art | 3 (previously Inv 691)5 | XV? | 23.5 x 17.5 cm x 9.5 cm | Luke 10.31–13.29 | 1 | 27 | 2 | Parchment | 0 |
1 NT text is on 126–285.
2 MSS that are only a few leaves do not get measured for depth by CSNTM.
3 The depth of the manuscript could not be measured since the codex was disbound at the time of examination.
4 This MS is bound with Gregory-Aland Lect 1738 as leaves 64–66.
5 Ths MS is bound with Gregory-Aland 2554 as leaves 382º83.