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Codex Basilensis, designated by Ee, 07 (in the Gregory-Aland[1] numbering) or ε 55 (von Soden), is a Greek uncial[2] manuscript of the four Gospels, dated paleographically to the 8th century.
The manuscript contains marginalia,[3] was adapted for liturgical reading and contains some lacuna.[4] Three leaves of the codex were overwritten by a later hand; these leaves are considered palimpsests.[5]
The codex contains an almost complete text of the four Gospels on 318 parchment leaves (23 × 16.5 cm (9.1 × 6.5 in)). The text is written in one column per page, with 23 or more lines per page in uncial letters.[6] The Gospel of Luke contains five small lacunae (1:69-2:4, 3:4-15, 12:58-13:12, 15:8-20, 24:47-end). Three of them were later completed in cursive (1:69-2:4, 12:58-13:12, 15:8-20).[7]
The letters Θ Ε Ο Σ are round, and the strokes of Χ Ζ Ξ are not prolonged below the line. It has a regular system of punctuation.[8] The handwriting is similar to that in the Codex Alexandrinus, though not so regular and neat. The initial letters are decorated with green, blue, and vermilion.[9]
It contains tables of the κεφαλαια (tables of contents) before each Gospel, and the text is divided according to the κεφαλαια (chapters), the numbers of which are placed in the margins. The chapters are divided into Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons (written below the Ammonian Section numbers), along with harmonizing references to other Gospels at the foot of the pages, although full references to all parallel texts are given in the margins and the tables are thus superfluous. The initial letters at the beginning sections stand out on the margin as in codices Alexandrinus[10] and Ephraemi Rescriptus.[11] The page margins also contain the names of Feast days and their lecton references, together with other liturgical notes.
The codex was bound with the 12th century minuscule codex 2087, which contains portions of the Book of Revelation. Three leaves of the codex are palimpsests (folio 160, 207, 214) – they were overwritten by a later hand.[15] Folio 207 contains a fragment of Ephraem Syrus in Greek, while the texts of folios 160 and 214 are still unidentified.[16]
Codex Basilensis (Mark 2:9-14)
THE TEXT
The Greek text of this codex is representative of the Byzantine textual tradition, but with a small number of non-Byzantine readings.[17] The text of the manuscript has been cited in all critical editions of the Greek New Testament, but it is not high esteemed by scholars. According to Kurt and Barbara Aland, out of 316 readings tested, it agrees with the Byzantine text-type 209 times against what the Alands consider to be the original text, and 107 times with both the Byzantine and what the Alands consider to be the original text. Only one reading agrees with what the Alands consider to be the original text against the Byzantine. There are 9 independent or distinctive readings. Aland placed its text in Category V.
It belongs to the textual Family E (the early Byzantine text) and is closely related to the Codex Nanianus (U 030), and the Codex Athous Dionysiou (Ω 045).[18] It is probably the oldest manuscript with a pure Byzantine text (with almost a complete text of the Gospels), and it is one of the most important witnesses of the Byzantine text-type.
Some Textual Variants
Matthew 8:13
και υποστρεψας ο εκατονταρχος εις τον οικον αυτου εν αυτη τη ωρα ευρεν τον παιδα υγιαινοντα (and when the centurion returned to the house in that hour, he found the slave well)
incl. – Eastא C M N U Θ Uncial 0250 ƒ1 33 1241 g1 syrh
βηθαραβα (Bethabara) – Majority of manuscripts[22]
John 4:1
ο Κυριος (the Lord) – E 𝔓66c𝔓75 Majority of manuscripts
ο Ιησουυς (Jesus) – 𝔓66*א D Θ 086 ƒ1 565 1241 lat syc, p, h bo[23]
John 5:44
αλληλων (one another) – E Δ
ανθρωπων (men) – Majority of manuscripts
John 8:9
οι δε ακουσαντες και υπο της συνειδησεως ελεγχομενοι εξερχοντο εις καθ εις (they heard it, and remorse took them, they went away, one by one) – E G H K S pm
οι δε ακουσαντες εξερχοντο εις καθ εις (they heard it, they went away, one by one) – Majority of manuscripts[24]
ηλθων προ εμου (came before me) – Majority of manuscripts[25]
Codex Basilensis—The cross on the eighth page.
History of Codex Basilensis A. N. III. 12
It is dated by most scholars to the 8th century (Scrivener, Gregory,[26] Nestle, Aland,[27]Metzger[28]). Dean Burgon[29] proposed the 7th century due to the shape of the letters, but the names of Feasts days with their proper lessons and other liturgical markings have been inserted by a later hand.[30] Scrivener dated it to the middle of the 8th century, stating that from the shape of the most of the letters (e.g. pi, delta, xi), it might be judged of even earlier date.[5]: 132 According to Guglielmo Cavallo it was written in the early 8th century.[31]
Cataldi Palau[32] suggests it was written at a later date in the 9th century, arguing from the palaeographical point of view it looks older, but the regularity of the accentuation and the abundant colourful decoration are uncharacteristic of the 8th century. The number of errors is remarkably small. According to Palau it was copied by a non-Greek, probably Latin scribe, in 9th century Italy. The Italian location had a strong Byzantine influence.
Basel University Library in 1896
Use in the Greek New Testament Editions
The codex was available to Desiderius Erasmus[33] for his translation of the New Testament in Basel, but he never used it. The text of the manuscript was collated by Johann Jakob Wettstein[34] and the manuscript was used by John Mill[35] in his edition of the Greek New Testament. It has been cited in printed editions of the Greek New Testament since the 18th century.
The manuscript is cited in nearly all critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3, UBS4, NA26). It is never cited in NA27, due to it not being considered a “consistently cited witness of the first order” or “consistently cited witness of the second order.”[36]
Location of Codex Basilensis A. N. III. 12
It probably was brought to Basel by Cardinal Ragusio[37] (1380–1443),[38] who may have acquired it in Constantinople[39] when he attended the Council of Florence[40] in 1431. In 1559, it was presented to the monastery of the Preaching Friars.[41] In the same year it was transferred to Basel University Library (A. N. III. 12), in Basel (Switzerland), where it is currently housed. It formerly had the shelf-number B VI. 21, but is now K IV. 35.[42]
Codex Basilensis (kephalaia)
SCROLL THROUGH DIFFERENT CATEGORIES BELOW
BIBLE TRANSLATION AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM
BIBLICAL STUDIES / INTERPRETATION
EARLY CHRISTIANITY
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM
TECHNOLOGY
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
PRAYER
TEENS-YOUTH-ADOLESCENCE-JUVENILE
CHRISTIAN LIVING
CHRISTIAN COMMENTARIES
CHRISTIAN DEVOTIONALS
CHURCH HEALTH, GROWTH, AND HISTORY
Apocalyptic-Eschatology [End Times]
CHRISTIAN FICTION
[1] A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures (see Tefillin) to huge polyglot codices (multi-lingual books) containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works.
[2] Uncial is a majuscule script commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic and Coptic.
[3] Marginalia are marks made in the margins of a book or other document. They may be scribbles, comments, glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, or illuminations.
[4] A lacuna is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work. A manuscript, text, or section suffering from gaps is said to be “lacunose” or “lacunulose.”
[5] In textual studies, a palimpsest (/ˈpælɪmpsɛst/) is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document.[1] Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or goat kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so in the interest of economy a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another, for example a monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.
[6] Aland, Kurt; Barbara Aland (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 110.
“Online copy of the MS”. Münster: Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Retrieved Sunday, July 10, 2022.
[7]Gregory, Caspar René (1900). Textkritik des Neuen Testaments. Vol. 1. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. p. 48.
[8] J. L. Hug (1836). Introduction to the New Testament. D. Fosdick (trans.). Andover. p. 174.
[9] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose; Edward Miller (1894). A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. Vol. 1 (4th ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. P. 132.
[10] The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,[n 1] written on parchment. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the fifth century.[1] It contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). Along with Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible.
[11] The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) designated by the siglum C or 04 {in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 3 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It contains most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable portions missing. It is one of the four great uncials (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). The manuscript is not intact: its current condition contains material from every New Testament book except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John; however, only six books of the Greek Old Testament are represented. It is not known whether 2 Thessalonians and 2 John were excluded on purpose, or whether no fragment of either epistle happened to survive. The manuscript is a palimpsest, with the pages being washed of their original text, and reused in the 12th century for the Greek translations of 38 treatises composed by Ephrem the Syrian, from whence it gets its name Ephraemi Rescriptus.
[12]Asterisk (*): a common notation in the apparatus of a critical text. Often a reading in a manuscript has been altered by a scribe as a correction from the scribe’s perspective. Scribes were careful not to blot out the original lettering etc., but to make an interlinear or marginal notation of the correction instead. Sometimes readings have been “corrected” in this way more than once, and by different scribes. To show the distinction, a superscript number is added to the notation for the manuscript in question, such as “B1.” By this format the reader is informed that a particular variant is supported by the first corrector of manuscript B; other correctors, if there are others, are indicated by successive superscript numbers. When one or more corrections are listed as support for variants, an asterisk (e.g. “B*”) is usually added to a manuscript notation to indicate that the variant reading is the one originally found in that manuscript, as opposed to a correction. When this happens, then, the same manuscript will be listed with at least two different variant readings. Therefore it is very important to be aware of these superscript characters attached to manuscript notations, especially the asterisk.
[13] Jesus and the woman taken in adultery is a passage (pericope) found in John 7:53-8:11, that was not in the original.
[17] Metzger, Bruce Manning; Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 74.
[18] Champlin, Russell (1966). Family E and its Allies in Matthew. Studies and Documents. Vol. 28. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Greelings, Jacob (1968). Family E and Its Allies in Mark. Studies and Documents. Vol. 31. Salt Lake City.
Aland, Kurt; Black, Matthew; Martini, Carlo Maria; Metzger, Bruce Manning; Wikgren, Allen, eds. (1981). Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (26 ed.). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung. ISBN 3-438-051001. (NA26) P. 18.
[20] Aland, Kurt; Black, Matthew; Martini, Carlo Maria; Metzger, Bruce Manning; Wikgren, Allen, eds. (1981). Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (26 ed.). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung. ISBN 3-438-051001. (NA26) P. 102.
[21] Roderic L. Mullen; Simon Crisp; David C. Parker, eds. (2007). The Gospel According to John in the Byzantine Tradition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. P. 5.
[22] Roderic L. Mullen; Simon Crisp; David C. Parker, eds. (2007). The Gospel According to John in the Byzantine Tradition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. P. 6.
[23] Roderic L. Mullen; Simon Crisp; David C. Parker, eds. (2007). The Gospel According to John in the Byzantine Tradition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. P. 30.
[24] Aland, Kurt; Black, Matthew; Martini, Carlo Maria; Metzger, Bruce Manning; Wikgren, Allen, eds. (1983). The Greek New Testament (3rd ed.). Stuttgart: United Bible Societies. p. XV. ISBN 9783438051103. (UBS3) P. 357.
[25] Roderic L. Mullen; Simon Crisp; David C. Parker, eds. (2007). The Gospel According to John in the Byzantine Tradition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. P. 133.
[26]Gregory, Caspar René (1900). Textkritik des Neuen Testaments. Vol. 1. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. p. 48.
[27] Aland, Kurt; Barbara Aland (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 110.
[28] Metzger, Bruce Manning; Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 74.
Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament textual criticism, and wrote prolifically on these subjects. Metzger was one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20th century. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1986.
[29]John William Burgon was an English Anglican divine who became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral in 1876. He is remembered for his poetry and his defense of the historicity and Mosaic authorship of Genesis and of biblical infallibility in general. He is also the father of the King James Onlyist Movement.
[30] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose; Edward Miller (1894). A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. Vol. 1 (4th ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. P. 132.
[31] Guglielmo Cavallo: Ricerche sulla maiuscola biblica, Florenz 1967.
[32] Annaclara Cataldi Palau is an Italian palaeographer specialising in Greek mediaeval and renaissance palaeography and history of the book.
[33] Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (/ˌdɛzɪˈdɪəriəs ɪˈræzməs/; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;[note 1] 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.[2][3][4] As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet “Prince of the Humanists” and has been called “the crowning glory of the Christian humanists.” Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will,[6] In Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
[34] Johann Jakob Wettstein was a Swiss theologian, best known as a New Testament critic.
Wettstein, Johann Jakob (1751). Novum Testamentum Graecum editionis receptae cum lectionibus variantibus codicum manuscripts (in Latin). Vol. 1. Amsterdam: Ex Officina Dommeriana. pp. 38–40. Retrieved November 14, 2010.
[35] John Mill was an English theologian noted for his critical edition of the Greek New Testament which included notes on over thirty-thousand variant readings in the manuscripts of the New Testament.
[36] Aland, Kurt; Black, Matthew; Martini, Carlo Maria; Metzger, Bruce Manning; Wikgren, Allen, eds. (1983). The Greek New Testament (3rd ed.). Stuttgart: United Bible Societies. p. XV. ISBN 9783438051103. (UBS3)
[37] John of Ragusa was a Croatian Dominican theologian. He died at Lausanne, Switzerland in 1443.
[38]Gregory, Caspar René (1900). Textkritik des Neuen Testaments. Vol. 1. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. p. 48.
[39] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose; Edward Miller (1894). A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. Vol. 1 (4th ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
[40] The Council of Florence is the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1449. It was convoked as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in the context of the Hussite Wars in Bohemia and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. At stake was the greater conflict between the conciliar movement and the principle of papal supremacy.
[41] The Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans (Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum; abbreviated OP), is an order of the Catholic Church founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest Saint Dominic. It was approved by Pope Honorius III via the papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. Members of the order, who are referred to as Dominicans, generally carry the letters OP after their names, standing for Ordinis Praedicatorum, meaning of the Order of Preachers. Membership in the order includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and affiliated lay or secular Dominicans (formerly known as tertiaries, though recently there has been a growing number of associates who are unrelated to the tertiaries).
[42] Tischendorf, Constantin von (1689). Editio octava critica maior. Vol. 1 (8 ed.). Lipsiae: Giesecke & Devrient. p. 37.
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