Authentication and Authorization: The early transmission of the New Testament

The project seeks to enlighten how early Christians copied and transmitted the New Testament writings within the context of ancient manuscript culture. This is done through an investigation of early Christian references to manuscripts associated with geographical locations or authoritative figures. These references are found in patristic literature, colophons, and other paratexts of New Testament Manuscripts and will be understood against the background of contemporary Greco-Roman and Jewish copying and argumentation practices. It is paramount to consider to which extent such references serve a rhetorical function and/or are revealing of actual manuscript practices. Further, the study will discuss the possibility of a correlation between such references and the textual characteristics of early preserved New Testament manuscripts.

The project seeks to understand how Christians transmitted the New Testament in manuscripts in the first centuries. The project will investigate how early Christian writers refer to manuscripts when they discuss problems in the text. They do this, when different manuscripts contain different versions of a New Testament passage, and they want to argue that one of the versions is correct. What is, according to them, a good manuscript that can be trusted and why? It is important to be aware that referring to a "good" or "old" manuscript, or manuscripts connected to an important location or person, serves a rhetorical purpose in an argument, so it is not sure such statements (always) reflect actual manuscript practices. The project will understand these references in light of the broader book culture and compare them to how for example the Hebrew Bible and the epics of Homer were transmitted in the same period.

Manuscripts of the New Testament often contain different paratexts. Sometimes a scribe will in a colophon reveal information about the manuscript that was copied, and such colophons will also be investigated in this project.

Lastly, the study will consider how the insights gained can be related to the early New Testament manuscripts. Do the manuscripts correspond to what one should expect from the words of the ancient Christian authors and the scribes of the colophons?