Category talk:Church Slavonic biblical manuscripts

Textual witnesses

Hi @Srnec:, I recently created this category, but I was thinking that several manuscripts of the Primary Chronicle (such as the Laurentian Codex, Hypatian Codex, Khlebnikov Codex etc.) contain textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. E.g. the Philosopher's Speech in the Conversion of Volodimer (sub anno 6494, i.e. 986/7) contains many Church Slavonic biblical quotes from page 86 to page 106.

In the Cross & SW English translation of the Laurentian text, many references are given in-line, especially on pages 105 to 108 of Cross & SW; in these places, the Philosopher's Speech is directly quoting various biblical passages in Church Slavonic. E.g. page 98 lines 13 and 14 of the PVL:

• иеремѣꙗ же реч аще станеть самоилъ и моисѣи не помилую ихъ. (Ostrowski 2003 edition of Lav 98, 13–14)
• And Jeremiah said, 'If Samuel and Moses arise, I will not have mercy on them' (Jer., xv, i) (Cross & SW 1953 Lav 98, 13–14, p. 105)
• Cf. Then the Lord said to me: "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. (...)" (Jer 15:1, NIV 1978)

Of course, these are relatively late textual witnesses of the Bible, and will be virtually insigificant for textual criticism of the Bible in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. (This example alone shows that by 1377, the Laurentian Codex had shifted away quite noticeably from the original Hebrew, as far as scholars have been able to reconstruct it.) But these textual witnesses may be important for reconstructing the earliest Bible translations into Slavic languages, which may be linguistically and culturally significant.

At Talk:Trinity Chronicle#Manuscript?, we agreed it would be better to speak of the Laurentian Codex, Khlebnikov Codex etc. as Category:Primary Chronicle textual witnesses rather than of Category:Primary Chronicle manuscripts. Therefore, I see several options for categorising the biblical quotations (as part of the Philosopher's speech or elsewhere in the Primary Chronicle) contained in these codices:

1. We should consider them as Category:Church Slavonic biblical manuscripts as well, and include them here;
2. We should include them here, but also rename this category to Category:Church Slavonic biblical textual witnesses (or something along those lines);
3. We should create a separate parent Category:Church Slavonic biblical textual witnesses, which includes manuscripts with biblical quotations, but manuscripts which are (almost) entirely dedicated to copying (parts of) the Bible as a whole in Church Slavonic should be its child as Category:Church Slavonic biblical manuscripts.

What do you think? Have you got a preference? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

My $0.02... I think one can reasonably use "textual witness" to refer to both manuscripts and texts. That is, both a unique physical manuscript and a text that is found in hundreds of manuscript copies can be called a "witness" to a (different) text. In that sense, it is broader than "manuscript". It is also broader in that, while a manuscript copy of a work of Jerome that contains quotations from otherwise lost works cannot be called a "manuscript of" any of those lost works, it can be called a witness of/to them. (Actually, I think it can be called a manuscript of them, but only in a context that already makes it clear that that term is being used in a text-critical sense rather than in the sense of a physical copy. This is as in the discussion we had previously that led to the "Primary Chronicle textual witnesses" category.)
So, I would say that a manuscript of a work that quotes from the Slavonic Bible should not for that reason alone be called a Slavonic biblical manuscript, but it is a Slavonic biblical textual witness. Both are valid as categories, although manuscripts would be a subcategory of textual witnesses (namely, standalone witnesses or fragments thereof). Srnec (talk) 01:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@Srnec Thank you! I strongly agree with you. So option no. #3 then? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@Srnec Ok, I created Category:Church Slavonic biblical textual witnesses as a parent of Category:Church Slavonic biblical manuscripts as we agreed. I added descriptions to both to clarify what both categories are meant for. Are you happy with the result? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. Srnec (talk) 14:05, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@Srnec Cool! Maybe it's time to also rename Category:Manuscripts by works contained to simply Category:Textual witnesses? We indirectly discussed this possibility before. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I think "manuscripts by works contained" is a good category. I'm not sure the broader category of "textual witness" is as widely needed. Its really only needed for things that are not manuscripts themselves and a text's being a witness for another text is really only notable for a selecte few very important works (e.g., the Bible). This is not an argument against a textual witness category, but only an argument not to supplant the manuscript categories. Srnec (talk) 03:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@Srnec Fair enough. Let's keep it as it is.

Once we've got 1 more category to go alongside Category:Church Slavonic biblical textual witnesses and Category:Primary Chronicle textual witnesses, we may create Category:Textual witnesses as a parent.

Come to think of it, maybe it's time to revive an attempt at creating a list and/or category for New Testament textual witnesses? @Veverve: and I deleted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Church Fathers who quote the New Testament in November 2022, because the term "Church Father" is disputed and arbitrary. Maybe it's time to go for a WP:REFUND and reframe the entire matter in terms of textual witnesses instead of who did the quoting? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:38, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

PS: On second thought, a REFUND is not really necessary, because we agreed it would be better to start a new article from scratch anyway: Veverve and I agree that scholars generally recognise that early quotations from the New Testament, particularly before the year 450, can be extremely valuable for textual criticism of the New Testament, as well as several other things (such as early Christian theology). (...) It would be much better to write a prose article about the importance/relevance of Ancient works quoting the New Testament in general (including but not limited to so-called patristic quotations), rather than to try to somehow salvage the contents of this one, none of which we think is reusable for our purposes. We better start from scratch, and delete this list in its entirety. (emphasis by me)

Let's discuss options for a good title for this list and its potentially associated category (it would be nice if their names matched). These 4 come to mind:

1. Ancient works quoting the New Testament was our proposed title.
2. New Testament textual witnesses may be a better idea because textual witnesses better describes what we're talking about than works quoting, and it includes entire manuscripts, so all New Testament manuscript categories could become its children.
3. Ancient textual witnesses of the New Testament may be a better idea in order to maintain the year 450 or something as our cut-off point? That's why the word "ancient" may come in handy. We're not really interested in some monk in 1337 quoting the New Testament; we're interested in NT textual witnesses preceding the four great uncial codices (c. 325–450) which have preserved the entire NT text, because those pre-450 textual witnesses may have strong scholarly, theological, and (church-)historical value. (Unfortunately this is quite long for a category name. But I don't think Ancient New Testament textual witnesses is a good idea, because that may lead to mixups between Old and New Testament, e.g. in French the Old Testament is called fr:Ancien Testament. New Testament ancient textual witnesses is shorter, but it feels grammatically incorrect in English to place "ancient" after "New Testament").
4. Early textual witnesses of the New Testament may be an alternate option by analogy with Category:Early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, although the latter doesn't tell us what "early" means exactly. Let's ask creator @Leszek Jańczuk: what does "early" in Category:Early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament? What is the time scope of that category? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:13, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that (2) is potentially overbroad. I agree with your reasoning in (3). It might be best to get a refund and re-title that page List of ancient works quoting the New Testament. This is more in line with our lists of New Testament papyri, uncials, minuscules and lectionaries. A textual witness article would just be a set index to these (and others that might be needed—like an article on the critical value of early translations to establishing the Greek text). Srnec (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@Srnec Thanks for your response. (3) is also my current preference.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen the article List of Church Fathers who quote the New Testament before it was deleted? It was wholly WP:UNSOURCED and just mentioned "Church Fathers" who allegedly quoted the New Testament. We can't just re-title that page List of ancient works quoting the New Testament. All it will give us is an incomplete and arbitrary list of authors, not their works, nor any evidence. It will not be ready for the mainspace immediately. But if you're nevertheless interested, we could always ask for a Refund and put it in your userspace for the time being. It may give us inspiration on what we can best try to do as far as NT textual witnesses categories and lists are concerned. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:45, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

PS: My guess is that what @Veverve and I discussed on the talk page may actually be more valuable than the list itself. In hindsight I regretted a bit that the talk page was also deleted. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament... they were written before 325 A.D. New Testament manuscripts from pre-Nicean period. It was explained by Philip Comfort. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 11:40, 8 August 2023 (UTC)