Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I’ve translated Macler’s version and placed it here. This translation has no scholarly value, of course, but is more like research notes. I place it in the public domain, so do as you will with it.
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The text was written, in Coptic, ca. 1187 AD. That means that Richard the Lionheart could have met people whose first language was this last dialect of Ancient Egyptian!
Possibly a very important announcement here. The project proposal is very badly worded, so I’m not quite sure of this, but it sounds as if the Mingana library is going to make all of its manuscripts available online. A German NT group is also involved. I’ve buzzed an email to the Mingana to see what it’s all about.
Later: OK, I think I understand what is going on. Here’s my understanding, and yes, this could be HUGE!
A bunch of people at Birmingham called ITSEE are developing a website to allow researchers to work on texts. If you want to see a passage in an ancient text, the idea is that you can just click and see the relevant manuscript witnesses, then and there, for each part of the text. The site will be a kind of manuscripts workbench.
Imagine you want to work on some text. First you get images of the manuscripts uploaded. Then you go into the workbench, and start tagging the page images — image 1 shows text chapter 1, verse 1; image 2 shows text chapter 1 verse 19, and so on. Repeat this for all the manuscripts in the system, and then you get a set of links for the text. Then enter some kind of raw electronic text, and link that in the same way. You then end up with a way to browse the text, and see whatever variants you want, in the manuscripts, at the click of a button.
In order to make this work, they need to prime it by uploading lots of images of manuscripts. This is the bit that will start everything else. At the moment, they have two sources to draw on.
Firstly, the Birmingham people have access to the Mingana collection of oriental (Syriac and Arabic) manuscripts. They’ve started to digitise these and upload them. At the moment the website isn’t working or displaying anything much (because someone forgot to install a Python library on the server; early days, all this), but there are definite signs of Syriac mss there.
Secondly a German institute have a load of New Testament manuscripts in horrible low quality microfilm, and are going to input these. Their particular interest is to make it possible to work on the critical text of the New Testament.
The images will need lots of tagging. This tagging will be a huge job, and the idea is to involve volunteers — suitably qualified scholars — to do this in their own interest as they work on the text. The more people contribute, the more valuable the results will be. We’ll start with raw manuscript pages, which will gradually — for some texts — grow tagging data (data like “this page starts at chapter 3, verse 2”, etc).
The project is being talked about a lot by people interested in the New Testament. But that’s really accidental; that’s just one community around one text and one set of manuscripts. But the clear intention is to provide this online workbench for all scholars to work — collaboratively or alone — on critical texts using the manuscript evidence from photographs.
Because the Mingana Syriac and Arabic mss will be digitised, this will have a really important effect on Syriac and Christian Arabic studies. Frankly it could revolutionise things!
If a community comes into being, as it will for the NT mss, then a Wikipedia-type effect will occur. That would mean that far more can be done, far more quickly, than is presently possible. Once the data base has a certain number of manuscripts in it, the hope is that it will snowball, and more and more material will be added.
There is a formal launch date in July. They aren’t ready yet, tho. But isn’t it exciting!?!
Frederic Macler’s articles in the RHR 33 (1896) * discuss the various Apocalypses of Daniel. He knows of nine such texts; six in Greek, one in Coptic, one in Armenian and one in Persian, and lists the publications (p.33f). Clearly it was a popular vehicle to express your sentiments on your own times!
The Coptic text was printed by Woide, Appendix ad editionem N. T. graeci e codici Alexandrino, Oxford, 1799. This is a folio volume of 140 pages; let’s hope it comes online. The manuscript is in the Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds copte, no. 58.
Macler notes in his article that none of the texts exist in French translation, and that producing one would be of more service to most people than a scholarly article. Consequently he prints a translation of the Coptic and Armenian texts. The nine texts have no real relation to one another, or so I gather.
* Non-US readers will need to use an anonymizing proxy to access this.
Ian Tompkins pointed me to an interesting article on this little known Coptic text, in RHR 33 (1896), 163-176. Since I don’t know anything about this text, and M. Macler is willing to tell me (in French), here is a running translation of excerpts of his article.
It’s name, The fourteenth vision of Daniel, is because in the manuscript in which it is found, it follows the book of Daniel which is divided into thirteen visions, as in the Alexandrian manuscript. [Ms. BNF copt 58]
This apocalypse begins by imitating the canonical book of Daniel; it borrows from it the notion of four great monarchies; it even borrows entire phrases…
After a very detailed historical-seeming introduction, which resembles that of the canonical book, the prophet has a vision concerning the realm of the sons of Ishmael. Nineteen kings of this race shall reign over the land (over Egypt); in the reign of the nineteenth and last, Pitourgos, his enemy will return, put him to flight and kill him; then the king of the Romans will rise up and govern the Ishmaelites; then Gog and Magog will shake the earth…then Antichrist will appear… then the Ancient of Days will come, who will put Antichrist to death, and whose kingdom will have no end. Finally Daniel is commanded to seal up all these things until the time when they happen.
Our Apocalypse offers this characteristic, that at first sight all the quoted facts seem historical and easy to identify; but on looking at there more closely, this semblance disappears, and there remains nothing except a bizarre collection of treatises gathered by a less than faithful memory. If the reader, not wanting to remain in that state, reviews in more detail his study, he will see that the author of the Apocalypse has juxtaposed some historical facts which he remembered preciselywith other vague and erroneous data, intended to replace the events which he could not remember.
We will add the results at which we arrived in the notes. We do not claim to have the complete story, but our hypothesis cannot be very far away from the truth.
The author of the Apocalypse enumerates nineteen kings, but he characterizes them only starting with the tenth; as he writes in Egypt, it is probable that he is speaking about Fatimids of Egypt, and in our explanatory notes we will see that Pitourgos indicates the Turks, and more especially Saladin; the Romans (Roumis) arrive, they are the Crusaders: so we believe that our Apocalypse was created around the time of the Third Crusade, a little after 1187.
There then follows a French translation of the text, which I have translated into English and will put online tomorrow.
An email asks me whether I have come across a couple of texts, previously unknown to me; the Coptic apocalypse of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of Samuel of Kalamoun. It continues:
The Apocalypse of Daniel was used during the Crusades to predict the downfall of Muslim rule. The Apocalypse of Samuel contains the strongest denunciation of language shift in the Middle Ages of Egypt by which Coptic was replaced by Arabic.
I think we can agree that both sound very interesting! I’ve been unable to find out anything about either. Does either exist in English, even?
Long ago charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid were infiltrated and hijacked by the political left. They then started pushing left-wing ideology as if it was morally righteous and attempting to overthrow regimes unpopular with that constituency. Meanwhile they kept demanding money from the public. This went so far that War on Want were rebuked by the Charities Commission. They also abandoned any serious Christian element to their programmes.
Thirty years ago, the Evangelical Alliance in the UK recognised that at least half the population found these charities repugnant, while wanting to aid those suffering from famine etc in the Third World. They set up a charity to do so, naming it The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, or Tearfund. Since then it has done good work.
But something is wrong. Last weekend I turned on the TV news and found myself watching a march of organised anti-capitalist demonstrators in London — described as such –, preparatory to the G20 riots then being anticipated. To my astonishment, amidst the usual banners of the hard left, I saw banners reading “Tearfund.”
Going to the Tearfund website, I found a page urging participation: “Join the global church’s call for justice” — a typical code word for more state control or something of the kind. The “global church” is not calling for anything; at least, I didn’t hear me call, and I’m part of it! Calls for “justice” tend to be code-words for demands to force poor taxpayers in rich countries to fund rich despots in poor countries.
Today I find this page, showing a photograph of their presence at what they call:
Saturday’s rally for jobs, justice and climate… The rally afterwards was supported by a coalition of development agencies, unions, faith and environment groups, demanding jobs and public services for all, an end to global poverty and the creation of a green economy.
Since when was running the UK economy something that Tearfund specialised in? The real story is in the Guardian: it was a standard left-wing coalition protest. The photograph carefully omits the Socialist Worker placards that were so prominent! This story in the Observer tells the truth of what was going on:
This time the protest – although it draws on equally diverse social and political quarters – is a complex weave of movements and priorities united by one emotion: a disgust at the latest incarnation of capitalism that demands a different way of organising the economy of the planet.
Another page on the Tearfund website trumpets a “victory” — but for whom?
We’ve got some great news to share with you! Last week Ed Miliband, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, announced that the target for reducing the UK’s emissions by 2050 would be raised from 60% to 80% in the Climate Change Bill.
For over two years Tearfund has been asking you to join thousands of other supporters in campaigning, praying and making changes in your lifestyle as part of the campaign run as part of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition. …The campaign has been asking for three things which will ensure that the UK plays its part in keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees, these were:
• Ensure that 80% of UK emissions are cut by 2050
• Include annual targets and milestones (to keep progress on track)
• Include the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping in emissions reduction targets.
Lots of bureaucracy needed there. Lots of activity, none of which produces any wealth or goods. Lots of interference in the lives of ordinary people. And… lots of rises in the prices of transport, indeed of everything — including food –, to pay for it all. So Tearfund as a famine relief charity is boasting about a “victory” that will raise the price of food!?!
None of this is the sort of thing I expect from a Christian famine relief agency. I expect them to feed the hungry, not make their food cost more.
So I wrote and queried all this. I also asked whether they were still part of the EA. I got back a letter which tried to justify this on the grounds that the only way to deal with poverty was some sort of political action. I have asked in return whether they have obtained the approval of the Charities Commission for this change of mission. They didn’t answer my query about their relation to the EA.
Now of course there is a sense in which poverty is indeed a political problem. Most famines are caused by wicked men. For instance, everyone agrees that the misery in Zimbabwe will only end when Mugabe is removed. But removing him is not the duty of a famine relief charity. If it is, then few political parties could not claim charitable status. It is not specially the concern of the Christians. If Tearfund spent money campaigning for his overthrow, it would be abuse of the donations, even though the cause is worthwhile.
There are many different political opinions on how to “mend the world.” In my time at college the political left agreed that only a Soviet-style despotism in the UK would do this — thankfully it never happened. In a democracy, the proposals are submitted to a vote, and none is given tax privileges. Those are reserved for charities where the benefits are universally agreed. Unfortunately some sections of the political spectrum take the view that only they are right, and they are entitled to do anything they like because they are right and everyone else is wrong. These people have been rioting in the streets today.
It is very sad to see Tearfund promoting agitprop. This is precisely what it was set up to avoid. Looking at the website, all the Christian material appears to be old, to be legacy material. What the current managers of the charity are interested in is partisan politics.
If you are a Tearfund donor, I suggest that you cancel your donations immediately, and write to them and tell them why. Make sure your charities reach the poor as you intended.
I hope no-one ever tries to translate Agapius from Arabic by starting at the beginning. I started my translation from French at the time of Jesus, mid-way. That’s not too bad, and the material to the end is moderately interesting.
But the first quarter of it… yuk!
I expected it to be largely based on embellished versions of biblical narratives. But I had not expected it to go round and round, repeating calculations of the years from the creation to the time of Christ again and again. I’ve now seen the same material come round three times, and my patience is beginning to fray. And in each case, he attacks the Jews for forging their Old Testament, in comparison to the “genuine” Torah of the Septuagint.
Obviously it’s wrong in point of fact; but I could cope with that. However I’m currently wading through a long fictitious story, told with obvious glee, about how Constantine consulted with the bishops and the Jews and “discovered” the truth. It’s unbelievably tedious.
So advice for future translators; leave the first quarter until last, or you may never get further.
Get the story here; we’re talking hundreds of thousands of images. Someone in Germany clearly gets the internet. Well done! Now what about images of manuscripts?
I’ve made use of the medieval commentary published by J. A. Cramer for fragments of Eusebius, but some of the attributions have seemed a bit odd. Quite by accident today I was skimming through volume 6 of the Journal of Theological Studies, when I came across an article by Claude Jenkins on p.113-116 about the Origen citations in the portion of Cramer from 1 Corinthians.
The author notes that Cramer was dependent on copyists for access to the manuscripts, which he could not inspect himself. Comparison of Cramer with his source, Paris Cois. gr. 204 (a copy of Vat. gr. 762, unknown to Cramer) reveals that Cramer’s text routinely assigns passages to Origen which are clearly assigned to Chrysostom in the manuscript. The article assigns the blame for miscopying a very clear 16th century manuscript to the scriba Parisinensis whom Cramer was obliged to use.
Some of the fragments assigned to Eusebius in the catena on the gospels that I have had translated have looked very like portions of Chrysostom. So this is probably a general problem.
What this means, of course, is that we cannot depend on Cramer. We urgently need someone to correct the text and reissue it.
We all hate going to work on Mondays, but in a way most of us are fortunate. For example, on the way in to work today, I passed a van labelled “Sparkles mobile dog wash.”
Just imagine what that job must involve. It’s a job which means driving all over the place to wash dirty dogs. Imagine leaning over the tub, bog-brush in hand, trying to clean the backside of some unfamiliar poodle, while the vicious little bugger tries to bite you. “Look, he likes you!” squeals the silly owner, as you wrestle with her rottweiler, trying not to lose any fingers.
It makes you wonder what kind of alternatives the school careers advice were suggesting to him.
On the positive side, he must be the only man for whom an armoured cod-piece is a legitimate tax-deductible expense.