Whence Come Qurʾān Manuscripts? Determining the Regional Provenance of Early Qurʾānic Codices

In studies of early Qurʾānic manuscripts, determining the provenance of these manuscripts is a thorny issue because in most cases they lack endowment notes or colophons. The reports in early Islamic sources regarding textual variants of regional codices (maṣāḥif al-amṣār) may contribute to find a solution to this problem. A list of regional variants, mostly based on al-Dānī’s al-Muqniʿ, can be found in Nöldeke et al.’s The History of the Quran. However, as the authors have stated, a comparison of some of the early Qurʾānic manuscripts in the Topkapı Sarayı Museum with this table of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants indicates that the traditional reports are unreliable for identifying the provenance of Qurʾānic manuscripts because none of these codices can be attributed to any particular region. The present article is an attempt to demonstrate that this problem results from relying solely on the data provided by al-Dānī and ignoring earlier and more significant sources, such as al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif. It attempts to provide a new and more precise classification of regional variants by reading afresh the reports on the features of maṣāḥif al-amṣār, taking into account the sources which were not used by Nöldeke et al., especially al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif, thus making the list of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants more accurate, thereby the variants of each of these early Qurʾānic Codices tally more with the reports preserved for the characteristics of one of the maṣāḥif al-amṣār in literary sources. As the texts of the surviving manuscripts are not of a diverse nature we are able, with some certainty, to draw conclusions that substantiate the reports as to the peculiarities of the muṣḥafs of different cities.

The Text of the ABC of Aristotle in the ‘Winchester Anthology’

The Middle English ABC of Aristotle is an alliterative abecedary poem that survives in fifteen manuscript copies dating between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The most eccentric copy, bearing the greatest number of unique textual variants, is in London, British Library, Additional 60577, a commonplace book and miscellany of verse and prose known today as the ‘Winchester Anthology’. The Winchester copy of the ABC of Aristotle is distinguished from all others by changes to vocabulary, idiom, and prosody. The result is a unique redaction, illustrating the kind of literary composition that could be expected to grow out of late medieval English grammar schools. The Winchester redaction also expresses a shift in prosodic allegiance. The traditional alliterative line is subtly reshaped into an accentual-syllabic form.

The Life of St. Pancratius of Taormina: A Comparative Analysis of Excerpts from Manuscripts of the 10th and 11th Centuries

This work is dedicated to the comparison of textual variants of the life of St. Pancratius of Taormina represented in manuscripts of the 10 th and 11 th centuries. The presumable full corpus of Pancratius story is told in thirteen Greek manuscripts that have been currently uncovered. One of them, the 11 th century AD manuscript, written in Koine Greek, is currently being reposited in State Historical Museum in Moscow under cipher GIM Vlad. 381 (Sin. gr. 15). In this paper the manuscript Sin. gr. 15 is analyzed from codicological and paleographic perspectives; it is also compared to the manuscripts of the first edition. The purpose of the study includes a comparative analysis, namely through reading, studying and translation of excerpts from the lives in Greek language into modern Russian. The comparison between the first edition and the unpublished second edition of the life of St. Pancratius points to significant textual differences, both compositional and linguistic. The composition of the first edition is more extensive, while the second one is shortened and stylistically improved as a result of literary processing, as compared to the first version. Thus, the aforementioned conclusion confirms the hypothesis that the two editions appeared at different historical periods and in different intellectual circles.

A First Reading of the Anhui University Bamboo-Slip Shi Jing

In September, 2019, Anhui University published the first volume of Warring States bamboo-slip manuscripts in its collection. The bamboo slips were purchased by the university in 2015 on the antique market. This volume contains ninety-three slips that correspond with all of or portions of fifty-seven poems in the Guo feng 國風 (Airs of the States) section of the Shi jing 詩經 (Classic of Poetry). The manuscript is written in the script of the ancient state of Chu 楚, and thus presumably was robbed from a tomb somewhere in the territory of that state. This preliminary study of the manuscript presents close readings of six representative poems, comparing the versions in the manuscript with those of the received text. It concludes with consideration of how to understand the textual variants apparent in the manuscript, and also the significance of the manuscript for the composition and especially the transmission of the Shi jing in the pre-Qin period.

Marcionism and Luke 3:22

One of the most intriguing textual variants in the New Testament occurs at Luke 3:22, the scene depicting the heavenly voice at Jesus’s baptism. This particular variant has broad consequences for how scholars understand the place of Luke’s Gospel within the Christological controversies that dominated the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Considering external, intrinsic, and transcriptional evidence, this article argues that perceived fears about Marcionism in proto-orthodox circles precipitated the textual corruption at Luke 3:22, prompting a theological redactor to introduce a reading that compounds Christological notions of messiah, prophet, and king in an attempt to strengthen Jesus’s links to Jewish history.