Thursday, November 29, 2007

SBL San Diego 2007 III - IGNTP

Over at ETC Tommy Wasserman already blogged about the IGNTP Presentation. It was fascinating to hear all the reports on the various aspects of the work in progress. The presentation, and the way it was scheduled, showed an organisation bristling with activity. These are good times for textual criticism...
I do have a few minor complaints on the session, however. There was almost too much information in such a short time; the room was far too small for the audience (this happened more often at SBL; the inverse occurred as well); and there was hardly any possibility to ask questions.
Something that also came by very fast was the schedule for ECM (Editio Critica Maior), Nestle-Aland and the UBS Greek New Testament. As Tommy noted, I took a picture of one of Wachtel's sheets, and was thus able to capture the research and publication schedule, preliminary as it may be, of course.
The grand idea is the following: ECM will be the central project, carried out by INTF (Münster) and IGNTP together. INTF will do Acts (scheduled for 2013), Mark (2018), Matthew (2024) and Luke (2030), and IGNTP will do John (2013), Pauline Epistles (2026) and Revelation (2030).
As for the hand editions, NA28 is planned for 2009, and it will follow the parts of ECM that have been published already (i.e. the Catholic Epistles), both in text and information in the apparatus. The same will be the case for all subsequent editions of NA and GNT (2014: NA29 and GNT5; 2019: NA30 and GNT6; 2025: NA31 and GNT7; 2031: NA32 and GNT8). Until the completion of ECM in 2031, there will thus be a certain unevenness in the editions, but that is inevitable.
One of the questions I would have asked if time had been given would be the following: the NA26/GNT3 text was accepted by the UBS as the standard text for bible translation worldwide, and it was established by an international and oecumenical committee. If ECM is to be followed, will the UBS automatically accept and adopt the new Greek text? Presumably most changes from the NA26 text will be minor, but nevertheless, changes there will be, as the Catholic Epistles already show.

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