Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices

New book from Tyndale House Research Associate Dr Elijah Hixson

In his new book, Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices, Tyndale House Research Associate Elijah Hixson assesses the extent to which unique readings reveal the tendencies of the scribes who produced three luxury manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel.

The manuscripts, Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus (N 022), Codex Sinopensis (O 023) and Codex Rossanensis (Σ 042), were each copied in the sixth century from the same exemplar. Hixson compares the results of a modified singular readings method to the number of actual changes each scribe made. An edition of the lost exemplar and transcriptions of Matthew in each manuscript follow in the appendices.

The book is particularly of interest to those working in New Testament textual criticism, scribal habits and the question of how accurately copyists reproduced their exemplars.

The book is published by Brill in their New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents series. Read more >