Subject: A sixth-century majuscule

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 21:46:51 -0400 (EDT)

In an earlier post I mentioned an early manuscript of Mark's Gospel
found at St. Catherine's Monastery that Jim Charlesworth had referred to. 
I called him today for the details.  As, I suppose, everyone on this list
knows, a fire in the monastery in 1977 led to the discovery of a room with
numerous mss in it.  Included were additional pages from Codex Sinaiticus
itself.  Charlesworth told me that there is also a manuscript, which
includes Mark's Gospel, of 120 pages.  He had photographed one of the
pages and included it in his 1988 volume on the new discovery (I suppose
I've seen this at one time or another, but I have only a vague
recollection).  At the time he was allowed to take the photograph, he had
assumed that this was a solitary sheet.  On a recent visit to the
monastery, however, he was informed that in fact it contains 120 pages,
although he was not allowed to see it.  He hopes to make more progress
next time around, in a few months. 

   I wonder if Klaus Wachtel or someone else at the Instituet fuer
neutestamentliche Textforschung could comment for us.  Is the existence of
this manuscript common knowledge?  Has it been assigned a number?  At what
stage, in fact, *is* a manuscript given a number (only when it has been
fully examined?).  This particular find would seem to be inordinately 
significant....

-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill