Subject: tc-list Re: Leningradensis

From: "Harold P. Scanlin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 16:43:20 -0400

The names given to manuscripts often derive from historical circumstances.
For example the NT ms Codex Bezae retains that name even though Theodore
Bezae died centuries ago.  Likewise, Codex Leningradensis (Evr. II.B.19a)
became the standard name for that manuscript ever since the appearance of
BHK, based on that manuscript.  To maintain a degree of continuity with the
standard name and abbreviation, Leningradensis has been retained; St.
Petersburg is used, of course, when identifying the library in which it is
housed.

Petropolitanus is a different manuscript, housed in the same library and
numbered Firk. I B 3.  This name was used ever since Strack published an
edition of it in 1876.  On the other hand B19a was described, if at all, in
the pre-1917 literature in a variety of ways.  Ginsburg, for example,
called it "the St. Petersburg Codex dated A. D. 1009," to distinguish it
from what most textual scholars considered at the time to be a more
important manuscript, "the St. Petersburg Codex dated A. D. 916," or just
"the St. Petersburg manuscript," i. e. Codex Petropolitanus.

Harold P. Scanlin
United Bible Societies
1865 Broadway
New York, NY  10023
[email-masked]