Subject: tc-list Super-Database

From: "Bruce Prior" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:40:34 PDT

TCers --
    The core of a super-database already exists for the Gospels and Acts.  
It's Reuben Swanson's New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings 
Arranged in Horizontal Lines Against Codex Vaticanus, (Pasadena: William 
Carey International University Press).  So far in my work on Matthew in W 
(032), I've found that I differ with Swanson only very rarely.  The format 
in the recently-released Acts volume is even better, since it retains 
orthographic differences, including nomina sacra, in the main text of the 
work, rather than relegating these to notes on the bottom of the page.  This 
is the work of one man, and, at least in its treatment of Matthew in W 
(032), wipes away all previous scholarship in quality and completeness.  
Swanson works with a computer for composition of the text.  He's hard at 
work on the Letters now.  If there were enough interest in the TC community, 
I'd guess that the publisher would entertain the production of a version on 
CD-ROM, which could, indeed, form the basis of a super-database.
J. Bruce Prior PhD  in Blaine, Washington USA
[email-masked]

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From: "Thomas J. Kraus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 08:59:20 +0200

Bruce Prior threw in the subject of  a *Super-Database* referring this 
term to Reuben Swanson´s collations.
Definitely, this is the work of one man, a honored scholar, who did a 
tremendously difficult, enervating job. Nevertheless, as each printed 
book, each work done by a human being, Swanson´s work has problems, too. 
Only to mention the restriction to a number of manuscripts (e.g. for 
Matthew 26,1ff. the fragments kept in Vienna, P.Vindob.G. 31974 [i.e. a 
part of the Chester Beatty P45] is missing), thus, the lacking of 
the nomina sacra in those manuscripts, and of course, some spelling 
mistakes.
This is not an attempt to disqualify Swanson´s work. No way. He did a 
great job. But it is a problem to rely on the work of others in a too 
positivistic way.

Thomas J. Kraus
Universitaet Regensburg
Kath.-theol. Fakultaet
Universitaetsstr. 31
D-93053 Regensburg
Federal Republic of Germany

Tel. + 49 941 943 36 90
Fax. + 49 941 943 19 86
[email-masked]