Warburg Work in Progress, Autumn 2024 - The Role of Complete Manuscripts in Early Christian Citation of the Jewish Scriptures’

Michael Dormandy (University of Innsbruck, SAS-Innsbruck exchange fellow): ‘New Roles for Old Rolls: The Role of Complete Manuscripts in Early Christian Citation of the Jewish Scriptures’

The early Christians revel in citing and expounding the Jewish Scriptures and early Christian texts, but how practically did they access their sources? I argue that they used complete rolls of the Jewish Scriptures more often than is thought. I argue that scholars have exaggerated the practical difficulties of referring to book-rolls. I discuss palaeographic evidence that rolls, as well as codices, were used not only for continuous reading, but also for reference. In particular, I use Kathleen McNamee’s research into marginalia in manuscripts to highlight evidence of annotation that suggests ancient people not only read through book-rolls, but also referred back to them. I also investigate the citation technique of other ancient authors, including Philo and Catullus, who seem to have cited from complete books at least some of the time. Although Philo was obviously deeply familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, his citation of pagan authors varies widely in accuracy, sometimes extremely vague, sometimes specifying a particular passage precisely. I argue that this suggests he sometimes used memory, but sometimes had a complete manuscript before him. I discuss and interpret a particular passage of Catullus, where he appears to portray himself needing to refer to books to write his poems. This is anything but an obscure historical or text-critical issue: knowing that the early Christians were frequently citing from continuous text manuscripts gives us a new appreciation of their artistry in interpreting the texts they cite. They may not use the passages they quote to mean the same as they meant in their original context, but I argue they frequently had sight of that context, which suggests their hermeneutical adaptation of it was deliberate.
 

The Work in Progress seminar explores the variety of subjects studied and researched at the Warburg Institute. Papers are given by invited international scholars, research fellows studying at the Institute, and third-year PhD students.

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