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J. Neville Birdsall, The Textual Tradition of the Gospels: Family 1 in Matthew. By Amy S. Anderson. Pp. x + 219. (New Testament Tools and Studies, 32.) Leiden: Brill, 2004. isbn 90 04 13592 8. €89/$112, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 235–246, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/fli157
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Extract
Written in a laconic style, this work brings to publication a thesis successfully presented to the University of Birmingham in 1999 for the Ph.D. degree. There are very few differences between the text of the two presentations apart from changes in position of blocks of material. It concentrates on its main theme, which I shall shortly outline, and says little else about the topic of the main element of the book's title. I have little but applause for what it presents. My concerns and misgivings are mainly about its lacunae.
Family 1 of the Gospels was edited by Kirsopp Lake from four or five manuscripts in 1902 and has been accepted as an entity and quoted as such ever since. Hermann Freiherr von Soden, in his work begun in 1902, identified a somewhat enlarged group of witnesses, including those used by Lake, giving it the sigla Hr in the analysis volumes, changed to Iη in the text volume. Amongst those enlarging the group was one of the many manuscripts brought to light by his team of young scholars, in this instance from the Athos monastery of Vatopedi, bearing the call number 949. To this was assigned the serial (now Gregory–Aland) number of 1582. It is not known who the discoverer was; indeed Anderson's form of words does not mention von Soden's enterprise as the locus of discovery at all. The English scholar B. H. Streeter spoke highly of 1582 in his book The Four Gospels, drawing attention to significant readings and important critical notes in the margin. After the publication of von Soden's work, Silva Lake, in her revision of Kirsopp Lake's book The Text of the New Testament (1928), included 1582 in her account of Family 1. In contrast to Streeter she did not speak very highly of it, although she intimated a new collation which had been made and the need for a study, which apparently was never made or was subsequently lost.
