EXC 2060 C3-21 - Theorie of Variation on the basis of an open digital edition of the Greek New Testament

Basic data for this project

Type of project: Subproject in DFG-joint project hosted at University of Münster
Duration: 01/01/2019 - 31/12/2025 | 1st Funding period

Description

The Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) has developed the research portal called the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR), which is the world's largest digital archive of New Testament manuscripts and transcriptions. A pioneering new development in textual criticism is the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), which will also be integrated in the NTVMR in the future. The CBGM moves from an assessment of the genealogy of textual variants to a genealogy of the textual witnesses that transmitted the variants. A quantitative analysis of the variants and their witnesses leads to a nuanced view of the relationships between witnesses. An important goal of the CBGM is to reconstruct the “Ausgangstext,” that is the initial text. On this basis, an open digital edition will become a reality, enabling users outside of the INTF to ask their own questions of the complete manuscript tradition, which will be fully accessible for the first time. This is not yet possible since the NTVMR was not originally designed to be an interactive platform. In the future, users will be able to select an interactive set of manuscripts and display different variants. Users will be able to then make their own textual decisions and calculate their significance for the entire tradition. With an open digital edition, it is possible for the first time to examine textual-historical tendencies in the manuscript tradition. The primary aim of the project is to formulate a new theory of variant formation in the transmission of the New Testament.

Keywords: Religion; Poltics; Variant formation; New Testament