Scribes

In Communal Creativity in the Making of the ‘Beowulf’ Manuscript, Simon Thomson analyses details of scribal activity to tell a story about the project that preserved Beowulf as one of a collective, if error-strewn, endeavour and arguing for a date in Cnut’s reign. He presents evidence for the use of more than three exemplars and at least two artists as well as two scribes, making this an intentional and creative re-presentation uniting literature religious and heroic, in poetry and in prose.

He goes on to set it in the broader context of manuscript production in late Anglo-Saxon England as one example among many of communities using old literature in new ways, and of scribes working together, making mistakes, and learning.

This thesis contests the reified status of ‘scribe’ and its Egyptological construction as social category, and returns to the ancient Egyptian writing practices attested in the archaeological record. It aims to deconstruct the ‘scribe’ category and to suggest a new perspective that takes into account historiography and museum displays, particularly in the way that specific object types—i.e. pen and palette—have been used to fetishise the ‘scribe’ as a distinct class of people in ancient Egyptian society. As a first step, the thesis presents a complete dataset of those two object types so far recorded from documented excavations, to test the distribution and detailed context of each example. The research then further concentrates on archaeological methods to recontextualise writing implements, presenting a case study on the material culture from the ancient Egyptian site of Balat ‛Ayn Asīl in the western desert. There, a more diffuse material culture of writing practices provides a m...

This study explores the personal copyist statement in the tablet colophons, the scribes who appear in them and the tablets’ findspots in order to demonstrate the relationships between text, scribe and the scholarly work environment of Hattusa in the late Empire period (second half of the 13th cent. BC). It is initially demonstrated how Hittite scribal statements were appended to specific types of texts and had a recurring structure that reflects their purpose. A look at festivals follows. Two large Hittite festivals, the hisuwa and AN.TAH.SUM, were both prepared by scholars related to or working under Walwaziti, the chief scribe of Hattusili III, and his family. However, at some point, perhaps during the reign of Tudhaliya IV, the complex work on the AN.TAH.SUM festival came under the authority of another scribal group, that of Anuwanza. In this context it is also considered whether certain shelf lists may have been accounts of tablets removed from an archival section.

In Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices, Elijah
Hixson assesses the extent to which unique readings reveal the
tendencies of the scribes who produced three luxury manuscripts
of Matthew’s Gospel. The manuscripts, Codex Purpureus
Petropolitanus (N 022), Codex Sinopensis (O 023) and Codex
Rossanensis (Σ 042), were each copied in the sixth century from the
same exemplar. Hixson compares the results of a modified singular
readings method to the number of actual changes each scribe
made. An edition of the lost exemplar and transcriptions of
Matthew in each manuscript follow in the appendices. Of
particular relevance to New Testament textual criticism is the
observation that the singular readings method does not accurately
reveal the habits of these three scribes.

This work encompasses research in the field of Hebrew palaeography, and notably to the typology of Ashkenazi scripts. It includes a comparative analysis of the script used in medieval and post-medieval Torah scrolls, showing that certain features of the former are still discernible in the latter. The script used in Torah scrolls from these time periods reflect characteristics of both of the central Ashkenazic writing styles accepted today known as the Arizal and the Beth Yosef. A primary objective of  this palaeographical research is to suggest possible reasons and origins - historical, rabbinic, graphic etc. - for the discrepancies between these two scripts so that one may understand the impact of these factors on the development of Hebrew letters and their division into two main branches as they exist in the traditional scribal art of today.

Cette étude englobe des recherches dans le domaine de la paléographie hébraïque, et notamment dans la typologie des écritures ashkénazes. Il inclue une analyse comparative de l'écriture utilisée dans les rouleaux de la Torah médiévaux et post-médiévaux, montrant que certaines caractéristiques de la première periode restent toujours visibles dans la seconde. L'écriture utilisée dans les rouleaux de la Torah de ces périodes reflète les caractéristiques des deux styles principaux d'écriture ashkénaze acceptés aujourd'hui, connus sous les noms d'Arizal et de Beth Yosef. L'un des principaux objectifs de cette recherche paléographique est de suggérer des raisons et des origines possibles - historiques, rabbiniques, graphiques, etc. - pour les divergences entre ces deux écritures, afin de comprendre l'impact de ces facteurs sur le développement des lettres hébraïques et leur division en deux branches principales telles qu'elles existent dans l'art scribal traditionnel d'aujourd'hui.

This paper discusses the lexemes belonging to the semantic field of writing and writing equipment in Archaic and Classical Greek, and it makes use of epigraphic evidence to interpret literary passages where scribal practices are referred to. In the 5th century BCE it is possible to discern the increasing importance of scribal activity and its impact on society.

This is a double research paper: (1) Tipology and evolution of the musical forms across the three 13th-century notated MSS. of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: the first systematic revision of the subject since Anglés (1958) [a few mistakes crept in and were corrected in the same author's paper "Jograis, contrafacta, formas musicais: cultura urbana nas Cantigas de Santa Maria", in Alcanate. Revista de Estudios Alfonsíes, nº 8 (2012-2013), pp. 43-53, where the table of musical forms was expanded from codex T to the whole collection]. (2) The notation of codex T.j.1: the first systematic analysis of the Escorial type of notation, with the differences between codices E and T outlined in detail.

Email for full.  Ancient scribes writing Biblical Hebrew could mark a Goal argument (the place to which one is moving) with the directive he suffix, with a directional preposition, or as an accusative of destination.  Previous studies have explained this alternation in terms of a few historical or linguistic variables at a time.  In this study, I use a comprehensive dataset (all factive Goals from prose Biblical Hebrew texts), a broad set of potential explanatory variables coded for each Goal and the clause in which it appears (including more than thirty diachronic, social, and linguistic variables, with a particular focus on previously-understudied syntactic-semantic variables), various statistical tools (especially multinomial logistical regression), and comparative data (from Epigraphic Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, Ugaritic, and Akkadian) to explore the influences on and choices of the ancient scribes.  Important findings of this study include indications that 1) scribes of the Late Biblical Hebrew corpus consciously promoted the use of directive he despite the convergence of the Late Biblical Hebrew goal-marking system with that of Aramaic, as evidenced in the behavior of the goal-marking prepositions across time (a conclusion not consistent with purely stylistic explanations of the linguistic differences between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew); 2) due to educational and social disruptions during the exile, the scribes originating texts described as Transitional Biblical Hebrew mobilized fewer prestigious linguistic features than scribes of the Classical and Late corpora, as evidenced by limitations in their goal-marking repertoires and paralleled by data from other Semitic corpora; 3) the scribes’ choices between goal-marking strategies are largely driven by sensitivity to a Prototypical Intransitive Motion Construction (in which a salient Affected Agent moves successfully and completely to an inanimate single-point Goal that contains inherent, specific geographic information) and other Motion Construction prototypes (Caused-Motion, Pursuit, etc.), with the directive he and the accusative of direction being strongly correlated with more-prototypical environments; and 4) individual prepositions may encode the type of Goal location (single-point or divisible), the place of the Goal in the information structure of the text, the mover’s configuration with respect to the Goal, or Goal animacy.

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Códice de Santiago Tlacotepec (Municipio de Toluca, Estado de México)
Ruiz Medrano, Ethelia / Xavier Noguez
En este ensayo se presenta el contexto histórico y un estudio iconográfico de dos pictografías prácticamente desconocidas del valle de Toluca. Ambas láminas forman parte de la documentación de un proceso civil ocurrido en 1565. El litigio al que nos referimos tuvo como actores principales a dos indígenas naturales de Tlacotepec, pueblo ubicado hacia el sur de Toluca. Las láminas que aquí se presentan, copias de dos más antiguas, fueron pintadas a mediados del siglo XVI y, originalmente, formaron parte de un llgajo de documentos escritos en español. Un litigio agrario por la posesión de un terreno cultivado con magueyes fue el asunto que generó tanto la documentación como las pinturas. Una familia de filiación matlatzinca, de la nobleza local, y otra de nahuas, llegada más tardíamente, entablaron una acción judicial, por lo menos en dos instancias diferentes. Los materiales citados forman parte ahora de los fonds mexicains de la Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, en Paris. Adicionalmente se encontró un legajo en el ramo Tierras del Archivo General de la Nación (ciudad de México) que proporcinó información precisa sobre la segunda parte del pleito. El trabajo que aquí se presenta se divide en dos grandes secciones: el estudio histórico-jurídico del pleito, a cargo de la doctora Uiz Medrano y el análisis glífico-iconográfico, encomendado al doctor Xavier Noguez. Gracias a este doble enfoque, necesario en este tipo de fuentes históricas, podemos conocer ahora, con precisión, cuál fue el origen, desarrollo y fin, por lo menos hasta 1568, de esta interesante disputa, cuyos detalles servirán para arrojar luz a una historia que aún espera estudios más amplios: el conflicto de etnias que se dio en el valle de Toluca (antiguo Matlatzinco), conflicto que se aceleró con la conquista militar de la región por los hahuas de la Triple Alianza (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco y Tlacopan) hacia 1474, y que se prolongó hasta la primera etapa colonial. Aquí se dan a conocer asuntos novedosos como el origen y naturaleza de los argumentos de legitimidad de posesión de la tierra, basados en muy antiguas cosmovisiones indígenas y en aparatos legales impuestos por la burocracia imperial española. También se hallan datos sobre el nuevo juego que se estaba definiendo entre miembros de la nobleza india y la gente común, los macehuales, quienes comenzaron a aprovechar los espacios jurídicos que se abrieron a partir de la desintegración, constante e inevitable, del status quo prehispánico. En otra dimensión, este códice proporciona datos sobre el ejercicio de la tlacuilolli o arte de pintar códices en la región Matlatzinca y sus alrededores en el siglo XVI.
Contenido:
CONTENIDOS Y CONTEXTOS
• El escenario de la historia
• La historia de Pablo Océlotl y Alonso González
• Justicia colonial:orden y artificio
• Apéndice documental
ESTUDIO ICONOGRÁFICO
• Características Generales de las pictografías
• Las pictografías presentadas por el matlatzinca Pablo Océlotl
• La pictografía presentada por el nahua Alonso González
• Observaciones finales
• Mapa
• Guía de identificación "A"
• Guía de identificación "B"
• Obras consultadas
• Facsímiles
Año : 2004
ISBN: 970-669-056-5
Páginas :68

This doctoral research thesis focuses on the archaeology of ancient Egyptian communication technologies, exploring the definitions and the material culture of ancient Egyptian writing practice. In contrast with older approaches that define writing as a system of social separation, writing is explored as a practice-based form of sharing visual information. This research identifies forms of writing that include non-linguistic systems and scripts, in addition to scripts that verbalize linguistic content.
The author maintains that a communication system based on written marks sets the roots for social interaction rather than exclusion.

Im Matthäusevangelium wurden Schriftgelehrte und Pharisäer  stereotypiert, gerade um sich von ihnen abzusetzen. Die Schriftgelehrten standen stereotypisch für das Wort, die Pharisäer stereotypisch für die Tat, während Matthäus und die Matthäusgruppe sich im Gegenteil für die Einheit von Wort und Tat eingesetzt haben.Doch es ist auch davon auszugehen, dass Matthäus und/oder die Matthäusgruppe aus Ressentiment über das Ziel hinausgeschossen sind. Matthäus und der matthäische Trägerkreis setzen sich sehr deutlich von "den anderen" ab, indem sie auf die Einheit von Lehre und Handeln beharrten. Die "anderen" sind nicht die Juden. Das Matthäusevangelium ist nicht antijüdisch, es ist antipharisäisch. Vor allem die Pharisäer, aber auch die Schriftgelehrten fungieren als Negativfolie der eigenen Gruppe. Die negative Fremdwahrnehmung der beiden Gruppen durch Matthäus und die Matthäusgruppe dient als externalisierte  Eigenwahrnehmung, um die Einheit von Wort und Tat angesichts des kommenden Gottesreiches in der internen Eigenwahrnehmung zu stärken. Am wahrscheinlichsten hatten Matthäus und die Matthäusgruppe selbst einen pharisäischen Hintergrund, und um sich von seiner bzw. ihrer eigenen Vergangenheit abzugrenzen, wurde ein  künstlicher Gegensatz kreiert.

The biblical book of Jeremiah was frequently expanded and revised through duplication by anonymous scribes in ancient Judea. Who were these scribes? What gave them the authority to revise divinatory texts like Jeremiah? And when creating duplicates, what did they think they were doing? In Scribes Writing Scripture: Doublets, Textual Divination, and the Formation of Jeremiah, Justus Theodore Ghormley explores possible answers to these questions. The scribes who revised Jeremiah are textual diviners akin to divining scribal scholars of ancient Near Eastern royal courts; and their practice of expanding Jeremiah through duplication involves techniques of textual divination comparable the practice of textual divination utilized in the formation of ancient Near Eastern divinatory texts.

Ancient Assyrian scribes planned to praise their king’s great achievement by inflating numbers. But the scribes never invented whole new numbers for their purpose but slightly modified original numbers by adding an inconspicuous sign, which might reveal the reason for their cautious behavior as religious piety.

This study employs a conjunctive, interdisciplinary approach to contemporary iconographic, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence to shed light on the role of religious specialists and religious practice in Maya society of the Classic Period (A.D. 250 - 900). Its central contribution is a thematic model of Classic Maya priesthood.

While the existence of priests in Classic society has been questioned—and while some have seen the religious specialists and political leaders of the period as shamans—this study finds evidence for an elect group of professional worshippers who constituted a ‘class apart’, wearing distinctive vestments, propitiating deities in temples, producing liturgical documents (codices), and performing community-wide services on a regular, calendrical basis. Such traits are all characteristic of priests in universal comparison. Priests occupied various ranked offices since at least the outset of the Late Classic Period (A.D. 600), including: (1) ajk’uhuun or “worshipper”, a propitiator of deities and keeper of codices, but also a court chaplain (parallel to the Colonial Yucatec ajk’ìin); (2) yajawk’ahk’ or “fire's vassal”, primarily a warrior priest, but also responsible for incense ceremonies (parallel to the Aztec tlenamácac “fire priest”); and; (3) ti’sakhuun “speaker of/for the white headband”, a prophet and oracular priest (cognate with the Colonial Yucatec chi’laan), intermediary betweens humans and gods, and also a spokesman for the king. Importantly, a number of prominent ixajk’uhuun or “priestesses” are also known from the second half of the Late Classic Period (A.D. 700 - 800).

The existence of a Classic Maya priesthood reveals hitherto unsuspected dimensions of the social, political and economic organization of Maya society.  Like their Postclassic and Modern descendants, Classic priests were more than esteemed religious specialists, scribes and teachers; they also wielded considerable political and economic power. They commissioned their own monuments and temples, governed their own segmentary lineage compounds, and even acted as regents or stewards for young rulers. 

While most priests acknowledged subordination to their k’uhulajaw or “holy lord”—himself the divine king and ex officio high priest—this information could be suppressed in private documents, and some priests served multiple rulers in turn. As such, the monumental commissions of priests and other non-royal nobles comprise a crucial, nominally independent register of historical information which reveal emic dimensions of resistance to royal ideology, and which can be profitably compared and contrasted with “official” royal history.

This study explores scribal practices related to the writing, erasure, and correction of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) in medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts (codices and Torah scrolls). Theoretical statements in halakhic literature are compared to actual examples from the five geo-cultural regions in which medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts were written. The results are presented in an introduction (chapter 1), six main chapters (2–7), and a chapter of summation (chapter 8).
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 deal with the writing, erasure, and correction of the Tetragrammaton, respectively. Chapter 5 expands on chapter 2 with an interdisciplinary approach, involving Microscopic Reflectography and XRF (X-ray fluorescence analysis), to explore scribal procedures used to write the Tetragrammaton. Chapter 6 expands on the phenomenon of text-correcting qere, which I discovered during the course of the research on chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 7 explores the gap between the rulings of halakhic authorities and the reality of scribal praxis reflected in medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts, especially Torah scrolls.

An overview of the variety of textual differences that exist between the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus and the book in modern critical editions, thereby offering a window into the book's early readership. There is also a YouTube link to the lecture version of this paper, which was recently delivered at Samford University for their Holley Hull Lecture Series: https://vimeo.com/878444925/a35492dd8b?share=copy&fbclid=IwAR10Iu7HKuAjjcEcDdxgfT7XKqe2F6W6Bwb1cVHafNO0Yz6g4VhsIhXHMz4

Extract from The Torah in the Wardrobe
ISBN: 978-1-988947-00-6 Marc Michaels © 2017  (Paperback and PDF)

Written in 1790, the Alexander Torah has been passed down from generation to generation. Escaping the flames of Kristalnacht, this special Torah, full of rare scribal practices, has been rescued once more by Sofer STa”M (scribe) Marc Michaels (Mordechai Pinchas). He chronicles both its travels from Thälmassing to Belsize Square and its careful restoration. Jam-packed with photos of its history, restoration and its rare special decorated letters in the tradition of Sefer Tagin. Learn a little more about the Alexander Torah from two special videos on http://www.sofer.co.uk/repairs and the book is available from www.kulmus.co.uk

By showing that the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales was inspired by Harry Bailey's 1381 poll-tax records for Southwark, this article offers a new interpretive context for Chaucer's best-known work.

During the second half of the 1380s, John Gower, the leading fourteenth-century poet and an acquaintance of Geoffrey Chaucer, was working on his longest English poem, the Confessio Amantis. Chaucer, in turn, is believed to have been writing some of the material that would later form The Canterbury Tales. In addition, Chaucer was probably finishing Troilus and Criseyde, which must have been available before March 1388, at least in part, to Thomas Usk, the poet and undersheriff of London, who names the poem and borrows from Chaucer’s Boece in his Testament of Love. It is in the Confessio and in the Troilus, that is, in works written in the second half of the 1380s, that Chaucer and Gower first refer to one another in a literary context. The only other instance that connects the two names is a 1378 legal record, in which Chaucer hands power of attorney to Gower and the lawyer Richard Forster. Rather than reading this document as proof of Gower and Chaucer’s supposed personal friendship, I adduce new evidence for Gower’s legal training that suggests that the 1378 record was a purely professional arrangement—Chaucer might simply have needed a team of lawyers at the time. There is no reason to read this document through the prism of an instance of poetically embedded praise some ten years later, particularly given Gower’s likely career as a lawyer.

The new evidence for Gower’s legal training changes what we know of the relationship between the two poets and, by virtue of pushing forward their literary acquaintance to the late 1380s, brings into sharp relief their deep ties to Southwark, where Gower may have resided at the time and where Chaucer launched his Canterbury Tales. Furthermore, on closer inspection, this new focus on Gower’s and Chaucer’s work in Southwark has the potential not only to foreground the role of an emerging literary culture in the area but to challenge existing models of reading The Canterbury Tales and modify our understanding of what Chaucer had in mind when he embarked on this collection of tales.

ISBN: 978-0-9880539-0-8 Marc Michaels © 2013 (Paperback and PDF)

There isn’t a scroll read on Chanukah but perhaps there should be? Sofer STa”M  Marc Michaels has gathered over twenty handwritten and printed manuscripts from the 13th Century onwards for this traditional text for Chanukah that used to be read in Italian, Yemenite and other synagogues. 

Examining the variant Hebrew and Aramaic texts,  he has created a new tikkun kor’im fully pointed with vowels and trope and a new tikkun sofrim with visual midrashim to add extra depth to the text. A new translation into English with explanatory notes is accompanied by a new commentary on the text - Or LiM’norah in the style of the biblical commentators. Includes two ‘missing’ verses found in the oldest Aramaic manuscripts but expunged from later Hebrew ones.

Domböcker är de viktigaste sammanhängande källorna till Finlands historia under 1600-talet. De belyser på ett mångsidigt sätt livet och människorna på det lokala planet men också i ett riksperspektiv. Domböckerna har ett stort kulturhistoriskt, rättshistoriskt och stadshistoriskt värde. De är ytterligare värdefulla språkhistoriska källor; protokollen är skrivarens referat av de muntliga vittnesutsagor som avlades i stadens rådstuga. I den första delen av sin doktorsavhandling redogör Harry Lönnroth för Ekenäs stads dombok 1678–1695 i ett rättsfilologiskt perspektiv. Boken innehåller dels en textfilologisk analys av den renoverade domboken, dels en editionsfilologisk introduktion till den vetenskapliga utgåva som ingår i avhandlingens andra del (Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk 172). År 2007 förlänades verket två pris: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemias avhandlingspris och Svenska litteratursällskapets i Finland avhandlingspris.

Spell 103, "Being beside Hathor," one of the shortest in the Book of the Dead, is not well studied; scholars differ in their translations. My paper addresses this interpretative issue, with special attention to its Theban recension, a time of experimentation and creativity.
        Using the Bonn Totenbuch database, I made a synoptic study from the New Kingdom through Ptolemaic era, which highlighted textual transmission and revealed paleographic anomalies. I found that the ambiguity stems from homonyms, alternate writings, and unusual determinatives—a scribal technique creating multiple layers of meaning. My analysis also considered the vignettes, titles and gender of the owner, frequency of use, and roles of priests and gods alluded in the text.
        In this paper, I show how allusions to three categories of priests help the deceased: wab-priests ("pure ones"), who carry the divine barque in procession, facilitate contact with Hathor; iAs-priests ("bald ones"), who relay the words of the goddess, recall intermediary statues of "bald ones of Hathor," popular at this time; iHy-priests (sistrum-players—wearing ostrich feathers in the determinatives) pacify Hathor's dangerous side with music and dance, thus restoring Ma'at. Hathor's son Ihy (homonym of iHy-priest) adds protection and rejuvenation.
        A close reading and analysis of the writing in this deceptively simple spell show how allusions to divine contact, communication, pacification, and restoration of Ma'at create a magically powerful statement to aid the deceased in "being beside Hathor."

This is my Master Thesis - unedited after handed into University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

My Master Thesis covers the splendid burial 7 found in Structure B1 at Cahal Pech, Belize uncovered in 2011. Between 2011 and 2014 several other burials were uncovered in Structure B1 and also discussed in this thesis. This an insight to mane of the elite burials from Cahal Pech.

Ignore the poorly theoretical chapter - Theory was not prioritized at the time of writing - luckily UCR had remedied that since. 

As an appendix you get Marc Zenders deciphering and interpretation of the glyphs found in BU7

The Book of Revelation has been something of an outlier within parts of the Christian tradition, as evidenced, among other things, by its peculiar canon-ical reception. As regards the earliest period of transmission, however, the Greek text of Revelation is relatively well attested. In this vein, the present study seeks to examine the relevant Greek materials from late antique Egypt, and thus elucidate the earliest textual and material transmission of this book. The manuscripts in question will be surveyed with a particular focus on their distinctive features such as book formats and scribal practices, as well as textual characteristics, followed by reflections on their socio-historical significance.

Argues that Kuntillet ʿAjrud was primarily a military fortress on the trade route from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The inscriptions on two pithoi provide a variety of elementary and practical scribal exercises of soldier-scribes. This training included a gamut of educational curriculum: the alphabet, numbers, epistolary formulas, onomastic and lexical lists, and literary texts. Already by the end of the ninth century BCE, even remote desert fortresses had scribes who were trained in basic skills relating to trade and state bureaucracy. The Kuntillet ʿAjrud inscriptions illustrate a main role of scribes in the ancient world, namely, they work in the service of the state and its bureaucracy.

A comprehensive review of the most significant developments in the study of the reconstruction of the Greek text of Revelation and its textual history from the Textus Receptus of the 16h century to the Text und Textwert project of the 21st. (This is a pre-published version).

This paper looks at a Persian-language documentary form called the mahzar-nama that was widely used in India between the 17 th and 19 th centuries to narrate, represent and record antecedents, entitlements and injuries, with a view to securing legal rights and redressing legal wrongs. Although mahzars were a known documentary form in Islamic law, used by qazis (Islamic judges) in many other parts of the world, in India they took a number of distinctive forms. The specific form of Indian mahzar-namas that this article focusses on was, broadly speaking, a legal document of testimony, narrated in the first person, in a form standardised by predominantly non-Muslim scribes, endorsed in writing by members of the local community and/or the professional or social contacts of person(s) writing the document, and notarised by the seal of a qazi. This specific legal form, however, formed part of a much broader genre of declarative texts, which were also known as mahzars in India. By looking at the legal mahzar-namas together with the other kinds of mahzars, and situating both in relation to Indo-Islamic jurisprudential texts and Persian-language formularies, this article points to a distinctive Indo-Islamic legal culture in contact with the wider Islamic and Persianate worlds of jurisprudence and documentary culture but responsive to the unique socio-political formations of early modern India. In doing so, the article will reflect on the meanings of law, including Islamic law, for South Asians, and trace the evolution of that understanding across the historical transition to colonialism.

The collection of writings known today as the New Testament has been  preserved in more witnesses than any other text in antiquity. Such a multitude of witnesses has also yielded greater textual plurality, constituted by the ubiquitous presence of textual variation. The present article aims to introduce the notion of textual plurality in the New Testament more generally,  followed by a discussion of various means of scribal involvement in its origin as well as the subsequent scribal interaction with it.

If solving a riddle involves returning the obscured referent to a state of clarity, then what are we to do when we encounter in the margin of Aldhelm of Malmesbury’s Aenigma 100 a scribe’s solution that looks like this: ut hkskdkxt? Such playful cryptography was quite common in early medieval manuscripts, particularly in the context of didactic texts and riddles, but there is something peculiar about this example (and several of the others that surround it in Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 5. 35): it contains an error, a slip that has made it all but impossible for modern editors and scholars to decrypt it accurately. But that error and others like it give us a new way to understand the nature of early medieval cryptographic inscriptions. By recognizing such mistakes and errors as an integral feature of scribal cryptography, we discover that that some of them may have actually involved tremendous ingenuity.

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal incompetency or inconsistency in their spelling practices. To find the same word both spelled correctly and misspelled with a single manuscript b the same scribe is not uncommon. It approaches the  norm. The critical editions of our Greek NTs have therefore opted, on good grounds, to exclude textual variants displaying non-standardized spelling. To include them would make it impossible for anyone to use the critical apparatuses in a meaningful way. The deluge of senseless errors would drown out variants of demonstrable textual significance.