Foster, Paul

Bond, Helen

Gilliland, Maegan C. M.

2017-05-17T13:01:25Z

2017-05-17T13:01:25Z

2016-06-25

The primary goal of this research is to produce a text-critical evaluation of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews as represented in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, an early Christian theologian who lived ca. 200 AD. The result of such an undertaking will be a refined understanding of the transmission of the New Testament text at the end of the 2nd century, a time period for which we have very little textual data. Unlike our earliest New Testament manuscripts, the text of the early Church Fathers is preserved exclusively in later manuscripts. These manuscripts are often far removed from the original Patristic documents by both date and location. This results in an added layer of textual complexity for which the text critic must account, especially in the evaluation of a Church Father’s citation of New Testament manuscripts. Because of the multivalent nature of the research, the biblical data extracted from Clement of Alexandria’s writings will undergo several stages of statistical analysis comparing it to other early Greek New Testament manuscripts. The resulting data will reveal if the early text of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews was stable (controlled) or if it underwent changes due to scribal additions and subtractions. It will also shed light on the citation techniques used by Clement of Alexandria, an early Christian reader. The combined data will allow New Testament scholars to generate a more precise critical edition of the Greek New Testament and come to a better understanding of how the earliest Christian communities transmitted the New Testament text.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22015

en

The University of Edinburgh

Pauline Epistles

Paul

Hebrews

Clement of Alexandria

New Testament textual criticism

Text of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews in Clement of Alexandria

The text of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews in Clement of Alexandria

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy