It was at the Facultés Catholiques in Lyons, France, where Jenny had enrolled in 1984 on degree courses in biblical Greek and New Testament textual criticism, that her professor of textual criticism, Christian-Bernard Amphoux, now Emeritus Professor of the Centre Paul-Albert Février in Aix-en-Provence, introduced Jenny to the bilingual Greek-Latin manuscript, Codex Bezae. She was immediately drawn to the unique character of its Greek text, and has devoted most of her career to studying it. In 2002, she collaborated with Christian in translating and amplifying his updated revision of the textual criticism manual by Léon Vaganay (1934).
One of Jennyâs particular insights was, from her background in languages, to see the relevance of the methods of discourse analysis for textual criticism and she first applied them to the book of Acts in Codex Bezaeâa text that diverges in notable ways from that of the familiar Alexandrian text. Her novel approach enabled her to address the problem of variant readings in Acts, and this issue became the subject of her doctoral research. It resulted in a PhD thesis at the University of Bangor in Wales (1994), under the supervision of J. Keith Elliott, her Doktorvater and the co-editor of this book. Her work was published by T&T Clark in 2002 as The Bezan Text of Acts: A Contribution of Discourse Analysis to Textual Criticism. Subsequently in 2010, she was awarded a LicDD, a post-doctoral diploma, from the University of Trinity St David in Lampeter for her analysis of the character of Paul in the Bezan text of Acts, entitled âPaul, A Fallible Apostleâ.
It was the linguistic coherence of the Greek text of Acts in Codex Bezae, together with the presence of what she identified as numerous allusions to ancient Jewish traditions, that stimulated Jennyâs continued interest in its Greek text. She was not satisfied with the traditional view that the Alexandrian text represented an early form that had been âcolouredâ by a later scribe by adding descriptive details or extra material to produce the form transmitted by the Bezan text. What was more intriguing to her than its longer length was the amount of variation in syntax and vocabulary that spoke to her of editorial rather than scribal activity.
It was in 1994 in Lunel (France), during a colloquium dedicated to Codex Bezae organised by Christian Amphoux and David Parker, that she had another decisive encounter, this time with the person of Josep Rius-Camps, Professor at the Facultat de Teologia in Barcelona and director of the Revista Catalana de Teologia. During this colloquium, âPepâ Rius-Camps and Jenny realised that they had both reached the same conclusions concerning Codex Bezaeâs status relative to other manuscripts. She has been collaborating with him for almost 30 years and regularly visits him in his community of St Pere de Reixac up in the hills outside Barcelona (Catalunya). Between 2004 and 2009, they jointly published their four-volume masterpiece The Message of Acts in Codex Bezae, producing a minute linguistic and exegetical analysis, accompanied by a comprehensive critical apparatus that proposes an explanation for each and every variant of the Bezan text of Acts. They then co-published an edition of the Greek text of LukeâActs in Codex Bezae with a Catalan translation, Demostració a Teòfil: Evangeli i Fets dels Apòstols segons el Còdex Bezaâa work that was awarded the Ciutat de Barcelonaâs Traducció en Llengua Catalana prize in 2010. An English translation, Lukeâs Demonstration to Theophilus: The Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles according to Codex Bezae, would follow in 2013. In addition, the two scholars co-edited a synopsis of the Gospels in 2014 (A Gospel Synopsis of the Greek Text of Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Comparison of Codex Bezae and Codex Vaticanus) with the texts of the two manuscripts presented side by side. In recognition of their work, in 2021 a group of colleagues and friends in Barcelona founded the Association TEXT (Transmission and Exegesis of Texts of Early Christianity;
Alongside her long-term teaching commitments in universities in Wales (Bangor, 1999â2008; Lampeter, 2011â2020), Jenny has been frequently solicited to lecture on matters related to Greek and textual criticism in various universities around the world, whether in St Petersburg in 2006/2007, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2009, or at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Lausanne between 2009â2011 when she was invited to collaborate in several research and teaching projects with Claire Clivaz. Her university responsibilities have involved the supervision of many post-graduate students, and it is in this capacity that she is currently engaged with Newman University, Birmingham.
A long-standing member of ACFEB (Association Catholique Française pour lâÃtude de la Bible, the French-speaking equivalent of the Society of Biblical Literature), since 2016 Jenny has been overseeing a large academic project on the Gospel of John at the Institut Catholique de Toulouse. Applying tools of discourse analysis has enabled her to focus, on the one hand, on the literary structure of the text of John as transmitted by Codex Bezae and, on the other, on Jewish features of the Bezan text. This project, under the direction of Bernadette Escaffre, is part of the CERES Research Unit (Culture, Ãthique, Religion et Société). Her interaction with Toulouse has been a fruitful and friendly collaboration which began in 1998 when Jenny devised a distance-learning course on New Testament textual criticism for their âToulouse Enseignement Bibliqueâ programme, thereby democratising for the French-speaking world an innovative and scientifically sound approach to this discipline.
Jenny has consistently devoted herself in an original and non-conformist way to showing that the text of Lukeâs writings in Codex Bezae reveals an author deeply rooted in Judaism, accustomed to seeing in events of the present a re-enactment of Torah episodes, in line with traditional Jewish exegesisâthis would be a perspective that eluded later scribes faced with the difficulty of understanding the intricacies of such unfamiliar exegesis, and who were more concerned with transmitting an easily accessible, liturgical text. Jenny certainly belongs to those rare specialists of the so-called Western text who consider that it pre-dates the Alexandrian text. Through her engagement with the annual meeting of the âOld Testament in the Newâ seminar (recently re-named as âJewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianityâ), her insights into the Jewish nature of readings in New Testament witnesses other than those relied on by the current Greek edition and its translations are increasingly attracting the interest of other scholars in the field.
Turning to Jennyâs three major research themes, which appear in the articles and books referred to in the appendix at the end of the volume, we may highlight:
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Her approach to linguistic characteristics of variants of the Bezan text that are usually considered as insignificant because they are concerned with, for example, conjunctions or prepositions and, consequently, are often overlooked in the traditional study of variants in manuscripts. Jenny contends that such words and particles correspond to deliberate editorial articulations, and she powerfully advocates that their use in Codex Bezae represent evidence of a very early text, at times traceable to the author himself. Publications that relate to this topic include titles such as âThe Use of the Definite Article before Names of People in the Greek Text of Acts with Particular Reference to Codex Bezaeâ (1991); âWord Order in Koine Greekâ (1996); âVariation in the Use of Prepositions between Codex Bezae and the Alexandrian Uncialsâ (2004); âThe Tracking of Participants with the Third Person Pronoun: A Study of the Text of Actsâ (2006); âLukeâs Use of
á½¡Ï andὡÏεί : Comparison and Correspondence as a Means to Convey his Messageâ (2006); âThe Distinction betweená¼ Ïαν andÏᾶν in the Work of Lukeâ (2008); âThe Function of the Article with Proper Names: The New Testament Book of Acts as a Case Studyâ (2019). Her linguistic studies have been brought together in her latest book, Luke in his Own Words: A Study of the Language of LukeâActs in Greek (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2022). She was introduced to this field of research by Stephen H. Levinsohn, a specialist in Koine Greek linguistics whose writings she frequently draws on in applying linguistic principles to textual criticism, as in key articles such as âDiscourse Analysis in the Service of Textual Criticismâ (2018) and âDiscourse Analysis of the Book of Actsâ, in Discourse Analysis of the New Testament Writings (2020). -
Her approach to the characters of LukeâActs as typically presented by Codex Bezae and traceable in its readings. This has resulted, for example, in her articles on Barnabas (âBarnabas in Acts: A Study of his Role in the Text of Codex Bezaeâ, 1998); on the apostles in general (âThe Apostles in the Bezan Text of Actsâ, 2003); on the status of the apostles after the death of Judas (âAfter the Death of Judas: A Reconsideration of the Status of the Twelve Apostlesâ, 2004); and on Simeon in Acts 15 (âWho is âSimeonâ in Jamesâ Speech to the Jerusalem Meeting [Ac 15:14]â, 2006). So many of the readings she has analysed had previously been passed over in silence by some, or considered erroneous and devoid of interest, if not nonsensical, by others. Drawing on the work of Josep Rius-Camps, she sees as the clue to their validity the fact that in the Bezan text Luke highlights the flaws and weaknesses of the early Christian leaders, before they acquired the status of infallibility.
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Her view of the Jewish identity of the author of Lukeâs Bezan text composed, as she says, âfrom an insider perspectiveâ. This led to such notable articles as âWhere is Emmaus? Clues in the Text of Luke 24 in Codex Bezaeâ (1999), where she delivers a perceptive exegesis of Lk 24:13â35.
Jennyâs study of the writings attributed to Luke is expanded in some major articles, for example âLuke-Acts: The Problem of Editing a Text with a Multiple Textual Traditionâ, which she presented at the colloquium in Tblissi on the Editing and History of Biblical Manuscripts (2007); âEclecticism and the Book of Actsâ in the Festschrift for J.K. Elliott in 2014; and, for a volume of studies of the Exodus in the New Testament in 2022, an exegetical review of elements of the exodus that are visible in the Bezan text of Acts (âExodus in the Book of Acts: A Prophetic Reversal of Israelâs Historyâ). She is currently gathering together her articles on the characters and the Jewish perspective of Luke in Codex Bezae for a forthcoming publication that will explore further clues as to the identity of Theophilus as his addressee.
We, the co-editors and a large panel of contributorsâPhD students past and present (a co-editor of this volume being one!), friends, colleagues, and academics in the area of textual criticism and biblical exegesisâare pleased to honour with this Festschrift Jennyâs inexhaustible faith in defending the importance of the early texts of the New Testament. It is intended as a humble tribute to her and has been a joy to prepare. We hope that the summary of our contributions in the following section will be for her and the readers a foretaste of the delight she will surely experience in finding so many echoes of these fascinating questions that attest to the difficulty of finding the traces of the authentic text of the New Testament.
Finally, we wish to express our grateful thanks to Brill, and especially to Bart Ehrman, Eldon Epp and Jennifer Knust, as well as the editorial board of NTTSD, for allowing us to offer this volume to Jenny.
Keith and Laurent