A critical edition of the Ethiopic Jeremiah-cycle

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Weninger
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies ; African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 253400392

The Ethiopic Book of Jeremiah, the largest prophetic book of the Ethiopic Old Testament, has never seen a critical edition. About 100 years ago, Josef Schäfers had prepared a critical edition, but he died in the fall of 1916, and his manuscript was lost during World War I. Therefore, a critical edition of ethJeremiah remains a desideratum both for Ethiopic studies and for Septuagint research.The critical edition of ethJeremiah will be based on the collation of all available textual witnesses. This edition will include the book of Threni and the apocryphal additions that are usually transmitted together (these books are also referred to as the Jeremiah-cycle). The edition will give new insights into the textual character of the earliest attainable Ethiopic version of Jeremiah (versio antiqua) and into the nature of its Vorlage (i.e., the Septuagint). The edition will also document the textual history from the versio antiqua up to the printed editions of the modern era, and it will provide valuable material for investigating the method(s) of translation. Of the Ethiopic Jeremiah cycle, Josef Schäfers knew about 15 manuscripts from European libraries. In addition to these, 18 manuscripts from Ethiopian churches and libraries became available through the EMIP program of the George Fox University. The EMML has also eight manuscripts. Of all of these manuscripts, digital copies are either available or will be processed respectively.At George Fox University, a transcription of ethJeremiah (Asmara Bible) has been made in 2013. It is available to Mr. Heide and it will serve as a base text for all collations.The time required for the collation of the 30 oldest manuscripts is approximately 3.5 years. During collation, the different layers (esp. the Arabic andacademic recensions) must be reckoned with.After collating the oldest manuscripts, the application of the Teststellen-method (a method developed by the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, University of Münster) can help to decide if manuscripts from later times (15 manuscripts from the 19th - 20th centuries) should be included in the full collation. This means that, for the more recent manuscripts, only those verses would be collated where significant variants are to be expected. This should not take longer than one year.After that, the results from the various collations will be commented. They will be compared with the observations of Schäfers and will be published together with the critical text. This will require about six months.The collation of the text and the subdivisions of the critical text, according to its various recensions, will be carried out with the help of a professional text editor, preferably CTE (Classical Text Editor). This also ensures that the unicode text, if applicable, can be made available in the internet.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Participating Person: Professor Steve Delamarter, Ph.D.