Online-Edition of the Old Latin Text of Acts (Vetus Latina)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wilhelm Blümer
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology ; Protestant Theology ; Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 436998137

The research project’s goal is to prepare a complete online-edition of the Vetus Latina text of the Acts of the Apostles. Chapter 1 (consisting of 65 pages) has already been published online, chapters 2 and 3 are currently in preparation and will be finished by autumn 2019. The funding, if granted, will be used to work on chapters 4-28 of the Acts of the Apostles. The edition will serve as a useful tool for the scientific community, its layout and benefits are described below:1. The Latin text versions from the early versions to the Vulgate (the so-called text-types) are based on manuscript evidence and quotations of the Church Fathers. These versions are displayed in the upper section of a page of the edition (the so-called „Schema“) and can easily be consulted for every single passage of every single verse of Acts. 2. The orthographic apparatus contains the significant orthographic peculiarities found in the Latin manuscripts (a comprehensive overview is provided by the collations of manuscripts already published online). 3. For every single passage, the critical apparatus presents the witnesses (manuscripts and Church Fathers) for the respective text versions and their variant readings.4. In the comprehensive witness apparatus, all quotations and references found throughout the Latin Christian literature of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages are listed for every single verse according to the authoritative critical editions.With the manuscript collations already published online and the data the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster provides on its website (not only the Greek tradition, but also early Syrian, Armenian or Coptic translations are included here), the Vetus Latina edition of the Acts of the Apostles will be the final step towards providing an overview of the complete textual history of this important New Testament book. In addition to that, these resources also provide their users with an essential instrument to elucidate the different stages of the transmission of the Latin text and to establish possible links between the Greek versions and the Latin translation variants. Under the supervision of the project leader, the necessary procedures will be conducted by a team of student research assistants and Ph.D. students who (with the exception of two undergraduate students) have been working in the research project for years and have therefore acquired the necessary skills and experience.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants