Online publication: https://chs.harvard.edu/classics18-clivaz-monier-barda
The first part of this article investigates the impact of the digital revolution on the landscape of the history of Greek New Testament (NT) editions. Comparing digital culture to the beginning of print culture helps us to understand it by focusing on similarities and differences. The digital Greek New Testament can be evaluated in comparison to the Novum Testamentum omne, which is the title Erasmus gave to the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament, published in 1516. This chapter of the history of editing highlights the ways in which a new writing material reshapes textuality, ideas, concepts, and technology.
The second and third parts of this article, based on the example of the SNSF five-year project MARK16, argue that similar challenges are present today in the development of digital New Testament textual criticism (NTTC). After a general presentation of the MARK16 virtual research environment (VRE, 2.1), the article will focus on the MARK16 manuscript room (henceforth, MR) prepared in collaboration with the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR) produced by the INTF in Münster. Part 2.2 will highlight the capacity of a digital MR to reconfigure our relationship to NT textuality. This process requires negotiations between the actors who produce textuality and progressively reshapes the usual perception of ancient Christian texts categories (2.2). Similar to the case of the making of the first NT printed edition, technical and other fundamental challenges are present in the transcription and encoding of Mark 16 folios, as part 3 will demonstrate.