The Jerusalem Colophon is a colophon found in a number of New Testament manuscripts, including Λ (039), 20, 153, 157, 164, 215, 262,

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 ( CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 300 ...

, 376, 428, 565, 566,

686 __NOTOC__ Year 686 (Roman numerals, DCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 686 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent ...

, 718, 728, 748, 829, 899, 901, 922,

980 Year 980 ( CMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Peace is concluded between Emperor Otto II (the Red) and King Lothair III (or Lothair IV) at Margut, ending the Franco-Germa ...

, 1032, 1071,

1118 Year 1118 ( MCXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * August 15 – Emperor Alexios I Komnenos dies after a 37-year reign, in which he has regained control over wester ...

, 1121,

1124 Year 1124 (Roman numerals, MCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1124th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 124th year of the 2nd millennium, the 24th year of the 12th century, and ...

, 1187, 1198,

1355 Year 1355 (Roman numerals, MCCCLV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events * January 6 – Charles IV of Bohemia is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy in Milan. * January 7 – King ...

, 1422,

1521 1521 ( MDXXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1521st year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 521st year of the 2nd millennium, the 21st year of the 16th century, and the 2nd year o ...

, 1545, 1555,

1682 Events January–March * January 7 – The Republic of Genoa forbids the unauthorized printing of newspapers and all handwritten newssheets; the ban is lifted after three months. * January 12 – Scottish minister James Ren ...

, 2145, and 2245. The full version of the colophon is – that the manuscript (in this case the "Gospel According to Matthew") was "copied and corrected from the ancient exemplars from

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

preserved on the holy mountain" (according to the majority of scholars, it was

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

) in 2514 verses and 355 chapters. Usually the colophon is abbreviated in subsequent mentions in the same manuscript. The texts of the manuscripts that share the colophon are not necessarily textually related (though a surprising number belong to Group Λ (039), 164, 262, and perhaps some of the many manuscripts does not classify). In many cases the colophon was copied down from document to document independent of the text. The majority of these manuscripts are representative of the

Byzantine text-type In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main Textual criticism#New Testament, text types. ...

. The meaning of the colophon was discussed by

Kirsopp Lake Kirsopp Lake (7 April 187210 November 1946) was an English New Testament Biblical scholar, scholar, Church history, Church historian, Palaeography#Greek Palaeography, Greek palaeographer, and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard ...

. Lake holds that the "Holy Mountain" is

Mount Sinai Mount Sinai, also known as Jabal Musa (), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is one of several locations claimed to be the Mount Sinai (Bible), biblical Mount Sinai, the place where, according to the sacred scriptures of the thre ...

. According to Caspar René Gregory it would be possible that the manuscript Tischendorfianus III was written and corrected in Jerusalem.C. R. Gregory
"Canon and Text of the New Testament"
(1907), p. 360.

References

{{reflist

Bibliography

* K. Aland and B. Aland, "The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism", trans. Erroll F. Rhodes, '' William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company'', Grand Rapids, Michigan 1995. *

Bruce M. Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the ...

, ''The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration'', ''

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

'', New York, Oxford 1980.

External links

* R. Waltz
Assorted Short Definition
at the ''Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism'' (2007) Greek New Testament manuscripts Biblical criticism Christian terminology