Lectures on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Volume 1

The first volume of this publication includes lectures on the methodology of studying the New Testament, the history of New Testament writing, including the “synoptic problem” and possible methods for solving it, as well as a detailed study of the first two books of the New Testament - the Gospel of Matthew and Mark. A large volume of "Lectures on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament" Η. N. Glubokovsky did not allow us to publish them in one book. We have currently prepared the first volume, which includes: an introduction devoted to general issues in the study of New Testament monuments; a section covering the Gospels as a whole and closely dealing with the synoptic problem; finally, chapters devoted to the first two Gospels. Glubokovsky's essay is preceded by a short, vivid essay by the priest. Dmitry Yurevich, largely based on the most modern publications, conference materials, etc. The essay, on the one hand, highlights the scientific path of Glubokovsky and the features of his exegetical method, on the other hand, it is a short summary and guide to the “Lectures” we publish. The main source for this publication was the lithographic editions of the “Lectures” given by Glubokovsky at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. In the process of preparing the publication, the editor faced a number of significant problems. First of all, this is a question about the degree of thoroughness in commenting on Glubokovsky’s exegesis from the perspective of modern science. Of course, we did not have the opportunity to analyze every thought of the author, looking at it “a century later”: this would require publishing a work of no less volume than the Lectures themselves. On the other hand, the book contains material that it would be a mistake to give “as is” without any commentary, for example, information about the authorship and authenticity of certain works, about the number of New Testament papyri and codices found, etc. Therefore, without setting ourselves the goal of a detailed analysis of Glubokovsky’s hypotheses, we nevertheless noted some places where modern historical and exegetical data confirm the author’s conclusions or, on the contrary, are in conflict with them. Next, there is the question of the optimal level of grammatical and stylistic correction of the text. We did not set a goal to prepare Glubokovsky’s work as a historical monument; every letter, typo, and carelessness of which have an important meaning for the researcher and should be reflected. On the one hand, we sought to publish a book that our contemporary could easily read without being in a constant struggle with the originality of the text to the detriment of the meaning. On the other hand, it would, of course, be a misunderstanding to rewrite Glubokovsky’s work in the language of the 21st century, without allowing the reader to feel the charm of the special pre-revolutionary style of scientific historical and theological literature, which also bears the imprint of the immediacy of living lecture material. Therefore, we tried to stick to the golden mean, correcting spelling and punctuation according to modern standards, while only in a few places making minor adjustments to style or word choice: as a rule, issues of stylistics and clarifying the meaning of certain not entirely successful phrases were moved to the editorial notes. In addition, for the convenience of the reader, Russian translations of all numerous quotes in ancient and modern foreign languages ​​have been added. The translation is placed by the editor in square brackets after the quotation from the original text. At the same time, we present a number of foreign names given by Glubokovsky in Latin in Russian transcription. We also note here that in the manuscript the author uses underlining to highlight the text, which in this edition is replaced by italics. The question of language is closely related to another - about the correctness and completeness of bibliographic references and the accuracy of the passages from cited authors used by Glubokovsky. Here the editor's task was understood more broadly. The citation culture of a century ago is different from the current one, somewhat more strict. In addition, the author of the Lectures could not bother himself with creating a bibliographically impeccable apparatus, keeping in mind, for example, which edition of the cited work is available to students in the library, as well as having the opportunity to provide those interested with complete information about the source in the process of oral communication. For the modern reader, all these details should be clarified, and therefore we sought to recreate a complete bibliographic description of the cited work, immediately presenting the restored (complete) version, without special comments. Unfortunately, this was not always possible and a number of publications published more than 100 years ago, usually in foreign periodicals, remained inaccessible to us. A similar approach was applied to the quoted passages themselves: inaccuracies and typos, quite numerous, were corrected from the original sources and placed in this form in the text without indicating the changes made (there are only rare specific exceptions). In preparing the publication, we actively used all the tools of modern databases and electronic bibliographic systems: Thesaurus Linguae Graeca (with Musaios and TLG Workplace interfaces), Bible Works, Libronix Digital Library System, etc. This often allowed us to find solutions to the rather confusing “mysteries” found in Glubokovsky, in particular, to establish the authorship of a number of quotes, the placement of quoted fragments, etc. However, by harmonizing the apparatus, we preferred provide references to the Greek and Latin patrolologies of Abbot Min, the publication is largely outdated, but at the moment it is the most complete and most accessible to the domestic reader. Throughout the book, comments and editor's notes are placed in square brackets or as separate footnotes and are marked "Ed." Let us note that it is in the systematic work on the cited sources, in the careful checking and correction of the scientific apparatus, that we see one of the main components of the value of this publication - a value that justifies its existence and gives a significant advantage over a simple reprint. The second equally important advantage of this book should be considered the work carried out on the comparison of various editions of the Lectures, and the publication of a significant part of the variants and significant discrepancies. In this regard, it is necessary to pay central attention to the description of the sources that this edition of Glubokovsky uses. “Lectures on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament” were published by the author many times; the reference book indicates the existence of 15 such editions, the earliest dates back to 1892, the latest – 1915. 1 These are educational materials for a course that was taught for more than two decades, and each edition could contain features characteristic of a particular year of study (this is reflected in their titles, for example: “Lectures on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, read to students of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1898–1899”). Nevertheless, most likely the main body of materials was reproduced verbatim from year to year, judging by the publications that were available to us. Therefore, we believe that from this publication one can get an idea of ​​all of Glubokovsky’s “Lectures”. An important and significant feature could only be the inclusion or non-inclusion by the author of certain chapters in the course of the next year. Thus, in the 1899 edition there is no section dedicated to the Gospel of John (probably it had not yet been written at that time). The 1907 edition already contains this chapter. So, the editions used (the explanation of the symbols is located at the end of the book): Glubokovsky-1899. General introduction; Introductory section to the Gospels; Synoptic problem; Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke; Acts. 608 pp. The publication is made using lithographic method, the text is handwritten, each printed sheet bears the signature “Prof. N. Glubokovsky,” probably the author himself. On the title there are two identical seals of the MDA library, from whose collections we took the publication for publication. On the back of the title there is a sanction: “Lithographing in the amount of 62 copies is permitted. I. D. Rector of the Academy, Professor N. Pokrovsky." There is also a round stamp with the inscription “L. Ū. TEOLOGIJAS FAKULTĀTES VIVLIOTĒKA” (apparently, a stamp from the library of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia). On the first page of the text and several times throughout the book there is a bookplate “Ivan Antonovich Jurjens”. Glubokovsky-1907. General introduction; Introductory section to the Gospels; Synoptic problem; Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; Acts. 663 pp. (The editors do not have a section dedicated to Acts, and the text ends on p. 581). The publication was made in lithographic method, the text is typewritten, on each printed sheet there is a handwritten signature “Prof. N. Glubokovsky." On the title there is a bookplate “From the books of A. I. Makarovsky” and a seal from the library of the Leningrad Orthodox Theological Academy (we used a photocopy of this publication made by M. V. Osipova in the library of St. Petersburg Academy of Arts). On the back of the title is the inscription: “Lithographing in a quantity of one hundred copies is permitted. Rector of the Academy Sergius, Bishop of Yamburg." Glubokovsky-1911. Introductory section to the Gospels; Synoptic problem; Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. 431 p. The publication is made in lithography, the text is typewritten. The title bears the stamp of the MDA library, from whose collections we took the publication. At the beginning of each printed sheet there is only a printer's note, without the author's signature. The edition, a photocopy of which was used by the editors, does not have a section devoted to Acts, but the end of the text suggests its presence. Perhaps this is caused by the mechanical “tearing out” of fragments from a more complete edition to compile a kind of “outline”; (as evidenced by the title of the publication: “Lectures given to prepare students for exams. Extracted from a course of lectures by Ordinary Professor N. N. Glubokovsky published in 1907”) Glubokovsky-1932. Introductory section to the Gospels; Synoptic problem; Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. 160 pp. Printed edition. On the title there is an illegible seal (possibly a bookplate) and a stamp from the MDA library: we used a photocopy of a copy from the collections of this library, we are grateful to prof. A.I. Sidorov, who drew our attention to this book and contributed to obtaining a copy of the publication. Glubokovsky-1899 was taken as the “basic” source. This is due both to the completeness of the book (there are all the departments that are included in the first volume of our publication) and to its comparative accuracy. The Glubokovsky-1907 version, the only one that can compete in total value with the 1899 edition, came into our hands a little later and, as it turned out, has a number of shortcomings, namely, there are no author’s highlights, accents in the text (but there are a lot of remarks and underlining by one of the book’s owners), there are gaps in Greek and Latin quotations, typing errors and even incorrect readings of the text (for example, “epistles” instead of "layering", p. 47 in the 1907 edition). Thus, despite the fact that the publication is more recent, it did not seem preferable to us - priority remained with Glubokovsky-1899. We did not compare the texts of these two editions scrupulously and throughout the entire corpus. The exception is the general introduction to the course of lectures, which, due to the rapid development of textual scholarship, was checked carefully and verbatim. In addition, we turned to the 1907 edition, as well as to other publications, in all “problematic” places that raised certain doubts. The 1911 version can be considered the least interesting for our edition: firstly, it is secondary in relation to Glubokovsky-1907, secondly, significant fragments are omitted from it (in particular, passages in which there are lengthy quotations in ancient Greek), thirdly, typos introduced during typing are not uncommon. Nevertheless, in two or three cases, reference to this publication made it possible to clarify doubtful passages or provide reasonable alternative readings. The 1932 edition stands apart from the rest. This is not a training course, but a separate book, and a significantly smaller one. However, there is no doubt that when writing it, the author relied on previously read lectures: this is evidenced by extensive textual coincidences. Glubokovsky-1932 was examined and taken into account in its entirety due to its status as a much later revision, which is therefore of particular value. Not being able to choose this edition as the main one (it covers only about 30% of the entire thematic material of the Lectures), we tried to note in the text all the places where serious changes or additions were made to this version compared to earlier editions. So, the text is based on the 1899 edition. At the same time, noted discrepancies with other versions are, as a rule, reflected in footnotes, with the exception of minor and unquestionable corrections that can be made to the text without special reservations. The 1911 edition is considered a derivative of Glubokovsky-1907 and is mentioned only in contexts where there are differences in their readings. It should be noted that in preparing the second volume of the Lectures, which will include sections devoted to the Gospels of Luke and John and the Acts of the Apostles, the set of sources will be different: in 1932, Glubokovsky’s serious work “Saint Luke, Evangelist and Writer” was published, which will also need to be taken into account. The editor expresses his heartfelt gratitude for valuable comments and assistance in working on the book to A. Sidorov, M. Osipova, N. Braginskaya, M. Kasyan, A. Shmaina-Velikanova, S. Stepantsov, N. Guz, M. Kasintseva, J. Manovas, M. Bernatsky, Deacon. M. Asmus, A. Tokarev, K. Neklyudov, G. Kessel. It is worth noting the special contribution to the preparation of the publication by Pastor Richard S. V40;egioorn (who created and maintains the wonderful website www.meetingpoint.org/swete/, dedicated to the works of the biblical scholar and theologian more than once quoted by Glubokovsky N.V. Swete) and Pavel Kalugin. They, one in Holland, the other in France, took the trouble to check a number of Glubokovsky’s bibliographic references to Western sources and even scan some articles for us. The selfless help of all of the above persons greatly facilitated our work on preparing the first volume. The work was carried out, with some interruptions, for more than four years. ...However, for a work that has been waiting for its reprint for a century, this is a short period of time. See Russian writers-theologians. Bibliographic index M., 2 2001. P. 81. You might be interested in: