Parchment & Pen Blog

After driving for over eight hours from Bucharest to the northeastern region of Romania known as Moldova, we came to the second largest city in the country—Iasi (pronounced “Yawsh”). I have written about the road less traveled in another report, and will not go into much detail here. Suffice it to say that we traveled [...]

On May 24, 2010, a four-man team from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts flew from Athens to Bucharest. We flew on a half-empty 737. There were manuscripts to shoot in two cities very far apart from each other—Craiova and Iasi (pronounced “Yawsh”). We needed to split up, so we rented two [...]

Last October I learned about a manuscript narrating Jesus’ life that was purportedly written by Joseph of Jerusalem, a first-century follower of Jesus. Although the claims were fantastic, I wondered if the manuscript that came with the cover letter could be at least an uncatalogued Gospels manuscript, perhaps of Matthew or Luke.  In December 2009, [...]

In a video that’s posted on Youtube and is making the rounds in popular Christian circles, an Arab Christian claims that there are three Arabic words in Revelation 13.18, the passage that speaks about the number of the beast. Here’s the link to the video: Walid Shoebat – Mark of the Beast Walid Shoebat claims [...]

As of today (November 15, 2009), there’s a Christmas sale at New Testament Textual Criticism (www.nttextualcriticism.com). Video DVDs are going for $7.50 each or 2 for $10 through the end of the year (a 25% to 33% savings), and the lifetime subscription to the TC Chart Timesaver has dropped from $40 to $30, also through [...]

I have received a lot of questions about this subject, so here it is again: I don’t know about you, but the copyright date on my Bible is 2002 (I usually read from the ESV). What does that mean? It means that the Bible that I read from, study from, and teach from is nearly [...]

If you don’t know Greek, this blog post is not for you. Stop reading now. If you do know Greek and are studying the New Testament, then this may be a lifesaver. OK, not a lifesaver, but at least a great timesaver. In fact, that’s part of the name, so it must be true! TC [...]

One of the most important ancient manuscripts has just gone on-line. The manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, was penned in Greek in the mid-fourth century and originally contained the whole Bible as well as some writings of the apostolic fathers. The manuscript is currently in four locations: St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt; British Library, London; National [...]