Christian Texts and History • Colophon to the Khabouris Codex

Regarding the colophon to the Khabouris, I was in possession several years ago of a copy of the colophon that was enhanced by the work done at the imaging studio. I can't seem to find it at the moment in my library, but as soon as I do I'll take another look at it. I do hope I still have it.

Please keep in mind that I've received warnings from the former owners of the manuscript, to not publish or make available any digital copy of any page without their consent. So even if I am able to find it, I will not be able to post the enhanced imagery to the website. You simply cannot read the colophon from the poor-quality scans that are widely available on the internet. It is too badly damaged to make anything out of it. And what I was able to make out of it was vague and could be misleading, which is why I'm not an advocate of the many exuberant claims regarding its age.

I've said many times in the past that I'm unimpressed by it, being that it is a 11th-12th century manuscript, and that there are certainly others that are much older.

It's my understanding that an Armenian collector currently owns it, and lives in Arizona. He seems to be a collector of these types of things. James Malikian I believe is his name. He purchased it at an auction in London, there is a post on this forum about the details. I think he bought it for $25,000. Not a large amount of money.

In any case, if I find the email or copy from several years ago I'll try to post the exact wording I see (but not the image), but I honestly don't understand the enthusiasm this one late copy has generated across the internet. It's a great 11th century copy of maybe a 4-5th century copy. But we already have verified 4-5th century copies. Certainly 6th century. So this isn't that big of a deal.

I don't put much weight on age of manuscripts or fragments. I pay attention to the clues in the text, which are far more important.

However I was comissioned to translate the badly damaged colophon in 1995 and found no such reference.
The codex owners actually published the following statement about its age:
"No claim as to its age has been made by the foundation..."
("the foundation" refers to McDougald's YONAN CODEX FOUNDATION)

Statistics: Posted by ebion — Sat Dec 30, 2023 2:39 am