The NTVMR began as a digital environment to carry out editorial work on the Greek New Testament. As the NTVMR has continued to expand and evolve, we have hosted a variety of research projects there; although most of these projects are related to the Greek New Testament, some have to do with languages other than Greek (e.g. the Mark16 project) or even deal with non-canonical texts (e.g. 1 Clement).

To support these projects, we have been allocating new Doc IDs in the NTVMR to a variety of relevant primary resources which do not belong in the Kurzgefaßte Liste. For example, Got1; syH3; sa 1; VL 1; arm 252.

This has recently created some confusion about which materials searchable on the NTVMR actually belong in the Liste since non-Greek New Testament resources were included in the same database.  

Therefore, we have taken steps to make this distinction clearer by changing the “Liste” link so that only what belongs in the Kurzgefaßte Liste, i.e., manuscripts designated with a Gregory-Aland number, are located under this link. This should correspond to what will be included in the forthcoming printed Liste.

For those who benefit from other research projects in the NTVMR beyond the parameters of Greek New Testament manuscripts, we have created a new link labeled “Manuscript Catalog,” which has all available documents (including all Greek New Testament witnesses included in the Liste).

All documents in the NTVMR are now available under the new link in the sidebar on the homepage:

“Manuscript Catalog (All)”

The link for the Liste is now restricted to only items in the Kurzgefaßte Liste:

“Liste (Greek)”

By providing separate search tools we hope to offer the user an experience that is tailored to their specific research purposes. Researchers who want to work strictly with Greek New Testament manuscripts will now have a more efficient platform to do so. Likewise, those who want to incorporate other traditions into their research will continue to see all results available under “Manuscript Catalog (all).”

(Updated @Classics URL for how to make a critical edition.)

The NTVMR is useful tool for researching Greek New Testament manuscripts (and manuscripts in other languages as well). The platform can, however, seem daunting at first sight. Over at the Digital Orientalist, I have written a short overview of the NTVMR and given brief explanations of the its main features. It can be read here: https://digitalorientalist.com/2021/04/02/introduction-to-the-ntvmr/

You can also find helpful information about how to use the NTVMR under: https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/help

For those of you who are already familiar with the NTVMR and want to collate manuscripts and make your own critical edition, there is a step-by-step guide, now published in @Classics, which can be accessed here: https://classics-at.chs.harvard.edu/classics18-paulson/

This guide will show you how to view the differences between any manuscripts of your choosing (provided you or someone else has already transcribed them) on the NTVMR.

Image of Unedited Realtime Collation tool in the NTVMR

The NTVMR is not just a space to view images, but offers a customizable environment to build your own text-critical project. I hope you give it a try! Feedback is welcome.