New Testament Titlesīut before we come to our digital tools, we should explain what we mean by “titles.” When we are asked to define what constitutes a title, most of us likely visualize the cover of a book or a title page, spaces containing formulations that may describe the content, subject, topic, genre, allusive network, or theme of the work, among other options.

The project has only officially begun, so much of the following conversation remains aspirational and contingent, especially the functionalities of its digital tools that are currently being developed in partnership with the ADAPT Centre and the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF), but it offers an overview of the project in the context of VREs. To this end, this article explores the dynamics of the TiNT project’s research agenda, the material it engages with, and the technical aspects and design of its digital workspaces necessitated by the project’s critical goals.

The titular tradition of the Greek New Testament is rich in variables, requiring significant attention when it comes to working with and capturing this data in a virtual research environment (VRE). Moreover, this variation does not even take into account changes in the positioning, script, and aesthetics of titular formulations. Case in point is the book of Revelation, the least attested work within the New Testament (preserved in only 300 accessible manuscripts), that has fifty-three different inscription and subscription titles that create forty-four unique English glosses. And although the variation of the titles-at least as far as titles at the beginning (inscriptions) and end (subscriptions) of works are concerned-maneuver within traditional structures, there remains a surprising variety in wording and aesthetics when it comes to the New Testament’s Greek manuscripts. Titular drift is a feature, not a bug, of the New Testament’s transmission. The problem is that these works have not always been known by these exact names. The Gospel of Matthew, Colossians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, the book of Revelation, and the titles of the other twenty-two works of the New Testament are familiar appellations that are attached to stable literary entities. After all, we already know the titles of the books of the New Testament as they appear in modern vernacular Bibles. At first glance, this topic may appear too straightforward to warrant any scholarly attention whatsoever, let alone public funding. Allen and funded by the European Research Council (ERC). A new project began in December 2020 entitled Titles of the New Testament: A New Approach to Manuscripts and the History of Interpretation (TiNT), led by Garrick V.

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