The Second Church Slavonic Translation of 1–4 Kingdoms: A Witness to the Proto-Lucianic Text

Abstract

The article discusses several textual features of the second Church Slavonic version of 1–4 Kingdoms. It presents this tradition to scholars as new material for the study of the Antiochene or Lucianic recension of 1–4 Kingdoms, a text-type found in five Greek minuscule manuscripts. The Church Slavonic version has come down in two Serbian testimonies, dating respectively from 1418 and 1523–1543. The analysis shows that it represents a new witness, not only to the Antiochene recension of 1–4 Kingdoms as a whole, but also to its proto-Lucianic textual stratum. The investigation has furthermore brought to light the existence in this secondary tradition of an edition of 3–4 Kingdoms, presenting an otherwise unknown subdivision of the books. The textual arrangement is as follows: 3 Kingdoms comprises 3 Kgdms 2:12–11:41, while 4 Kingdoms consists of a combination of 3 Kgdms 11:42–22:54 and 4 Kgdms 1:1–25:30.