Juan Hernández Jr. analyzes what early scribes were doing with manuscripts of the Apocalypse in the fourth and fifth centuries. He finds that scribes omitted far more from their texts than they added, that they harmonized passages, and that at least one scribe made significant theological changes to the text of the Apocalypse. These changes reflect some of the theological controversies within the fourth century church.

Modelled on the respective studies of Ernest C. Colwell and James R. Royse, Juan Hernández Jr. offers a fresh and comprehensive discussion of the Apocalypse's singular readings in Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi. Moreover, the singular readings of the Apocalypse are also assessed in light of the work's reception history in the early church. The author shows that the scribes of these three manuscripts omitted more often than they added to their texts, were prone to harmonizing, and, in the case of at least one scribe, made significant theological changes to the fourth century text of the Apocalypse. The author also attempts to integrate the findings of the most recent text-critical research of the Apocalypse with studies of its reception history in the early church. His book is the first systematic study of scribal habits on the Apocalypse that takes seriously the claim that some scribes were making changes to the text of the Apocalypse for theological reasons.

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Born 1968; 1998 M.Div.; 2000 Th.M.; 2006 Ph.D. Emory University; Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel University, MN, USA.