In 1994, the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla was held at Oxford. All who participated agreed that the time had come to produce a new collection of Hexapla fragments. Gerald Norton presented a report of this Seminar at the 1995 IOSCS Congress, and in 1998 a volume comprising the papers presented at the Seminar was published: Origen's Hexapla and Fragments: Papers Presented at the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 25th-3rd August 1994, Alison Salvesen, ed. (TSAJ 58; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck). That same year, at the IOSCS Congress, Bas ter Haar Romeny reported on the work he and Peter Gentry had done on Genesis. Because of unforeseen delays in the publication of such papers, it may have seemed to some that the vision for a new edition of Origen's Hexapla had died. The Hexapla Institute is a witness to the current vitality of the original vision of L. Greenspoon, G. Norton, and A. Salvesen.
In the Fall of 2000, Bas ter Haar Romeny presented a series of lectures
on textual criticism at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Louisville, Kentucky. Inspired by this visit, Peter Gentry and Associate
Dean Daniel I. Block presented a request to the Administration of
Southern Seminary to consider funding the Hexapla project. The request
was approved and Peter Gentry was authorized to set up a website for
the preliminary database and given a grant of ca. $35,000 to fund the
necessary computer equipment and to remunerate a Research Fellow with
skills in computer technology and biblical studies to set up the web
site over a five year period beginning in 2001.
In July of 2001, Peter Gentry and Bas ter Haar Romeny met in Leiden with
Arie van der Kooij, now President of IOSOT, and Konrad Jenner of the
Peshitta Institute, to discuss their vision for the Hexapla Institute.
It was agreed that the Institute should be governed by an Executive
Board but have access to the broader counsel of an Advisory Board. The
Executive Board consists of two representatives from Southern Seminary,
and one each from the Universities of Leiden and Oxford. The Advisory
Board currently consists of four scholars, recognized internationally
for their work in the field of textual criticism of the Old Testament
and for their enthusiasm for this project.
Convinced that the goal of a "Field for the 21st Century" would be best
served if the Hexapla Institute operated in partnership with and under
the auspices of the International Organization for Septuagint and
Cognate Studies, representatives of the Executive Board sought the
support of IOSCS. At the Annual Meeting of the society in Toronto in
2002, the members passed a motion agreeing "... that the Hexapla Project
be sponsored by the International Organization for Septuagint and
Cognate Studies under article 21 of the IOSCS Bylaws, and that it be
carried out by the Hexapla Institute on behalf of the IOSCS." The
cooperation of the Hexapla Institute and IOSCS is ensured by the
establishment of an editorial committee consisting of those members of
the Executive Board who are also members of IOSCS.
In July of 2021, Peter Gentry retired from The Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary and became the Senior Research Fellow at the Text & Canon Institute
and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Phoenix Seminary. In the same year,
John Meade, Professor of Old Testament and Co-Director of the Text & Canon
Institute, joined the Editorial Board of the Hexapla Project. Since Gentry
and Meade work at the same institution, the Editorial Board considered it
wise to host the Hexapla Institute at Phoenix Seminary’s Text & Canon
Institute, where the work of publishing a ‘New Field’ would continue unabated.
In April of 2022, the Hexapla Institute entered into a cooperation agreement
with The Göttingen Septuagint of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.
This partnership greatly facilitates hexaplaric research associated with
© Die Editio critica maior des griechischen Psalters and research of The Hexapla
Project and made Felix Albrecht of the University of Göttingen part of the
collaboration of the Hexapla Institute with Alison Salvesen of Oxford University,
Bas ter Haar Romeny of the Free University of Amsterdam and Peter Gentry and
John Meade of Phoenix Seminary.