Featured Books on Textual Criticism

Too bad that the HCSB did not stay as originally intended, as was at first to be based off the MT, but when the general editor died, they switched over to the CT!

 

He still seems to be Kjvo to me!

 

Do you have a citation by him to support that?

 

I used to have that book of his. It's probably his most well-known work. I have only about a half dozen of F.F. Bruce books now. The one that comes closest to TBATP is The Canon Of Scripture, though it's not about textual criticism as such.

My main go-to book is The Early Text Of The New Testament edited by Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger.

Next in order of importance is How We Got The New Testament : Text, Transmission, Translation by Stanley E. Porter, Craig Evans and Lee McDonald. Though it doesn't specify textual criticism in the title, it deals with the subject.

Fundamentals Of New Testament Textual Criticism by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts. It's a handy-dandy books of about 200 pages that's suitable for a layperson like myself.

Behind The Bible : A Primer On Textual Criticism by Jeffrey D. Johnson. It's a concise book of 111 pages --barely more than a booklet. But it packs a lot in those 100 plus pages. It's very readable and informative.

 

Well we are into books written in the late twentieth century.
Here’s an odd one from my collection.

The Living Text of the Gospels by D. C. Parker, University of Birmingham, Cambridge University Press. 1997. 224 pages

I enjoy the study of the Old Testament. Its textual history is ancient and mysterious. When teaching an extended passage or a whole book, discussions about different textual traditions are not often discussed, we simply use the text as it is before us. I’ve often wondered about how this approach might apply to the text of the New Testament.

David C. Parker begins to put flesh to this thought.

David Parker‘s book approaches New Testament textual criticism as “a living text”, the text as a results becomes more fluid/less rigidly structured and open to changes both in its transmission, its translation and its interpretation; tradition plays a prominent role.
Parker takes a non-conservative, perhaps Barthian position on inerrancy, broader than what most Baptists believe.
As such, you may not agree with his conclusions but his excellent step-by-step analysis of the theory, the materials and the practice of textual criticism makes this book worth reading, if for nothing else to simply to familiarize oneself with the application of the process. In the book Parker examines key passages to lead you to his final conclusion: the chapters include an examination of The Lord’s Prayer, sayings on marriage and divorce, the story of the woman taken in adultery, the endings of Mark’s Gospel, and others.

Parker begins his first chapter with an example showing how textual criticism is performed in our everyday life.

“Everyone who reads the newspaper is expert in textual
criticism, in coping with those distctive errors of omission and
displaced lines, and jumbling of letrset. This sophisticated process
of recognizing nonsense and picking up the sense is so natural to us
the classical scholars of ancient Alexandria or the Benedictines of
that we perform without thinking, unaware of our kinship with
St Maur. Textual criticism is not an arcane science. It belongs to all
human communication.
The matter will become a little more complicated when we apply our critical facilities to another language than our own, in a form spoken two millennia since.”p1​

In his chapter on the endings of Mark, Parker mentions John Burgon.

“Along with the story of the woman take an adult in adultery, the ending of Mark is one of the more substantial blocks of material where scientific textual criticism has produced a markedly different text from the Received Text. This bulk is perhaps one reason why it has been such a center for debate on the issue. But there are two further reasons. One is historical. The conservative opposition to Westcott and Hort was most trenchantly, indeed unpleasantly, expressed by the Dean of Chichester, Burgon, who also supported the Authorised Version and the Received Text against the Revised Version and Westcott and Hort in The Revision Revised, collected all the evidence he could muster to support his case.” …​

Needless to say, Parker is not a fan of Burgon; regarding an argument Burgon makes that Papias knew the long ending of Mark, he simply states, “There is no evidence here to support Burgon’s claim.” p.139.

Concerning the endings of Mark, he writes, “This passage beyond almost any other gives the lie to the idea that the variants of the manuscripts of the New Testament are insignificant and have no substantial effect on the text. The remainder of this chapter will therefore be devoted to considering the implications of the materials we have been studying.” p. 141.​

Parker’s concludes “…this book has not been concerned with a process that is now ended. Scholars continue to discover fresh materials and to revise the text of the Gospels; translators provide fresh renderings, commentators new interpretations, and theologians new ideas. We have seen how much the printed text has changed since 1516, and have wondered what changes will be brought by the electronic text. Today’s influences on the text of the Gospels are not those of the early centuries, but they may prove equally powerful. The text of the Gospels remains a living text.” p. 213.

Rob

 

Everyone intrested in Textual Criticism should read John W Burgon, no matter what. He points out many flaws in Westcott and Hort and totally exposes their errors. Parker doesnt anwser Burgon, and Parkers comments like Metzgers hopes people will not read Burgon for themselves.

Burgon was all totally for revising both the King James Version and certainly the Textus Receptus. He acknowledged both goals, but when he found out about the way that Westcott and Hort's methods were being used he opposed them and wrote exposing the great flaws in their theories.

When scholars dismiss him instead of engaging him they hope people will not read him, even after 100 years.

 

(index from 3rd edition - 1992)
PART ONE - The Materials for the Textual Criticism of the New Testament
I. The Making of Ancient Books
II. Important Witnesses to the Test of the New Testament

PART TWO - The History of New Testament Textual Criticism as Reflected in Printed Editions of the Greek Testament
III. The Pre-critical Period: The Origin and Dominance of the Textus Receptus
IV. The Modern Critical Period: From Griesbach to the Present

PART THREE - The Application of Textual Criticism to the Text of the New Testament
V. Origins of Textual Criticism as a Scholarly Dicipline
VI. Modern Methods of Textual Criticism
VII. The Causes of Error in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament
VIII. The Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism

In the last chapter (which is almost 40 pages), Metzger provides many examples of how NT textual criticism was performed. As John noted, this book is a fine companion to Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament.

Yet much has changed in the field of NT textual criticism in recent decades. It is important to realize that many theories and methods that were utilized in even the recent past have been rendered obsolete.

...let it be emphasized again that no single manuscript and no one group of manuscripts exists which the textual critic may follow mechanically. All known witnesses of the New Testament are to a greater or less extent mixed texts, and even the earliest manuscripts are not free from egregious errors. Although in very many cases the textual critic is able to ascertain without residual doubt which reading must have stood in the original, there are not a few other cases where he can come only to a tentative decision based on an equivocal balancing of probabilities. Occasionally none of the variant reading will commend itself as original, and he will be compelled either to choose the reading which he judges to be the least unsatisfactory or to indulge in conjectural emendation. In textual criticism, as in other areas of historical research, one must seek not only to learn what can be known, but also to become aware of what, because of conflicting witnesses, cannot be known. p. 246. ​

I purchase many books used, sometimes in bundles.
I’ve got two copies of the third edition, paperback.
If someone is interested, send me a message with why you want it and I’ll send it your way.

Rob

 

Moving into the twenty-first century…

Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism, essays by Eldon Jay Epp, Michael W. Holmes, J.K. Elliott, Maurice A. Robinson, and Moises Silva.
David Alan Black, editor
Baker Academics, Grand Rapids, 2002. 157 pp

The book presents a cordial interaction between experts in the field of textual criticism: this is not a textbook on the mechanics of textual criticism, it is a condensed presentation of a variety of modern text-critical approaches written by renouned scholars in the field. The book is a collection of the papers submitted during a conference on textual criticism conducted at Southeastern Seminary on April 6-7, 2000, entitled, ‘Symposium on New Testament Studies: A Time for Reappraisal’.

Contents​

1. Introduction, David Alan Black
2. Issues in New Testament Textual Criticism, Moving from the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century, Eldon Jay Epp
3. The Case for Reasoned Eclecticism, Michael W. Holmes
4. The Case for Thoroughgoing Eclecticism, J. K. Elliott
5. The Case for Byzantine Priority, Maurice A. Robinson
6. Response, Moises Silva

Snipped from Moises Silva’s “Response”

One of the oddest curiosities in the modern controversy is the common perception of Hort as an innovator. In fact, there is precious little in the substance of his work that can be accurately described as original and what can be described lies pretty much at the periphery and does not significantly affect the main thesis. But his work does indeed display brilliant originality in the organization and exposition of the subject matter. Having had considerable experience as a botanist, Hort applied his scientific training and extraordinary analytical powers to the study of textual variation. His starting point was the achievements of previous scholars, prominently the work of Bengel and Griesbach, but closer to him in time the advances made by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles.​

Hort’s job was to gather all the relevant data, to restructure the material, and to fill in the blanks, which meant primarily making explicit what until then was only implicit, though, of course, at some points new research and conceptualization were necessary. Once the whole argument had been constructed, the result was quite simply a thing of beauty. Even a look at the detailed table of contents of WH’s introduction tells you that you are dealing with a remarkable mind. It is no wonder that even Hort’s opponent Scrivener said of this work: “Never was a cause, good or bad in itself, set off with higher ability and persuasive power.”​

Indeed, it is the persuasiveness of Hort’s argumentation that has made his work appear innovative to some observers. Here for the first time the arguments were laid out in a complete and systematic fashion, with all the implications drawn out (both theoretically and practically, since it included the publication of a critical text). What was this? A new teaching—and with authority? (cf. Mark 1:27) No. In all essential points—the validity of the text-critical canons, the superiority of ancient documents, the importance of textual groupings, and the relative late character of the Majority text—Hort was merely adopting views that had been widely accepted by specialists for several generations. …

… nearly every time I go back to Hort’s introduction I find that he had quite effectively anticipated many of the challenges and objections that we continue to hear in our day, maybe even in this volume of essays. pp. 143-144.
​

Overall this is a very worthwhile book that reviews a variety of positions without acrimony.

Rob

​