Featured Books on Textual Criticism

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See post #67.

 

I think that you and I see this pretty close, its just I am CT preferred, you are Bzt preferred, but do see that other texts do have something to add into the finished product!

 

Just think that they had in mind a different purpose for making their text

 

Yes, but is not same as it, correct?

 

They are basically the same book overall. The PDFs are for editions II, III and IV. Their Appendixs are some what different. The print edition for IV is currently available too.

 

Yes, but you would think making a more accurate one would have been the goal.

 

Virtually no difference between the two.

Collation of the text of Hodges and Farstad against the text of Robinson and Pierpont

 

There are differences between the F35 GNT and Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform 2005 Greek NT.

 

Codex Sinaiticus, New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript
edited by Scott McKendrick, David Parker, Amy Myshrall and Cillian O’Hogan
Hendrickson Publishers, 2015. 320 pp.

I’ve seen pages of the Codex as it was exhibited in various locations over the years. Besides being a great historical document, it is a work of art. This certainly was not an instance of careless copying!

Corrections to Codex Sinaiticus occurred over a period of more than 700 years. How many notes and textual corrections does your personal Bible contain?

One of the unique features of Codex Sinaiticus is the number of corrections made to the manuscript. In just over 800 preserved pages there are more than 23,000 places where the text has been altered: an average of thirty per page! Thirty corrections per page could suggest a radical rewriting. In fact, the text as written by the first scribes has changed considerably, but about 2/3 of the corrections are merely orthographical, concerning spellings, or graphical improvements, like reinforcing faded strokes. However the remaining corrections introduced variants, and their sheer number suggests that they document systematic editorial activity.​

These corrections range and date from the time of the original scribes, right through to the twelfth century. They can be as small as the addition or deletion of one letter, or as large as the insertion of entire verses. Understanding these corrections is a vital part of studying Codex Sinaiticus, enabling scholars to understand how the text of the Bible was copied, read and used. As no other early manuscript of the Christian Bible has been corrected so extensively, Codex Sinaiticus is a key witness to the development of the New Testament text. p. 97​

In their standard work Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus, Milne and Skeat treat the paleography of the layers of correction comprehensively, but there is no word about the textual character of the corrected text. It is only in their 1938 short study comparing Codex Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, revised by Skeat in 1955, that we find a brief note, in fact just an aside, saying that the C(a) corrector ‘carefully revised the entire manuscript […] into the general conformity with the Byzantine texts familiar to him’. p. 101-102.​

Codex Sinaiticus is an early history of textual criticism.

Rob

 

Why, either way, was the claim even made?

The following account might not be the best:
codex sinaiticus forgery

 

The Critical Use of Faulty Manuscripts

Critical use of manuscripts

 

The Text of the Gospels: Bill Mounce versus Reality

 

My last book review here - the newest one

Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism
edited by Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois. 2019

When an instructor teaches a student it is often said that it is easier to teach a brand-new student than to teach a student with some experience; the new student does not have to unlearn any bad habits.

There are many old perceptions, incorrect beliefs, myths and conspiracy theories that have been incorporated into biblical textual criticism.

This book confronts these myths and redirects the student into healthier beliefs.

I’d highly recommend this book. Yet realize that it does not spoon feed the reader: it isn’t an easy read.
It is long (355 pages + indexes).
At times can be quite technical.
It is hard unlearn old beliefs and to accept new ones.
But it is worth the time to absorb the lessons it provides
Lastly, it is not a textbook of textual criticism; it does not lay down rules to follow.


CONTENTS

Foreword

These two attitudes—radical skepticism and absolute certainty—must be avoided when we examine the New Testament text. We do not have now—in our critical Greek texts or any translations—exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it. There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain. But we also do not need to be overly skeptical. Where we should land between these two extremes is what this book addresses.

The new generation of evangelical scholars is far more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty than previous generations. They know the difference between core beliefs and those that are more peripheral. They recognize that even if we embrace the concept of absolute truth, absolute certainty about it is a different matter.

One word kept coming to mind as I read this book: nuance. The authors understand what is essential and of vital significance in the Christian faith and what is more peripheral. As Stephen Neill argued over fifty years ago and Peter Gurry affirms in this book, “The very worst Greek manuscript now in existence … contains enough of the Gospel in unadulterated form to lead the reader into the way of salvation.” Andrew Blaski shows that the patristic writers, too, recognized this. Origen, whose concern to recover the original wording of the Bible was worked out with indefatigable exactness, had an even deeper concern. Many Fathers understood that the New Testament—highly valued, revered, even apostolically authoritative—nevertheless pointed ultimately to what is more revered, more authoritative, and more central to our faith: our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Daniel B. Wallace, “Foreword,” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), xii.​

1 Introduction by Peter J. Gurry and Elijah Hixson
2 Myths about Autographs, what they were and how long they may have survived by Timothy N. Mitchell
3 Math Myths, how many manuscirpts we have and why more isn't always better by Jacob W. Peterson
4 Myths about Classical Literature, responsibly comparing the New Testament to ancient works by James B. Prothro
5 Dating Myths, Part One. how we determine the ages of manuscripts by Elijah Hixson
6 Dating Myths, Part Two. how later manuscripts can be better manuscripts by Gregory R. Lanier

…when one takes into consideration the entirety of the textual stream and the indications of its stability, one realizes that the long-standing competition between earlier and later manuscripts and the text-forms they represent is overblown: for the vast majority of the Greek New Testament’s textual history, “the text is Alexandrian and Byzantine and every other text-type.” In other words, the core textual tradition encompassed by any text-type is both very large and very stable. Granted, scholars will continue debating the major differences represented in the Byzantine tradition, such as the endings of Mark (Mk 16:9–20), the pericope adulterae (Jn 7:53–8:11), and miscellaneous readings of some length (Acts 8:37 and the like), but on the whole, such differences are the exception, not the rule. If nothing else, scholars on all sides should admit that “rejection en bloc of the ‘Byzantine text’ … tends to rob us of a most helpful instrument” and that its uncritical replacement with a new textus receptus based on an earlier-is-better-and-later-is-worse “dating myth” needs to be reexamined. Klaus Wachtel sums up well: “The high agreement rates connecting these witnesses demonstrates that a large body of text was safely transmitted from the very beginning of its transmission through the Byzantine period to today.”

Gregory R. Lanier, “Dating Myths, Part Two: How Later Manuscripts Can Be Better Manuscripts,” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), 117–118.​

7 Myths about Copyists, The scribes who copies our earliest manuscripts by Zachary J. Cole
8 Myths about Copying, the mistakes and corrections scribes made by Peter Malik
9 Myths about Transmission, the text of Philemon from beginning to end by S. Matthew Solomon
10 Myths about Variants, why most variants are insignificant and why some can't be ignored by Peter J. Gurry
11 Myths about Orthodox corruption, were scribes influenced by theology, and how can we tell? by Robert D. Marcello
12 Myths about Patristics, what the church fathers thought about textual variation by Andrew Blaski
13 Myths about Canon, what the codex can and can't tell us by John D. Meade
14 Myths about Early Translations, their number, importance and limitations by Jeremiah Coogan
15 Myths about Modern Translations, variants, verdicts and versions by Edgar Battad Ebojo

Rob

 

It seems that their primary goal was to assist on one being able to read and use the Greek text, and not get too much into textual criticism issues, more like a readers edition!

 

Both texts would disagree with Bzt text to some degree, correct?

 

perhaps, but still does not prove that they are a more accurate form of Greek text, as they could have very well been copying mistakes all along!

And it does seem that the ECF used a form of a proto Alexandrian text in their writings!

 

And yet the last paragraph seems to support that the Critical texts "are not" as bad as MT advocates say that they are!