Books on Textual Criticism

[John of Japan]

Rippon asked on another thread if I were a scholar in textual criticism. I didn't directly answer that, but did point out that I had an essay published in a festschrift on the variants of εὐθυς in Mark from a discourse analysis perspective. The actual answer would be that no, I'm not a scholar in textual criticism. Before I could be that, IMO, original research on the manuscripts would be a necessary minimum, and I've never done that and don't have the proper skills.

Having said all of that, I thought it would be fun to do another annotated bibliography, this time on books I have on textual criticism. Feel free to add any posts about your own books on the subject. Caveat: please, no books on the KJVO controversies unless they directly relate to textual criticism.

First of all, let's get the OT out of the way. I have Old Testament Textual Criticism, by Ellis R. Brotzman (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994). The OT is remarkably stable in its textual criticism due to the care Hebrew scribes took in copying. However, that does not mean that OT textual criticism is unnecessary, but only that it is not as complicated as the NT discipline.

The author starts out with a good Introduction on textual criticism and inspiration. There are eight informative chapters in 162 pages. Various charts and tables help the reader see relationships and timelines. There is a good appendix on the variations, a useful glossary, a bibliography, and indexes of subjects, authors, and Scripture.

 

[John of Japan]

For NT textual criticism, the two volume ground-breaking set by Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort is a necessity, The New Testament in the Original Greek. My set is the American version from 1882 (New York, Harper). I only paid $6.00 for it back in 1986, worth every penny. Interestingly enough, there was a letter in one of the books to the American owner from Westcott written in 1893.

In case you didn't know, Westcott and Hort are the main instigators of the turn away from the TR and the Byzantine/Majority family of mss to the critical texts (mostly from the Alexandrian text type). There had been critical texts before by men such as German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf. However, this set of two made the scholarly discipline open to many more profs and students. In fact, there was later a one volume edition that was used in many Greek classes, including the one my father took at Wheaton College in the 1940's. I had that, but think I gave it away. Shucks!

Volume 1 is the Greek NT, and Volume 2 is the apparatus cum textual commentary. There is an "Introduction to the American Edition" that is helpful, but the real meat is in Vol. 2. I've never read the whole thing through, but have consulted it many times. Proud to have this historic volume, though I greatly disagree with the methodology.

 

[JesusFan]

For NT textual criticism, the two volume ground-breaking set by Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort is a necessity, The New Testament in the Original Greek. My set is the American version from 1882 (New York, Harper). I only paid $6.00 for it back in 1986, worth every penny. Interestingly enough, there was a letter in one of the books to the American owner from Westcott written in 1893.

In case you didn't know, Westcott and Hort are the main instigators of the turn away from the TR and the Byzantine/Majority family of mss to the critical texts (mostly from the Alexandrian text type). There had been critical texts before by men such as German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf. However, this set of two made the scholarly discipline open to many more profs and students. In fact, there was later a one volume edition that was used in many Greek classes, including the one my father took at Wheaton College in the 1940's. I had that, but think I gave it away. Shucks!

Volume 1 is the Greek NT, and Volume 2 is the apparatus cum textual commentary. There is an "Introduction to the American Edition" that is helpful, but the real meat is in Vol. 2. I've never read the whole thing through, but have consulted it many times. Proud to have this historic volume, though I greatly disagree with the methodology.

What about the Alands?

 

[John of Japan]

What about the Alands?

Hold your horses, I'll get to them.

 

[JesusFan]

Hold your horses, I'll get to them.

That was the text book at my school!

 

[Deacon]

“…get the OT out of the way…”
One OT book, John! - shame, shame lol

Here’s some suggestions from my library.

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 1989, 3rd edition 2011
The Bible of OT Textual Criticism. Not for beginners! Tov’s work is challenging; it is densely packed with information. He grapples with the text and sometimes comes to conclusions that will defy cherished beliefs.
An intermediate knowledge of the Hebrew language, its history and surrounding literature would benefit readers.


Ernst Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, an introduction to the Biblia Hebraica 1988, 3rd revised ed. 2014
Introduction to the various ancient versions of the text, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, various Targums, etc…Causes for and methods of OT textual criticism.
An extensive appendix (truly more than a half of the text) including further resources; texts, grammars, dictionaries, plates and illustrations, bibliography and indexes.

Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the oldest substantial Hebrew texts were a few Masoretic texts dating from the 7th to 10th century.
Their discovery opened a substantial window into our understanding of OT textual criticism.


Harold Scanlin, The Dead Sea Scrolls & Modern Translations of the Old Testament, 1993
An introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, a listing of its biblical manuscripts and a chapter about how the findings have impacted modern translations.
Quotes, charts, lists, maps, pictures, index of biblical passages, bibliography.

Lastly for those listeners of Audible

Gary Rendsburg, The Great Courses, The Dead Sea Scrolls.
Fascinating lectures about the origins of the DSS, its history and its people.

Rob

 

[John of Japan]

That was the text book at my school!

Then write your own review of it here.

 

[John of Japan]

“…get the OT out of the way…”
One OT book, John! - shame, shame lol

Okay, okay. I get the message. I do have a couple more.

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Old Testament Documents; Are They Reliable and Relevant? (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
This is more of an apologetics book, but is relevant to textual criticism. Oftentimes archaeology may substantiate OT readings.

Frederick Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible (London: Duckworth, 1937).
This is a book on textual criticism which starts with the LXX for the first 60 some pages. Kenyon was a leading scholar back in the day. OT textual criticism must deal with the LXX, which has many unique readings. Sometimes the LXX was translated from mss older than what we have now. This volume is out of date in many ways (coming before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls), but I found it to be very helpful when I read it many years ago.

 

[John of Japan]

“…get the OT out of the way…”
One OT book, John! - shame, shame lol

Here’s some suggestions from my library.

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 1989, 3rd edition 2011
The Bible of OT Textual Criticism. Not for beginners! Tov’s work is challenging; it is densely packed with information. He grapples with the text and sometimes comes to conclusions that will defy cherished beliefs.
An intermediate knowledge of the Hebrew language, its history and surrounding literature would benefit readers.


Ernst Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, an introduction to the Biblia Hebraica 1988, 3rd revised ed. 2014
Introduction to the various ancient versions of the text, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, various Targums, etc…Causes for and methods of OT textual criticism.
An extensive appendix (truly more than a half of the text) including further resources; texts, grammars, dictionaries, plates and illustrations, bibliography and indexes.

Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the oldest substantial Hebrew texts were a few Masoretic texts dating from the 7th to 10th century.
Their discovery opened a substantial window into our understanding of OT textual criticism.


Harold Scanlin, The Dead Sea Scrolls & Modern Translations of the Old Testament, 1993
An introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, a listing of its biblical manuscripts and a chapter about how the findings have impacted modern translations.
Quotes, charts, lists, maps, pictures, index of biblical passages, bibliography.

Lastly for those listeners of Audible

Gary Rendsburg, The Great Courses, The Dead Sea Scrolls.
Fascinating lectures about the origins of the DSS, its history and its people.

Rob

Very helpful post. Thanks!

 

[Conan]

Okay, okay. I get the message. I do have a couple more.

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Old Testament Documents; Are They Reliable and Relevant? (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
This is more of an apologetics book, but is relevant to textual criticism. Oftentimes archaeology may substantiate OT readings.

Frederick Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible (London: Duckworth, 1937).
This is a book on textual criticism which starts with the LXX for the first 60 some pages. Kenyon was a leading scholar back in the day. OT textual criticism must deal with the LXX, which has many unique readings. Sometimes the LXX was translated from mss older than what we have now. This volume is out of date in many ways (coming before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls), but I found it to be very helpful when I read it many years ago.

Aye! Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls support LXX readings!

 

[John of Japan]

I have another older but useful book by Fredric Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, 4th ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939). (The first edition was 1895.) He has two chapters on the OT: "IV. The Hebrew Old Testament," and "V. The Ancient Versions of the Old Testament." The rest of the book is on the NT: the text, the manuscripts the ancient versions, the Vulgate, and the history of the English Bible.

 

[Deacon]

I didn’t mean to turn this into an Old Testament TexCrit thread.
You are a Greek Scholar after all.
I like my Hebrew.
Just poking fun at you.

Rob

 

[John of Japan]

I didn’t mean to turn this into an Old Testament TexCrit thread.
You are a Greek Scholar after all.
I like my Hebrew.
Just poking fun at you.

Rob

Poke away. I can take it.

 

[John of Japan]

I have two other old Greek NTs that are items for textual criticism in the Textus Receptus. First of all, I have a parallel Greek-KJV edition edited by J. M. A. Scholz (1794-1852), with the title, Critical Greek and English Testament.

Scholz was a Jesuit textual critic who followed Greisbach, editor of an earlier critical text. It's value for the amateur textual critic is that it gives readings from Greisbach and from several editions of the TR: Stephens (1550), Beza (1598), and Elzevir (1633).

"Strong interest in the Greek New Testament has not been characteristic of the Church of Rome, but J. M. A. Scholz published in 1830 and 1836 a handsome quarto edition. The text printed is practically Greisback's. Scholz's principle service is his description of a large number of MSS, previously unexamined, but he was not very accurate" (Alexander Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1954, p. 91).

 

[John of Japan]

I also have an edition of F. H. A. Scrivener's Greek NT, which was his reproduction of the Greek text behind the KJV. The KJV translators, you may remember, did their own textual criticism so that the KJV did not adhere strictly to any form of the TR up till then.

The full title of this one is The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Text Followed in The Authorised [sic] Version Together With the Variations Adopted in The Revised Version. So this Greek NT has an apparatus, something unusual for a TR. I assume that since it follows the "Revised Version" (the ASV in the US), it is not a true TR, but I've never studied that out. I just enjoy old books!

 

[John of Japan]

Alford

One day in Japan, we were at the second hand sale of the Christian Academy in Japan. In those days missionaries from the postwar years were retiring from Japan and so the book tables were great. That day I picked up a true treasure, a four volume set of Henry Alford's wonderful work, The Greek New Testament.

This was actually a technical commentary on the Greek New Testament, dated originally in 1854, along with copious notes about the Greek text. The subtitle continues: "With a Critically Revised Text: A Digest of Various Readings: Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic Usage: Prolegomena: And a Critical and Exegetical Commentary."

I'm a little confused as to which volume is which in my set. Volume 1 has a different cover and is from a different edition than the other four volumes, calling itself the 2nd edition from 1854. It also says "In Three Volumes," but I have five. My second volume calls itself the the 6th edition, "In Four Volumes." I then have Vol. 3 of the 5th edition (1881, though the intro says 1871). Vol. 4, Part 2 is then "A New Edition" (1883). The Volume 4 Part 2 is also the "New Edition" from 1884. Suffice it to say that, though my set is a hodgepodge of editions, at least I have the whole set on all of the books of the NT.

Concerning the mss readings, Alford writes, "The digest of various readings in this edition has been arranged by combining those of Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf (Vol. 1, p. 79). Therefore, this is a critical edition of the Greek NT, not a TR.

I am very happy to have it, and have consulted it many times, though usually for the Greek exegesis rather than the textual criticism.

 

[Conan]

Alford

One day in Japan, we were at the second hand sale of the Christian Academy in Japan. In those days missionaries from the postwar years were retiring from Japan and so the book tables were great. That day I picked up a true treasure, a four volume set of Henry Alford's wonderful work, The Greek New Testament.

This was actually a technical commentary on the Greek New Testament, dated originally in 1854, along with copious notes about the Greek text. The subtitle continues: "With a Critically Revised Text: A Digest of Various Readings: Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic Usage: Prolegomena: And a Critical and Exegetical Commentary."

I'm a little confused as to which volume is which in my set. Volume 1 has a different cover and is from a different edition than the other four volumes, calling itself the 2nd edition from 1854. It also says "In Three Volumes," but I have five. My second volume calls itself the the 6th edition, "In Four Volumes." I then have Vol. 3 of the 5th edition (1881, though the intro says 1871). Vol. 4, Part 2 is then "A New Edition" (1883). The Volume 4 Part 2 is also the "New Edition" from 1884. Suffice it to say that, though my set is a hodgepodge of editions, at least I have the whole set on all of the books of the NT.

Concerning the mss readings, Alford writes, "The digest of various readings in this edition has been arranged by combining those of Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf (Vol. 1, p. 79). Therefore, this is a critical edition of the Greek NT, not a TR.

I am very happy to have it, and have consulted it many times, though usually for the Greek exegesis rather than the textual criticism.

Alford, 1849. Henry Alford
Bibliography of Textual Criticism "A"

 

[John of Japan]

I have several books obviously meant to be textbooks for textual criticism. The oldest of these is A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, by Edward Miller (1886). My copy is a reprint by The Bible For Today, the publishing arm of D. A. Waite's Dean Burgon Society. If one wishes not to support the DBS, there are other reprints on Amazon.

Miller was a follower of John Burgon, the opponent of Westcott and Hort. (John was his real name. Never have figured out why people 120 years later still call him by a title he had, "Dean Burgon.") Therefore Miller's book is from a Byzantine Priority position. He was not KJV Only, it must be said.

All in all, this is a good addition to any library on textual criticism, being a basic explanation, easier to understand than Burgon's turgid tomes. Including the appendix, which is on several disputed passages, there are 137 pages, and a good index.

 

[Deacon]

I will add another early text by the father of the Critical Text, Eberhard Nestle.
Nestle outlines the history of the printed text, the materials used, and a summary of the technique and application of textual criticism. He includes study helps such as notes, appendixes.
This ‘Introduction to the Greek New Testament’ (German 1897, English translation 1901) preceded the first edition of the Nestle Greek New Testament by a year.

The following quote in a simple way illustrates the approach Eberhard Nestle took in his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1898) using the texts developed earlier by Tischendorf, Westcott/Hort, and Weymouth.

Concerning ‘the conclusion of the apocalypse’
“How are we to decide without external evidence which is the correct form? Even supposing we know that the first two are out of the question, and why they are so, it is very difficult on internal grounds alone to decide between the other three. Lachmann, who did not know of (5), decided in favour of (4). But so does Tischendorf, Weizsäcker, and Weiss, the latter giving as his reason for doing so that (5), τῶν ἁγίων, is explanatory of (4), πάντων, which is manifestly too general, and that (3) is the result of a combination of these two. On the other hand, Tregelles and Westcott and Hort favour (5), without so much as mentioning (4) in their margin; while Bousset, the latest expositor of the Apocalypse, regards (3) as the correct reading, and thinks that in all probability both (4) and (5) are due to a transcriptional error. Who is to decide when doctors disagree"
"Translated from the second edition by William Edie, B.D. 1901​

Rob

 

[John of Japan]

I will add another early text by the father of the Critical Text, Eberhard Nestle.
Nestle outlines the history of the printed text, the materials used, and a summary of the technique and application of textual criticism. He includes study helps such as notes, appendixes.
This ‘Introduction to the Greek New Testament’ (German 1897, English translation 1901) preceded the first edition of the Nestle Greek New Testament by a year.
View attachment 6075
The following quote in a simple way illustrates the approach Eberhard Nestle took in his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1898) using the texts developed earlier by Tischendorf, Westcott/Hort, and Weymouth.

Concerning ‘the conclusion of the apocalypse’
“How are we to decide without external evidence which is the correct form? Even supposing we know that the first two are out of the question, and why they are so, it is very difficult on internal grounds alone to decide between the other three. Lachmann, who did not know of (5), decided in favour of (4). But so does Tischendorf, Weizsäcker, and Weiss, the latter giving as his reason for doing so that (5), τῶν ἁγίων, is explanatory of (4), πάντων, which is manifestly too general, and that (3) is the result of a combination of these two. On the other hand, Tregelles and Westcott and Hort favour (5), without so much as mentioning (4) in their margin; while Bousset, the latest expositor of the Apocalypse, regards (3) as the correct reading, and thinks that in all probability both (4) and (5) are due to a transcriptional error. Who is to decide when doctors disagree"
"Translated from the second edition by William Edie, B.D. 1901​

Rob

Excellent post. Thank you!

Nestle's Greek NT is probably the best one for the apparatus--the footnotes about variant readings. I use to have ed. 23, I think it was, but gave that to a missionary kid who wanted to learn Greek. I have an old 16th edition pocket NT which belonged to my father. It is now up toe the 28th edition, now called Aland-Nestle since the old scholar passed on. I've been told that 25, I think it was, has the best apparatus.