"Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism"

Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism
by David Alan Black (Editor)
2002 Baker Book House, 157 pages

I got this neat little book for Christmas and found it a nice introduction to the field of modern textual criticism.

This review is given primarily because it is offered on Amazon at less than $5.
It’s not often that you can get an academic book for such an inexpensive a price.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/0801022800/ref=dp_olp_2/002-2858956-7792812?%5Fencoding=UTF8


The editor, David Black, organized a symposium at Southeastern Seminary (NC) upon becoming aware of the diversity of opinions on his campus.

Michael Holmes provides a chapter covering Reasoned Eclecticism, probably the most widely accepted method in the later half of the last century. “The variant most likely to be original is the one that best accounts for the origin of all competing variants in terms of both external and internal evidence.”

The case for Thoroughgoing Eclecticism (also known as Rational or Radical eclecticism) is covered by a chapter offered by J.K. Elliott. “…[T]horoughgoing is the consistent application of criteria and principles for assessing textual variants that are based primarily (but not, I should add, exclusively) on internal evidence.”

The case for Byzantine Priority is presented by Maurice A. Robinson. “The theory requires one to view the history of the text as a “reasoned transmissionalism,” carefully considering the effect of scribal habits and accidental and deliberate alteration of the text during the transmissional process.” At times, the BaptistBoard’s posts seem to be weighted in favor of this method.

So what how do these men respond to those who use other methods and texts? Do we see the same bitter denunciations and accusations found on the pages of this board?
Moisés Silva notes in his review in the final chapter that civility and respect prevailed during the entire event.
We can hope that those that discuss the topic here would soon display such Christian manners.

Rob