¹ Hug, Johann Leonhard, Hug's Introduction to the New Testament (trans, from the German 3d ed. by Fosdick, David Jr with notes by Moses Stuart; Andover, MA: Gould & Newman, 1836) 70–71Google Scholar [German original, 1808; 3d ed., 1826]. I have not found the 1808 ed., but I have checked the 2d (1821) and 4th (1847) German eds., where the language is identical t o that translated in the English ed.

² Ibid., 85.

³ Ibid., 86.

⁴ See the extensive discussion in Tov, Emanuel, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress; Assen/Maastricht:Van Gorcum, 1992),Google Scholar esp. chap. 3B on “The Original Shape of the Biblical Text,” 164–80. Note Tov's comments elsewhere: “Textual criticism deals with the origin and nature of all forms of a text, in our case the biblical text. This involves a discussion of its putative original form(s)…” (1); and “…the concept of an ‘original text’ necessarily remains vague” (11). For various views of “original” text, with critique, see Sanders, James A., “The Task of Text Criticism,” in Sun, Henry T. C., Eades, Keith L., et al., eds., Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Rolf Knierim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 315–27,Google Scholar esp. 319-22; 325; and idem, “Stability and Fluidity in Text and Canon,” in Norton, Gerard J. and Pisano, Stephen, eds., Tradition of the Text: Studies Offered to Dominique Barthelemy in Celebration of His 70th Birthday (OBO 109; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991) 205–6;Google Scholar 213-14; 217. It would be fruitful to compare these views with those in New Testament textual criticism, but that is beyond the scope of the present discussion.

⁵ I was struck by one of Fenton John Anthony Hort's emphases in his three-page description of textual criticism: “textual criticism is always negative, because its final aim is virtually nothing more than the detection and rejection of error” (Westcott, Brooke Foss and Hort, Fenton John Anthony, The New Testament in the Original Greek [2 vols.; Cambridge: Macmillan, 1881-1882; 2d ed., 1896] 2. 3.Google Scholar Perhaps this statement or at least such sentiment—repeated too often—has contributed to the morosity of some practitioners and to the view of many outsiders that textual criticism is a dull if not moribund discipline.A subsidiary purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate the broad relevance, the deep vitality, the high excitement, and the positive reach forward of current New Testament textual criticism.

⁶ Nolan, Frederick, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament: In Which the Greek Manuscripts Are Newly Classified, the Integrity of the Authorised Text Vindicated, and the Various Readings Traced to Their Origin (London: Rivington, 1815) 2–3Google Scholar.

⁷ Birks, Thomas Rawson, Essay on the Right Estimation of Manuscript Evidence in the Text of the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1878) 1Google Scholar; compare v. Also, in the strongly apologetic, biased writings of John William Burgon (and of his followers up to the present time), clear-cut definitions are to be expected. Burgon writes, “The object of textual criticism… is to determine what the Apostles and Evangelists of Christ actually wrote—the precise words they employed, and the very order of them” (Burgon's posthumous work, Miller, Edward, ed., The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Established [London: Bell, 1896] 19).Google Scholar Elsewhere Burgon refers to establishing “the true text” (p. 6).

⁸ Westcott, and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, 2. 1.Google Scholar Further on the relationship between autograph and original text, see 2. 66-68. The progress of textual criticism, Hort says, consists “in approximation towards complete ascertainment of definite facts of the past, that is, towards recovering an exact copy of what was actually written on parchment or papyrus by the author of the book or his amanuensis” (p. 3).

⁹ Gregory, Casper René, Canon and Text of the New Testament (International Theological Library; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1907) 485Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Souter, Alexander, The Text and Canon of the New Testament (1913; 2d ed., London: Duckworth, 1954) 3.Google Scholar Similarly, Kenyon, Frederic G., The Text of the Greek Bible: A Student's Handbook (2d ed.; London: Duckworth, 1953) 12:Google Scholar “If the author's original manuscript had survived, it would of course be unnecessary to trouble about later and less accurate copies of it, or the work of revising editors.…” This sentiment is echoed, for example, in Greenlee, J. Harold, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (1964; rev. ed.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995) 2Google Scholar.

¹¹ Greenlee, J. Harold, Introduction, 11Google Scholar.

¹² Kenyon, Frederic G., Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (1912; 2d ed., London: Macmillan, 1926) 1–2.Google Scholar A qualified statement appears in his Text of the Greek Bible, 9.

¹³ Lagrange, Marie-Joseph, Critique textuelle, II: La critique rationnelle (2d ed.; EtB; Paris: Gabalda, 1935) viiGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Aland, Kurt and Aland, Barbara, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (trans. Rhodes, Erroll F.; 2d ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1989) vGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ Ibid., 280. This principle is reminiscent of Hort: “Where there is variation, there must be error in at least all variants but one; and the primary work of textual criticism is merely to discriminate the erroneous variants from the true” (Westcott, and Hort, , The New Testament in the Original Greek, 2. 3)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Aland, and Aland, , Text of the New Testament, 291–92Google Scholar.

¹⁷ With the discovery and publication of sixteen additional New Testament papyri from Oxyrhynchus (?¹⁰⁰-?¹¹⁵), of which thirteen date at or prior to the turn of the third into the fourth century (?¹⁰⁰-?¹⁰⁴; ?¹⁰⁶-?¹⁰⁹; ?¹¹¹; and ?¹¹³-?¹¹⁵), this important group of early papyri now numbers sixty-one. For the forty-eight listed in 1989, see Aland, and Aland, , Text of the New Testament, 56–57; 93.Google Scholar For the new papyri, see the listing in Bericht der Hermann Kunst-Stiftung zur Förderung der neutestamentlichen Textforschung für die Jahre 1995 bis 1998 (Munster: Hermann Kunst-Stiftung, 1998) 14–18;Google Scholar for the texts, see vols. 64 (1997), 65 (1998), and 66 (1999, forthcoming) of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Greco-Roman Memoirs 84-86; London: The British Academy by the Egypt Exploration Society).

¹⁸ Aland, Kurt, “The Twentieth-Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” in Best, Ernest and Wilson, Robert McLachlan, eds., Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 11Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Aland, Kurt, “Der neue ‘Standard-Text’ in seinem Verhältnis zu den frühen Papyri und Majuskeln,” in Epp, Eldon J. and Fee, Gordon D., eds., New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 274–75Google Scholar.

²⁰ Bruce M. Metzger on behalf of and in cooperation with the Editorial Committee of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (1971; 2d ed., Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1994),Google Scholar orig. ed., xiii; 2d ed., xv.

²¹ Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (1964; 1968; 3d ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

²² Ibid., 150.

²³ Ibid., 186.

²⁴ Ibid., v.

²⁵ Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament; With Remarks on Its Revision upon Critical Principles (London: Bagster, 1854) 174.Google Scholar Tregelles's preface is less cautious, however: through textual criticism “we know, on grounds of ascertained certainty, the actual words and sentences…in the terms in which the Holy Spirit gave it” (viii [italics in original]). Yet, on the first page of his large handbook, a rewriting and revision of Home's, Thomas HartwellAn Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (11th ed. by Home, , Ayre, John, and Tregelles, S. P.; 4 vols.; London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860) 4. 1,Google Scholar Tregelles defines textual criticism as “that species of criticism which has to do with the ascertainment, as far as is practicable, of what it was that the writer of any ancient work actually wrote.” Tregelles's work appeared earlier and separately, with the same definition, in An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Longman, Green, et al., 1856) 1Google Scholar.

²⁶ Westcott, and Hort, , The New Testament in the Original Greek, 2. 1; my emphasisGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (1886; 7th ed., London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1907) 15Google Scholar; my emphasis. The omission of the italicized portion may be found, as a random example, in Childs, Brevard S., The New Testament As Canon: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 522Google Scholar(see n. 108 below). Warfield also speaks of the need to restore the texts “substantially to their original form” (11).

²⁸ See, for example, the following: Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testamentfor the Use of Biblical Students (2 vols.; 4th ed. by Miller, Edward; London: Bell, 1894) 1. 5Google Scholar; Nestle, Eberhard, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament (trans, from 2dGerman, ed.; London: Williams and Norgate, 1901) 156:Google Scholar “The task is to exhibit what the original writer intended to communicate to his readers, and the method is simply that of tracing the history of the document in question back to its beginning, if, and in so far as, we have the means to do so at our command.” Nestle's, CompareEinführung in das griechische Neue Testament (1897, 1899; 1909 [p. 168];Google Scholar 4th ed., Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923, ed. by Ernst von Dobschiitz [p. 118]); Jacquier, E., Le Nouveau Testament dans I'église chrétienne, tome second: Le texte du Nouveau Testament (2d ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1913) 1Google Scholar; Vogels, Heinrich Joseph, Handbuch der Textkritik des Neuen Testaments (1923; 2d ed.; Bonn: Hanstein, 1955) 1Google Scholar; Robertson, Archibald Thomas, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1925)Google Scholar has no direct, introductory statement, but see p. 173 and esp. p. 221; Lake, Kirsopp, The Text of the New Testament (6th ed., rev. by New, Silva; Oxford Church Text Books; London: Rivingtons, 1928) 1Google Scholar; Taylor, Vincent, The Text of the New Testament: A Short Introduction (2d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1963) 1Google Scholar; Vaganay, Leon, An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (2d ed., rev. by Amphoux, Christian-Bernard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 1:CrossRefGoogle Scholar textual criticism “aims to retrieve the original form of a text or at least the form closest to the original” (compare. 1st English ed., 1937, p. 9; French eds., 1934; rev. ed., 1986, p. 15); Black, David Alan, New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994) 12:Google Scholar “…to recover the original text of the New Testament from the available evidence”; Elliott, Keith and Moir, Ian, Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament: An Introduction for English Readers (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995) 1Google Scholar.

Finally, the life-goal of Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin von Tischendorf, as stated in a letter to a patron in 1844 (after he had outlined his plans to collect and to publish pre-tenth century manuscripts, ancient Latin manuscripts, and the Patristic quotations), was to form “a text that will approach as closely as possible to the very letter as it proceeded from the hands of the Apostles” (cited in Black, Matthew and Davidson, Robert, Constantine von Tischendorf and the Greek New Testament [Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1981] 7)Google Scholar.

²⁹ I am not surprised now to discover that I used the term in quotation marks already in 1966 (though not consistently) in The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) for example, 13^bis, 18^bis, 36.

³⁰ See discussion on “The Relation of an Elusive, Multivalent‘1’to the Concept of 'Canon'” and “Textual Variants as Canonical/ Authoritative” later in the article.

³¹ The conference papers were published in Petersen, William L., ed., Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Origins, Recensions, Text, and Transmission (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 3; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

³² Koester, Helmut, “The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century,” in Petersen, ed., Gospel Traditions in the Second Century, 19–37.Google Scholar It is of interest that among the nine conference participants (from six nations) only Koester, though he works in the text-critical field (for example, “The Text of I Thessalonians,” in Groh, Dennis E. and Jewett, Robert, The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Sounders [Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985] 219–27)Google Scholar would not be first identified as a “textual critic”; he chooses the term “exegete” (Ibid., 219).

³³ To ?⁵² (a fragment of John) now should be added the fragmentary ?⁹⁰ (P.Oxy. 3523, second century, John); ¹⁰⁴ (P.Oxy. 4404, second half of the second century, Matthew); and probably?⁹⁸ (second century[?], Apocalypse of John). Three other papyri date “around 200”::?⁴⁶ ?⁶⁴⁺⁶⁷ and ?⁶⁶ while two others (both with portions of Matthew) stem from the late second/early third century: ?¹⁰³ (P.Oxy. 4403) and ?⁷⁷ (P.Oxy. 2683+4405). [For ?¹⁰³ and ?¹⁰⁴, see n. 17, above].

³⁴ Koester, , “The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century,” 19Google Scholar.

³⁵ Ibid., 21, 30-33.

³⁶ Ibid., 37; compare idem, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990) 275–86,Google Scholar 295-302, 360-402. A description and assessment of Koester's view may be found, for example, in Sellew, Philip, “Secret Mark and the History of Canonical Mark,” in Pearson, Birger A., et al., The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 242–57.Google Scholar Note that Sellew proposes terminology for four stages in Mark's history that, in three cases, have parallels to my proposed “dimensions of originality”: Original Mark, Augmented Mark, Secret Mark, and Canonical Mark (243, n. 6). For a critique of Koester's view, see Parker, David C., The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 107–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Bovon, François, “The Synoptic Gospels and the Noncanonical Acts of the Apostles,” HTR 81 (1988) 19–36,CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides a new perspective on “the alterations of older sources made by the Evangelists as well as the subsequent modifications of their work made by those who came later” (21) by comparing such literary activities with their parallels in the transmission of the Christian apocryphal literature. In the process he relies on codicological data; citation, imitation, and adaptation techniques; redactional tendencies; the witness of early church writers; etc. to conclude, for example, that “perhaps Matthew and Luke used a version of the Gospel of Mark that was earlier than, and different from, our canonical Mark” (27).

Very recently and (like Bovon) by using noncanonical gospel material, Robinson, James M., “A Written Greek Sayings Cluster Older than Q: A Vestige,” HTR 92 (1999) 61–77,CrossRefGoogle Scholar demonstrates from a textual variant in P.Oxy. 655 (supported by the first hand of N), namely ού ξαίνει for αύξνει, that this Oxyrhynchus fragment of the Gospel of Thomas carries a text that is not only pre-Matthew and pre-Luke, but clearly pre-Q as well. Thus, a “very ancient tradition” is exposed that “obviously originated prior to Q and the canonical gospels written in the last third of the first century” because it was “not contaminated by the scribal error that made its way already into Q and thus into the canonical gospels” (67). This evidence, not insignificantly, also confirms that “Q was indeed a written Greek text, behind which stood an older written Greek text as Vorlage” (61). Compare Robinson, J. M. and Heil, Christoph, “Zeugnisse eines schriftlichen, griechischen vorkanonischen Textes: Mt 6, 28b N, P.Oxy. 665 1,1-17 (EvTh 36) und Q 12,27,” ZNW 89 (1998) 30–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Koester, Helmut, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 2: History and Literature of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 182.Google Scholar Koester more recently (Ancient Christian Gospels 206-16) endorsed the argument of J.B. Daniels's dissertation that the synoptic parallels in P. Egerton 2 represent “a separate tradition which did not undergo Markan redaction” and that the author of the papyrus “did not make use of the Gospel of John in canonical form” (207).

³⁸ It is obvious to me that Koester's Notre Dame paper also was a direct influence on Petersen's, William L. views in his “What Text Can New Testament Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?” in Aland, Barbara and Delobel, Joel, eds., New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis, and Early Church History (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994) 136–52,Google Scholar esp. 136-37, inasmuch as Petersen edited the volume of conference papers (see n. 31, above) and uses similar examples. Also, Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes were among the very few nonlocal attendees at the Notre Dame conference. Holmes twice refers to Koester's views from that conference in his extremely brief discussion of the emerging issue of what really i s meant by terms such as “autograph” and “original” in his chapter, “Reasoned Eclecticism in New Testament Textual Criticism,” in Ehrman, Bart D. and Holmes, Michael W., eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (SD 46; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995) 353–54Google Scholar.

³⁹ Ehrman, Bart D., The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York; Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 15, compare 275.

⁴¹ Ibid., xii (italics in original); compare 276.

⁴² Review of Ehrman by Parker, David C., JTS 45 (1994) 707CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Ehrman, , Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 280 (italics in original)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Ehrman, Bart D., “The Text as Window: New Testament Manuscripts and the Social History of Early Christianity,” in Ehrman, B. D. and Holmes, Michael W., eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (SD 46; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 361Google Scholar and n. 1 (italics in original).

⁴⁵ Petersen, , “What Text Can New Testament Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?” 136–37Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Maas, Paul, Textual Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958) 1Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Petersen, , “What Text Can New Testament Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?” 136–37Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 138-39. Petersen's claim concerns the 27th ed. of Nestle/Aland = 4th ed. of UBSGNT.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 139-40 (italics in original).

⁵⁰ Ibid., 148.

⁵¹ Ibid., 140-47.

⁵² But see n. 33, above.

⁵³ Petersen, , “What Text Can New Testament Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?” 148Google Scholar; compare 150.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 149.

⁵⁵ Epp, Eldon Jay, “Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament,” in Porter, Stanley, ed., Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament (NTTS 25; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 45–97; theGoogle Scholar “Excursus” occupies pp. 73-91.

⁵⁶ Dahl, Nils A., “The Particularity of the Pauline Epistles as a Problem in the Ancient Church,” in Unnik, W. C. van, ed., Neotestamentica et Patristica: Eine Freundesgabe, Herrn Professor Dr. Oscar Cullmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag Uberreicht (NovTSup 6; Leiden: Brill, 1962) 267Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 268.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 269.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 271 n. 2.

⁶⁰ Gamble, Harry Y., The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans: A Study in Textual and Literary Criticism (SD 42; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdraans, 1977) 11–35;Google Scholar 96-142. Compare idem, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 58–65Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Parker, David C., The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶² Ibid., 3-4.

⁶³ Ibid., 7.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 132-37.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 211.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 208.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 209.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 182.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 203.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 45-46.

⁷¹ Ibid., 70; compare 200.

⁷² Ibid., 200.

⁷³ Ibid., 209.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 119.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 93.

⁷⁶ Parker, David C., “Scripture is Tradition,” Theology 94 (1991) 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁷ Parker, , The Living Text of the Gospels, 92–93Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 183.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 102.

⁸⁰ Ibid., 172.

⁸¹ Ibid., 183.

⁸² Ibid., 174.

⁸³ Ibid., 203.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 212.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 93.

⁸⁶ Aland, and Aland, , Text of the New Testament, 297.Google Scholar See the statement in Der Text des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1982) 298:Google Scholar “Denn die neutestamentliche Textkritik kann iiber den Textbestand der neutestamentlichen Schriften nur urteilen von dem Augenblick an, wo sie durch Abschriften ihre literarische Existenz beginnen, zu dem, was vorher war, hat sie keinen Zugang.”

For a discussion of the task and boundaries of Old Testament textual criticism, see Sanders, James A., “The Task of Text Criticism,” 319–22,Google Scholar and his further references; idem, “Stability and Fluidity in Text and Canon,” 205-6; and Deist, Ferdinand E., “Text, Textuality, and Textual Criticism,” JNSL 21 (1995) 59–67,Google Scholar who treats implications of textual criticism, defined as “text-restoration,” for recent literary theory. See also n. 4 of this article.

⁸⁷ Aland, and Aland, , Text of the New Testament, 296Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ See discussion on Bovon and Robinson in n. 36. Petzer, Jacobus H., “Reconsidering the Silent Women of Corinth—A Note on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35,” Theologia Evangelica (Pretoria) 26 (1993) 132–38;Google Scholar esp. 135-37, uses this text to illustrate his view of an “original text” and a later-developed but oldest “received text” of the epistle—indicating, in our present language, two levels of originality.

On the complex issue of interpolations, see William O. Walker Jr., who has suggested both principles for and examples of possibly interpolated passages in the New Testament, always insisting that “text-critical considerations should play a significant role in the identification of interpolations” (“Is First Corinthians 13 a Non-Pauline Interpolation?” CBQ 60 [1998] 496Google Scholar; but see esp. his “The Burden of Proof in Identifying Interpolations in the Pauline Letters,” NTS 33 [1987] 610–18;CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Text-Critical Evidence for Interpolations in the Letters of Paul,” CBQ 50 [1988] 622–31;Google Scholar“1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and Paul's Views Regarding Women,” JBL 94 [1975] 94–110; andGoogle Scholar“1 Corinthians 2.6-16: A Non-Pauline Interpolation?” JSNT 47 [1992] 75–94).Google Scholar For a critique of Walker's views, see Wisse, Frederik W., “Textual Limits to Redactional Theory in the Pauline Corpus,” in Goehring, James E., Hedrick, Charles W., Sanders, Jack T., with Betz, Hans Dieter, eds., Gospel Origins & Christian Beginnings in Honor of James M. Robinson (Forum Fascicles, 1; Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990) 172–78Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ I offer this definition of the proper sphere of New Testament textual criticism and the descriptions of two subcategories as the first such attempts; they aim to clarify the issues but also to stimulate further consideration of these complex subjects.

⁹⁰ On interpolations, see n. 88. Extensive literature has developed on the possible interpolation (thus, doubtless non-Pauline) or dislocation of 1 Cor 14:34-35; it is found after 14:40 in D^p 88 et al., is treated as a separate paragraph in ?⁴⁶ BNAD^p 33, and is marked in various manuscripts by sigla interpreted by some to indicate either that it was lacking in those manuscripts or dislocated. See, for example, Fee, Gordon D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 699–708;Google ScholarWalker, , “1 Corinthians 11:2-16,” 95 n.6; 109Google Scholar; Payne, Philip B., “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34-5,” NTS 41 (1995) 240–62;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “MS. 88 as Evidence for a Text without 1 Cor. 14.34-5,” NTS 44 (1998) 152–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a contrary view, see Niccum, Curt, “The Voice of the Manuscripts on the Silence of Women: The External Evidence for 1 Cor 14.34-5,” NTS 43 (1997) 242–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Stewart-Sykes, Alistair, “Ancient Editors and Copyists and Modern Partition Theories: The Case of the Corinthian Correspondence,” JSNT 61 (1996) 53–64,Google Scholar argues that complex compilation or partition theories regarding the Pauline letters would have been “a virtual physical impossibility” on the assumption that Paul's letters were both written and preserved on rolls—because rolls could not be manipulated in a fashion that would permit such literary rearrangements. Nowhere, however, does he discuss the large issue of the codex in early Christianity, nor does he refer, for example, to the paleographic and codicological work of C. H. Turner, C. H. Roberts, or T. C. Skeat, or to recent work, like Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church; compare my “The Codex and Literacy in Early Christianity and at Oxyrhynchus: Issues Raised by Harry Y. Gamble's Books and Readers in the Early Church,” Critical Review of Books in Religion 10 (1997) 15–37, esp. 15-26Google Scholar.

⁹¹ For an earlier, brief attempt to clarify this relationship, see my “Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament,” 73-84.

⁹² Epp, Eldon Jay, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966) see 12–21Google Scholar.

⁹³ Lake, Kirsopp, The Influence of Textual Criticism on the Exegesis of the New Testament (Oxford: Parker, 1904) 3–4Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 11-12. Compare Lake's earlier, similar, but less well-developed suggestions in “The Practical Value of Textual Variation Illustrated from the Book of Acts,” Biblical World 19 (1902) 361–69,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. 363-64, 369. How forward-looking this view of Lake was in his day can be seen by contrasting it with what Warfield was still saying in 1907 n i the 7th ed. of his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 11: “The text conveys the sense; but the textual critic has nothing to do, primarily, with the sense. It is for him to restore the text, and for the interpreter who follows him to reap the new meaning.” But when Lake speaks of the “textual critic” and the “exegete,” they are intimately related, if not identified, as he brings the interpretive task virtually into the textual criticism enterprise. Certainly the two tasks become one in the views of Riddle and Parvis.

⁹⁵ Riddle, Donald W., “Textual Criticism as a Historical Discipline,” AngThR 18 (1936) 221Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Ibid., 227.

⁹⁷ Parvis, Merrill M., “The Nature and Tasks of New Testament Textual Criticism,” JR 32 (1952) 172Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Ibid., 173.

⁹⁹ Fascher, Erich, Textgeschichte ah hermeneutisches Problem (Halle [Saale]: Max Niemeyer, 1953) 12Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Colwell, Emest Cadman, What Is the BestNew Testament? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952) 52–53Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 52.

¹⁰² On Origen as a textual critic, see Epp, “Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament,” 83Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ For these views of Romans, see Gamble, , Textual History of the Letter to the Romans, 15–35;Google Scholar 96-129; compare Clabeaux, John J., A Lost Edition of the Letters of Paul: A Reassessment of the Text of the Pauline Corpus Attested by Marcion (CBQMS 21; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1989) 1–4,Google Scholar for a summary; Schmidt, Ulrich, Marcion und sein Apostolos: Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulusbriefausgabe (Arbeiten zur Neutestamentlichen Textforschung 25; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995) 284–94; andCrossRefGoogle ScholarLampe, Peter, “Zur Textgeschichte des Romerbriefes,” NovT 27 (1985) 273–77Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ The terms “pre-canonical original,” “canonical original,” and “interpretive original” were used in my earlier attempt to describe levels or, better, dimensions of originality (“Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament,” 89), but obviously I prefer the terminology and refinements adopted for the present paper.

¹⁰⁵ Nolan, , An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, 2–3Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁶ Parker, , The Living Text of the Gospels, 200,Google Scholar 93, refers to the New Testament “text” in these statements, and it should not be assumed that he would approve my substitution of “canon” for “text.”

¹⁰⁷ See “Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament,” 91.

¹⁰⁸ Brevard S. Childs, New Testament as Canon, applies his “canonical approach” to the entire New Testament, and his excursus on “The Hermeneutical Problem of New Testament Text-Criticism” (p. 521-30) is equally ideological. I cannot do justice to it here (nor am I confident that I understand all of its many nuances), though its relevance to our discussion is frequent and considerable. For example, Childs recognizes that “[t]he selection and shaping of the books of scripture took place in the context of the worship of the struggling church as t i determined canonicity by the use and effect of the books themselves” (p. 31); and he also affirms “…the effect of the canonical collection in its final form on the shaping of the tradition for those who treasured these writings as scripture” (p. 32). In Child's view, “[t]he earliest levels of textual witness reveal a state of wide multiplicity” and the goal of restoring the “original autographs” “seems increasingly one-sided” (p. 524). For him, the term canon also has different uses (p. 41), yet the New Testament canon is “that corpus received as scripture.… The canonical form marks not only the place from which exegesis begins, but also it marks the place at which exegesis ends. The text's pre-history and post-history are both subordinated to the form deemed canonical” (p. 48). And the “canonical vision” involves “interpreting the New Testament as sacred scriptures of the church” (p. 53). As for New Testament textual criticism, it is “part of the larger canonical process” (p. 523), and Childs sees a crucial need to “redefine the task of New Testament textual criticism in such a way as to do justice to the text's peculiar canonical function within the Christian church,” that is, “establishing the church's received and authoritative text” and “to recover that New Testament text which best reflects the true apostolic witness found in the church's scripture” (p. 527). Methodologically, he asserts, this redefinition is accomplished by starting with the textus receptus because it describes “a full range of textual possibilities which actually functioned in the church,” from which one discerns, critically, “the best received, that is, canonical text”—“that text which best reflects the church's judgment as to its truth” (p. 528). Childs recognizes the “element of subjectivity” in this “continuing process,” for “the discipline of text criticism is not a strictly objective, or non-theological activity” (p. 529).

Of course, textual criticism is not a strictly objective exercise, but I differ in thinking that it is preferable to begin the enterprise with the earliest witnesses/texts rather than later ones (though for me that is more a matter of convenience than ideology) and that canon and text should be distanced rather than integrally joined. The many references by Childs, within the last few pages of his excursus, to the text best reflecting “the true apostolic witness” (p. 527), or “the church's judgment as to its truth (p. 528), or “the truest witness to the gospel,” or the best-received text's “purity” (p. 529), or, finally, to “the truest textual rendering” (p. 530), heighten his unification of text and canon as jointly a theological enterprise. I would seek ways, rather, to distance them one from the other as an essential aspect of textual criticism as a scholarly discipline.

Further on “canonical criticism,” including interaction with Childs's views, see the works of Sanders, James A., esp. From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ Bovon, François, “The Synoptic Gospels and the Noncanonical Acts of the Apostles,” HTR 81 (1988) 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁰ Hengel, Martin, “Aufgaben der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” NTS 40 (1994) 341. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A slightly revised version appeared in Bulletin for Biblical Research 6 (1996) 76–86;Google Scholar see p. 79.