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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
History, theory, and practice are interwoven in most realms of human knowledge, yet students approaching a field often care little about its history; they are more concerned with its application and how the discipline is practiced. This may be illustrated from the physical and biological sciences, where it is common not only for novices but even experts to take an interest only very late—if at all—in the history of science, and more so among physicians, to whom the history of medicine is usually a curiosity at best. Students first grappling with NT textual criticism are not likely to be different—they want to know the “jargon,” the “rules,” and the basic methods that will permit them to practice the art and (as they are more likely to view it) the science of textual criticism. In this particular subfield of NT studies, however, the history and the practice of the discipline cannot easily be separated. After all, the canons of criticism—the so-called “rules” in textual criticism—are anything but objective standards that can be applied in a rigid, mechanical fashion.
1 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.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1987)Google Scholar. Throughout the text of this article, numbers in parentheses refer to page numbers in this volume.
2 Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (2d ed.; New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968).Google Scholar
3 Though the text (p. 13) refers to ninety-three.
4 But see the criticism of this chapter in the review by Birdsall, J. Neville, BT 39 (1988) 339.Google Scholar
5 These chapters and their relative lengths are as follows: chap. 3 = pp. 72–180; chap. 4 = 181–217; chap. 5 = 218–62; chap. 7 = pp. 275–311. There is also a brief chap. 7 on “Resources” (pp. 263–74), though it may appear to be more of an advertisement for the various research tools produced by the editors than an essential part of a handbook on NT textual criticism.
6 For an extensive discussion of these and other lists of canons, see Epp, Eldon Jay, “The Eclectic Method in New Testament Textual Criticism: Solution or Symptom?” HTR 69 (1976) 217–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Incidentally but curiously, the Alands criticize Westcott-Hort for not collating MSS and for basing their text entirely on previous critical editions, while at the same time they extol the Nestle edition for its “purely mechanical system of [selecting] a majority text” from the three specified editions (20). A small matter, but one curiosity among many others.
8 Westcott, Brooke Foss and Hort, Fenton John Anthony, The New Testament in the Original Greek (Cambridge/London: Macmillan, 1881–1882).Google Scholar
9 On Gebhardt (and the same term used by Louis Duchesne), see Schaff, Philip, A Companion to the Greek New Testament and the English Version (4th ed.; New York/London: Harper, 1903) 281–82Google Scholar; for Kenyon, see his Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (2d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1926) 294Google Scholar. He says further: Westcott-Hort's work “has coloured all that has been written on the subject for the last thirty years, and supplies the basis of all work done in this field today” (ibid.).
10 Kenyon, Frederic G., Recent Developments in the Textual Criticism of the Greek Bible (Schweich Lectures, 1932; London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1933) 4.Google Scholar
11 Lagrange, M.-J., Critique textuelle: II. La critique rationelle (ÉtBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1935) 7; on Nestle's 1st and 9th editions, see p. 8 n. 3.Google Scholar
12 Vogels, Heinrich J., Handbuch der Textkritik des Neuen Testaments (2d ed.; Bonn: Hanstein, 1955) 152–220; on Westcott-Hort, see 202–3. Vogels refers to Nestle's Einführung in das griechische Neue Testament (3d ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909) about fifteen times, but not to his editions (though Vogels, 182, may contain such a reference, yet not unambiguously).Google Scholar
13 Nestle, Eberhard, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament (ET from 2d ed. with additions; London: Williams & Norgate, 1901) 171.Google Scholar
14 Gregory, Caspar René, Canon and Text of the New Testament (International Theological Library; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1907) 464.Google Scholar
15 ibid., 463.
16 The English translator of the Aland-Aland volume informs me that the second German edition (which will appear also as a second English edition) will drop the term “Standard text” throughout the volume (letter from Dr. Erroll F. Rhodes, 24 November 1988).
17 See, e.g., the reviews by Holmes, Michael in JBL 108 (1989)Google Scholar [forthcoming], and by J. Neville Birdsall (n. 4 above); cf. the reviews by Larry Hurtado, W. in CBQ 50 (1988) 313–15Google Scholar, and by Moisés Silva in WTJ 50 (1988) 195–200.Google Scholar
18 Other references include 14–15, 18, 20, 55, 182, 232; rare positive comments are on 11 n. 16, 273.
19 Also on the British side, there are positive assessments of commentaries by Westcott, Hort, J. B. Lightfoot, and E. G. Selwyn, which are said to be still “valuable today for textual criticism” (273), but these are not theoretical studies in the discipline.
20 Farstad-Hodges and also Dearing are editors of editions and could be excluded from this survey, thus further diminishing representation in the volume of American scholars who are not editors of MSS, versions, or patristic works.
21 This is a curious reversal of Kurt Aland's earlier position, one in which he took offense when the Nestle-Aland text was spoken of as being closer to that of Westcott-Hort, which he understood to imply that no progress had been made in textual criticism since Westcott-Hort's time. Actually, the more careful statement of my 1974 conclusion (to which he took offense) was that “none of the currently popular hand-editions of the Greek NT takes us beyond Westcott-Hort in any substantive way as far as textual character is concerned” (JBL 93 [1974] 390)Google Scholar, and the more specific point was that the text of Nestle-Aland 25 was closer to Westcott-Hort than to any other critical text, using as evidence statistics that Kurt Aland had reported in 1959 and again in 1967 (“The Present Position of New Testament Textual Criticism,” StEv 1 (1959) 720–21Google Scholar; idem, “Der heutige Text des griechischen Neuen Testaments” in his Studien zur Überlieferung des Neuen Testaments und seines Textes (ANTF 2; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967) 59–61.Google Scholar His response, not without some rather bitter sarcasm in the context, was that this judgment about the relation of the texts of Westcott-Hort and Nestle-Aland “causes surprise to cease and astonishment to begin” (Aland, “Twentieth Century Interlude,” 3 [see below]). Now it is perhaps our turn for astonishment, for in the present volume— fifteen years later—the Alands, in nearly five pages, reprint and expand upon the very same statistics, and they conclude (as I had) that the data on the Nestle editions through the 25th “show for Nestle a closer affinity to Westcott-Hort” than to any other (Aland and Aland, Text of the New Testament, 26; cf. 26–30). So, it would appear that a “twentieth century interlude” in the progress of hand-editions, which Kurt Aland earlier had vigorously denied, is now essentially affirmed. See the full interaction in Epp, Eldon Jay, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” JBL 93 (1974) 387–90Google Scholar; Aland, Kurt, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” in Best, Emest and Wilson, R. McL., eds., Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 3–5Google Scholar; and Epp, Eldon Jay, “A Continuing Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism?” HTR 73 (1980) 135–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 The discrepancy between “seventy” and “eighty” years in these two passages may be due to the fact that a fair measure of the volume is made up of previously published materials—as pointed out, e.g., by Elliott, J. Keith's review in ThZ 39 (1983) 247Google Scholar, and by Nierynck, Frans, ETL 58 (1982) 389.Google Scholar
23 In part, the Alands are referring to the so-called “Western Non-Interpolations,” whose significance they take every opportunity to deny (e.g., 15, 33, 232).
24 The section treating this consists of pp. 30–36.
25 Seen. 16 above.
26 Cf. 286, 289, which refer to their Rules 6 and 8 on 275–76; only on 286 is the method defined in any direct fashion.
27 Fee, Gordon D., “P75, P66, and Origen: The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria,” in Longenecker, R. N. and Tenney, M. C., eds., New Dimensions in New Testament Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974) 33–40.Google Scholar
28 See 20; cf. 14–20, where Westcott-Hort's claims for the “Neutral” text (primarily Codex B) receive much criticism.
29 Esp. by Elliott, J. Keith, e.g., “Rational Criticism and the Text of the New Testament,” Theology 75 (1972) 339–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Can We Recover the Original New Testament?” Theology 77 (1974) 345.Google Scholar
30 See Epp, Eldon Jay, “Textual Criticism,” in idem and S.J., George W. MacRae, eds., The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters (Philadelphia: Fortress; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 97–100Google Scholar; and idem, “The Significance of the Papyri for Determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission,” in Petersen, William L., ed., Gospel Traditions in the Second Century (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989) [forthcoming].Google Scholar
31 Hyphenated in the German edition; the two texts are distinguished on 56, 70–71.
32 Lake, Kirsopp, The Influence of Textual Criticism on the Exegesis of the New Testament (Oxford, 1904) 3–4, 11–12.Google Scholar
33 Westcott-Hort, New Testament in the Original Greek, 2.31.
34 Harris, J. Rendel, “New Points of View in Textual Criticism,” Expositor VIII. 7 (1914) 322Google Scholar; cf. 319–23; idem, “The Mentality of Tatian,” Bulletin of the Bezan Club 9 (1931) 8.Google Scholar
35 Among others, Riddle, Donald W., “Textual Criticism as a Historical Discipline,” ATR 18 (1936) 220–33Google Scholar; Parvis, Merrill M., “The Nature and Tasks of New Testament Textual Criticism: An Appraisal,” JR 32 (1952) 165–74Google Scholar; Zuntz, Gunther, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (Schweich Lectures, 1946; London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1953) 10–11Google Scholar; Clark, Kenneth W., “The Effect of Recent Textual Criticism upon New Testament Studies,” in Davies, W. D. and Daube, David, eds., The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956) 44–45Google Scholar; idem, “Textual Criticism and Doctrine,” Studia Paulina in honorem Johannis De Zwaan septuagenarii (Haarlem: Bohn, 1953) 52–65Google Scholar; reprinted, respectively, in Clark's, The Gentile Bias and Other Essays (ed. Sharpe, J. L. III; NovTSup 54; Leiden: Brill, 1980) 82–83Google Scholar, 90–103; J. Neville Birdsall's masterful survey of NT textual criticism in a historical framework, “The New Testament Text,” in Ackroyd, P. R. and Evans, C. F., eds., The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to Jerome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) 311–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 328–77. Other names could be added, and the resultant list reads almost like a litany in the discipline (Lake, Harris, Streeter, Riddle, Blackman, Parvis, Zuntz, Clark, Saunders, Birdsall), and this British-American emphasis could hardly be overlooked accidentally by anyone in the field. Europeans, specifically Germans, who emphasize this church-historical approach are fewer, but the small, influential volume by Erich Fascher is well known: Textgeschichte als hermeneutisches Problem (Halle [Saale], 1953)Google Scholar; cf. Kametzki, M., “Textgeschichte als Überlieferungsgeschichte,” ZNW 47 (1956) 170–80.Google Scholar For discussion and pertinent quotations, see Epp, Eldon Jay, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966) 14–21.Google Scholar