Baarda reviews Williams

In Novum Testamentum 48.4 (2006), which was published online around the same time as 49.1 (2007), there are a number of reviews of interest to textual critics. One that caught my attention (on pp. 400-404) was the review of Tjitze Baarda of P.J. Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels. It is a very detailed engagement and appears to demonstrate that Williams has not convinced everyone to change their ways of analysing versions. Nevertheless, Baarda says 'I cannot but admire the audacity with which the apparently young and assertive scholar Williams has tried to develop new ways of interpreting Syriac linguistic phenomena in view of their importance for the recovery of the Greek text.' For those who are interested in following in detail the review's interaction with the book I'd note that on Williams p. 300 the pages of discussion for Mark 1:16 should be '59-60' and that, contrary to the suggestion in the review, Williams suggests no more emendations to the NA27 apparatus of this verse than the removal of the Peshitta's support for αμφιβαλλοντας τα δικτυα.