U. B. Schmid, with W. J. Elliott and D. C. Parker, The New Testament in Greek IV: The Gospel according to St. John: Volume 2: The Majuscules
Reviewed by Marcus Sigismund J. Harold Greenlee, The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition
Reviewed by J. K. Elliott
Keith Elliott's review of Greenlee's book is fairly explosive. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I do think that Elliott "doth protest too much" in this review.
ReplyDeleteIn so severely lambasting Greenlee, in reality he attacks all evangelicals involved in the text-critical discipline, regardless of the text any one of us might happen to favor.
Can Sigismund say all that in English please?
ReplyDeleteSigismund said, 'Marvelous, simply marvelous. Can we have the computer files too?' Well, not quite, but you get the idea.
ReplyDeleteWhat does he say about the PA--that it's in the majority of the majuscules, but not included in the CA?
ReplyDeleteI just read the Elliott review. Toward the end he says that Greenlee is outdated in two ways... "First he is still concerned to show that text critics are trying to expose the original text." I guess I am out of date then, because that is exactly why I am interested in textual criticism.
ReplyDeleteWell, after reading Dr. Elliott's review, I feel like writing an Introduction to NTTC that will do all those things that Greenlee's book does not do.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he is attacking all evangelicals by lambasting Greenlee; istm that the book was simply a lot more shallow than what he hoped it would be.
I wonder what exactly Greenlee says now about the ending of Mark. He probably changed the reference to "the second-century Church Father Cyril of Alexandria" (cf. Scribes, Scrolls, 7 Scripture, p. 90) or else Dr. Elliott would have mentioned it.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Darrell said: "First he is still concerned to show that text critics are trying to expose the original text."
ReplyDeleteI suppose it would have been important at least to discuss and problematize the term "original text" in light of the debates in the last two decades, and the shift among some of the leading text-critics to the term "initial text" (Ausgangstext).
However, the reconstruction of as early a text as possible remains an important goal for most text-critics, but the controversial issue is the nature of that text (what are we reconstructing?) and its relation to an "original text."
Interestingly, the co-operation between ITSEE led by D.C. Parker and the INTF led by Struthwolf illustrates this conflict quite well. The two parties agree on the task and method of reconstruction (which is quite elaborate), but they disagree (taking the view of their respective directors to be representative) about the nature of the reconstructed text, and how it relates to an "original text." We have referred to their debates previously on this blog.