Peter Rodgers Reviews James Voelz on Mark

In a recent Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the blog’s own Peter Rodgers has reviewed the first volume of James Voelz’s commentary on Mark. It’s not often that a commentary review mentions textual criticism (or has warrant to!), but when the commentary is by Voelz and the review is by Rodgers, we get lucky. Here’s the relevant portion:

Textual critics will welcome Voelz’s full treatment of variant readings for each section. His “spiral method” for making judgments on readings (p. 25) appears to give equal weight to both external and internal criteria in making judgments on textual matters. His preference for manuscript B (Vaticanus), however, leads him to prefer this manuscript as “a strong witness to the characteristics of Marcan Greek” (p. 25). This procedure normally serves well but must not be followed slavishly. For example, Mark’s use of “immediately,” a persistent Marcan peculiarity, should have overridden V.’s omission of the particle on the strength of B and allies (see 7:35). His commendable willingness to depart from NA28 should have allowed him to entertain or at least mention the conjecture in 8:26, “don’t say anything into the Village, which alone honors another strong feature of Marcan usage: the use of “into” (εἰς) where “in” (ἐν) is expected. Moreover, the recently developed “Coherence-based Genealogical Method,” together with the salient features of Marcan usage, should give pause to anyone who wishes to emphasize one manuscript (even one so excellent as B). To do so is ultimately to neglect the complexity of the whole manuscript tradition.

You can read the rest in CBQ 80 (2018): 540–542.