I have just started to update our most popular blogpost ever, the bibliography on the Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament Texual Criticism. Yes, it has now surpassed Elijah Hixson's magnificent piece on First-Century Mark as well as Peter William's breaking news on the archaelogical discovery of Q (I am thankful to see that someone added a disclaimer "THIS POST IS A JOKE FOR APRIL FOOLS DAY!"). In any case, I just added in some few new entries to the bibliography, two of which got an asterisk (among the top ten). But there are many more to add. Do you have any suggestions? Leave them in the comments!
Introductions and surveys
- *Crawford, Sidney White, and Tommy Wasserman, eds. The Oxford Handbook on Textual Criticism of the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
- *Quarles, Charles, New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century: A Practical Guide. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2025.
Current trends views and debates
- Holmes, Michael W. "New Testament Textual Criticism in 2020." Early Christianity 11.1 (2020): 3–20.
Working with manuscripts
- Lied, Liv Ingeborg and Brent Nongbri. Working with Manuscripts: A Guide for Textual Scholars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025. [This is a general guide, not focused on biblical manuscipts]
Current trends in dating NT papyri
- Nongbri, Brent. God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. [A provocative monograph summarizing Nongbri's several challenges to narrow and too early dating of the papyri].
- Wasserman, Tommy. “Beyond Palaeography: Text, Paratext and Dating of Early Christian Papyri.” Pages 151–162 in The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri at Ninety:Literature, Papyrology, Ethics (open access). Edited by Garrick V. Allen, et al. Manuscripta Biblica 10. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2023. [This chapter contains a response to some of Nonbgri's challenges and emphasizes the continuity between Christian and Jewish scribal cultures.]
Scribal habits
- Hixson, Elijah. Scribal Habits in Sixth-Century Greek Purple Codices. NTTSD 61. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
- Malik, Peter. P.Beatty III (P47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text. NTTSD 52. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
- Mugridge, Alan. Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice. WUNT I.362. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.
Practice of NT textual criticism
- *Houghton, H. A. G. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion to the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025.
Conjectural emendation
- Kamphuis, Bart L. F. New Testament Conjectural Emendation in the Nineteenth Century: Jan Hendrik Holwerda as a Pioneer of Method. NTTSD 56. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
Update: I have added Charles Quarles new introduction under Introductions and surveys and marked it with an asterisk.
Though it is more related to paleography and the Greek minuscule more broadly, Nina Sietis has written a masterful tome on the development of the so called "Studite minuscule" and the Greek minuscule bookhand. And it's open access here:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.storiaeletteratura.it/catalogo/alle-origini-della-minuscola-libraria-greca-pdf/21087
Thanks Clark, it looks great. I will not include it in the bibliography because it is more specialized.
DeleteCharles L Quarles has a new introduction book, New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century: A Practical Guide. I like that it takes you through variants and the different steps which can be taken to evaluate them.
ReplyDeleteIndeed I am also placing Quarles as required reading on my own syllabus. His book is very well written in that it helps one think critically about several logical factors that go into text-critical decisions you don't normally see in such a condensed discussion. Some of the arguments in his book for reasoned eclecticism also keep me open to reasoned eclecticism (as opp. to a Byzantine priority position). As someone who is open to both, I find some of his arguments against the Byzantine priority position a bad representation of it. Nonetheless, for reasoned-eclecticism itself it is very valuable. It should be on the list.
DeleteThanks, I have updated this post and the list and marked Quarles with an asterisk because I agree that it is very useful and up-to-date.
DeleteNice updates!
ReplyDeleteAlso probably ought to include ECM Teil 3 Studien for both Acts (2017) and Mark (2021)... such important essays...
Yes, I should probably do that.
Delete