Wallace reviews ECM Revelation in JETS

The new issue of JETS has a long review by Dan Wallace on the ECM Revelation volumes. In my years of reading JETS, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book review longer than 5 pages. This one is 15! Needless to say, it’s a substantial review and you should read it. 

Dan sets the context by going back to Hoskier’s edition and returns to Hoskier in his final paragraph. (An aside: PhD students, please take note. This is how you review a book well. You set the book and its argument/contribution in the context of the larger discussion, explaining how it fits, where it advances the conversation, and then offer critique.) 

One really helpful thing the review does is survey the various parts of the ECM by tracing the change in Rev 21:6. This does several things. It offers a great illustration of how to use all the various pieces of the ECM to get the full editorial picture on a particular variant. It also illustrates how much information is in these four volumes—for good and bad. Having reviewed these volumes myself, I resonate with Dan’s comment that “The detailed analysis of so many aspects for this installment is a blessing and a curse.” Sometimes more is actually less and I felt that way at times (e.g., with the segmtenation information). It’s a lot of info. Much of it is great. Some of it is too much or spread out over too many volumes.

Another critique Dan offers is about the edition’s pursuit of the Ausgangstext. I’ve written enough myself on that topic, so I will just say I agree that the whole subject is very confusing to students and that the different statements from ECM editors or team members over the years have made it worse, not better. Dan sees in this confusion a deeper problem, however. He is worried that intrinsic evidence is being left behind. He goes so far as to say that “[t]his confusion about what the editors of the ECM mean by the Ausgangstext/initial text has become solidified, in the minds of many exegetes and textual critics, as a banishment of the author” (his emphasis). I can’t say I’ve seen that myself, but I will say I raise some of the same concerns in my dissertation (ch. 3) about how intrinsic evidence is off the table for those not pursuing the author’s text. I would like to see all ECM editions give a clearer statement about what the editors of that volume think their initial text is, historically. The Catholic Letters did this well, in my opinion, but later volumes have not been as clear.

I’ve just highlighted a few things from the review. It really should be read in full, especially for Dan’s thoughts on the reduction of solecisms. Lest you think Dan focuses on critiques, let me leave you with some of his praise for the edition:

The greatest strength is the amazing and comprehensive amount of accurate, detailed work that went into this project. It is evident that this installment was years in the making, requiring many scholars. What is almost unbelievable is that the project was completed six years ahead of schedule. Textual criticism is based on accuracy and precision. As the saying goes, “scribes may make mistakes, but critics may not!” ... The many innovations in this project should set a precedent for future ECM iterations. Κῦδος to the team of scholars who dedicated themselves to complete the ECM Rev in record time while maintaining the high standards of INTF. 

New Review of ECM Revelation

My review of the ECM Revelation volumes is out today in Religious Studies Review. Per the format, it is short, so don’t expect a deep dive. Instead I tried to hit the high points. You should be able to read it without the paywall using this gift link. Here are the last few lines:

The entire team is to be warmly congratulated. Readers of Revelation will be in their debt for decades to come. It remains now for others to digest the results and use them to better understand the textual history of this remarkable book.

Before on the blog, I mentioned some of the most important changes and alerted readers to the fact that, for the first time ever with an ECM, most of the edition would be put online for free. That has now been done. This is really remarkable since the edition costs $800 USD. Here are the links:

1. Text (introduction only, 78 pages). The main apparatus is available in the digital ECM at the VMR (here). For the punctuation, textual structure and paratextual details, I gather you still need the physical copy.
2. Supplementary Material 
3. Studies on the Text 
4. Studies on Punctuation and Textual Structure 

Review of UBS6 in Themelios

The latest issue of Themelios is a special issue dedicated to D.A. Carson and the influential NSBT series he edited for three decades. The bulk of the issue is taken up by key authors from the series who summarize and reflect on their volumes. If you’ve never heard of the NSBT series, this would be a great way into it.

But this is not a blog about biblical theology so we’ll save that for another place. Instead, this blog post is to alert you to my review of UBS6 that is also in this issue. I am thankful to the editors who let me go a little longer than the typical Themelios review. Here’s the introduction

First published in 1966, the UBS Greek New Testament hits its 60th birthday this year. It has long been the preferred hand edition for its intended audience of translators, students, and pastors. The arrival of this new, sixth edition is a major publishing event, especially as it is accompanied by a completely new textual commentary (reviewed separately). So much has changed with this edition that it can fairly be called the most significant update to the UBS edition in fifty years (when the third edition was first linked with the Nestle-Aland). By way of review, we can highlight the salient changes under the following headings: editors, format, text, and apparatus.

And part of the conclusion: 

I expect this edition to increase the UBS’s already loyal fan base, especially among those new to the Greek New Testament. If I have an overriding concern, it is that the apparatus surrenders too much in the process so that those of us accustomed to leaning on the UBS for its extra detail will now have to go elsewhere, perhaps all the way to the ECM. But all editions have their limits, and this one is no different. It makes for an excellent hand edition, one that is well conceived and well executed, and promises to carry on the UBS legacy for many years to come—perhaps another sixty.

The only thing I would add is that I’ve now been using the UBS6 since I picked it up at SBL in November and I have really enjoyed it. I love the thinner size, the better typeface, the much cleaner page, and the simplified introduction. I would dare to say that the changes make this a true competitor to the THGNT in terms of simplicity and easy of use—especially for new students. I am myself a proponent of the NA, so I won’t be abandoning that any time soon. But I have adopted the THGNT for my first year Greek students the last few years and I am now thinking carefully about switching to this. I like that it has the visual benefits of THGNT, but with a better apparatus. Personally, I have been using UBS6 whenever I want to enjoy the simple pleasure of reading without distraction.

This same issue of Themelios also has reviews of the accompanying textual commentary by Thomas Haviland-Pabst and Kruger’s new volume on miniature codices by Ched Spellman. I will also be reviewing the commentary for JTS and have just been approved to present a combined review of UBS6 and the textual commentary at ETS this fall in Denver. If you are a glutton for reviews, come along.

Lanier on UBS6

Over on his new YouTube channel, Greg Lanier has posted a long, 45-minute review of UBS6. I haven’t watched it all yet, but what I did watch was in-depth and thorough. Overall, he seems to like it but recognizes that it will not supplement the NA edition the way it has in the past given the reduction in the apparatus. My own review is forthcoming in Themelios, and I’ll post it here when it's out. Until then, give Lanier’s video a watch.

New York Times Review of Westcott-Hort

Exactly 143 years ago to the day, America's paper of record (aka The New York Times) published a review of a recently published introduction to a Greek New Testament by two Cambridge scholars named Westcott and Hort. It is not signed and my online source (ProQuest) does not give an author, but your best guesses are welcome in the comments.

Recent Unsubstantiated Critiques of the CBGM (Pastorelli and Alexanderson)

At the SNTS in Leuven last summer, David Pastorelli came up to me during a break and handed over an off-print of an article, "La mise en oeuvre de la cohérence prégénéalogique dans le cadre de la Coherence-Based Genealogical Method: évaluation critique," BABELAO 10-11 (2022): 169-188, in which he criticizes the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method making ample references to my and Peter Gurry's introduction to the method. When I read the article I just felt that it was so full of misunderstandings that I did not know where to begin. Unfortunately, Pastorelli has never participated in our text-critical seminar at SNTS, where we could have had a dialogue about his concerns.

In any case, Klaus Wachtel has now actually taken the time to offer a response to Pastorelli under the heading, "Selective Reading and Unsubstiantiated Criticism" on the INTF Blog, for which I am grateful. In the blogpost, Wachtel refers to one of the many unsubstantiated statements that Pastorelli cites in his article, namely a statement that he has drawn from Bengt Alexanderson's 2014 critique of the CBGM: "This is all arbitrary, a 'place of variation', a reading, a variant, a passage can be anything" (Pastorelli, 179).  

Many years ago I was asked by a Swedish journal to review Alexanderson's study. I wrote the review in Swedish (Swedish version here), but  I have now translated it below for our blog readers – it is another example of criticism against the CBGM which is totally off the mark. (The critique of the CBGM are in his chapters 3–4.)

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Review of Bengt Alexanderson, Problems in the New Testament: Old Manuscripts and Papyri, the New Genealogical Method (CBGM) and the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) (Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum et Litterarum Gothoburgensis. Humaniora 48). 146 pages. Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Göteborg 2014.

Bengt Alexanderson’s short study is divided into four chapters: (1) An analysis of textual variants in four of the oldest textual witnesses to the Gospel of John (P66, P75, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus); (2) A survey of how Barbara Aland has analyzed early NT papyri in three studies; (3) A critical treatment of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), developed by Gerd Mink of the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and applied for the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) and, in extension, also Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (from the 28^th edition and onwards); (4) An evaluation of the second edition of the Editio Critica Maior IV. Catholic Letters (“ECM2”).

Review of Falcetta’s Bio of J. Rendel Harris

The new issue of BBR has my review of Alessandro Falcetta’s The Daily Discoveries of a Bible Scholar and Manuscript Hunter: A Biography of James Rendel Harris. It’s an account thick with detail of a life marked by some remarkable adventures. The man survived not one but two German U-Boat attacks and “discovered” the Odes of Solomon in his own office!

One feature I wished for in the book was a bit more of Rendel’s own voice. Falcetta appears to have worked through all the personal correspondence and there were times I would have liked to hear them rather than Falcetta’s summary of them. One other thing I didn’t mention in the review is the extreme price. Thankfully, I noticed today that the publisher has put out a much more affordable paperback edition. It’s worth a read.

You can read the review here.

Review Article of A Critical Examination of the CBGM

The latest issue of TC is chock full of good-looking articles—none of which I’ve been able to read yet. This issue also has a lengthy review article from Andrew Smith dealing with my published dissertation on the CBGM. Andrew was very kind to send me a pre-pub copy. It’s a real honor to have something you worked so long and hard on taken seriously in a venue like this. So, my thanks to TC for publishing it and especially to Andrew for his detailed and careful interaction. Once I emerge from end-of-semester-and-new-baby fog, I might offer some response. In the meantime, let me again thank Andrew and commend the article to you. Here’s the conclusion.

In conclusion, the CBGM deserves the serious scrutiny of the scholarly community outside the INTF, and Gurry’s examination of the method is the first major published work to start the conversation. The strengths of this book include the introduction to the history and reception of the method, the descriptions of the method’s process, and the straightforward examples of using the method found in the first two-thirds of the book. Additionally, Gurry’s clarifications regarding the referent of Ausgangstext in the process of editing the ECM serve as a good reminder that the text-critical community needs to clearly state presuppositions when producing a critical text of the Greek New Testament. The testing of the method’s parameters in chapter four begins a welcome exploration that could have had a more meaningful impact if supported by statistical analysis; this is a general weakness in the humanities when analyzing data such as these. The final third of the book raises some good questions about the use and future of the method, though Gurry’s answers are not always satisfying. His analysis of the method draws attention to the differing opinions of scholars regarding the CBGM and history, especially what is meant by history in each context. Finally, looking to the future, Gurry provides some helpful recommendations for moving forward with the CBGM. Some of his suggestions are fundamentally at odds with the method itself but discussing these in detail will also move the discussion forward.

Update: the book can be purchased here in time for your white elephant parties. 

Barton on the Bible

John Barton, Oriel and Laing Emeritus Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, has a new book out titled A History of the Bible: The Story of the World’s Most Influential Book. (The British subtitle is The Book and Its Faiths.) Barton has written on this before in How the Bible Came to Be (1998) and of course in his many other publications, but this book is more extensive and is aimed at a wide audience. Here’s the publisher’s info:

A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest

In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as “Holy Scripture,” a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context—from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries.

It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren’t), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world—and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible’s literal wording—which is impossible to determine—and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.

Here is a clip chosen not at random from the section on NT textual criticism that I plucked from Amazon:

There are several thousand New Testament manuscripts from the first few centuries CE [!], from early papyrus fragments to the great elaborate fourth-century manuscripts such as Codex Sinaiticus. As well as manuscripts in Greek, the original language of the New Testament writers, there are many of translations into other languages, including even languages of northern Europe such as Gothic (see Chapter 18). The work of New Testament textual critics is painstaking and difficult, and earlier attempts to establish ‘the original text’ of any book have now largely been set aside in favour of tracing the history of different manuscript ‘families’, and so establishing various parallel traditions as to what, in detail, the books contain.

Thus there is not, and never can be, a text of ‘the New Testament’ as it left the hands of Paul, Luke or John: we have only variants. The implications of this for theories of the inspiration and authority of the New Testament have scarcely begun to be worked out. Where the words of Jesus are concerned, for example, we often know only roughly what he is supposed to have said (and whether he really said it is of course yet a further question). (pp. 285–286)

The British cover

From this you probably get a good sense of where Barton is coming from. I’ve had our library order a copy. But until then I’ll leave you with two more quotes from reviews of quite opposite persuasion. The first is from Julian Coman in the Guardian who is quite taken with the book and closes with this:

Along with the evident conviction that this marvellous “melee of materials” deserved fresh treatment beyond the absurdities of Da Vinci Code-style fantasies (conspiracy theories about the Bible’s compilation are well and truly laid to rest), it is this desire to free the Bible from overzealous interpreters that sums up Barton’s intellectual project. Asserting a perfect fit between scripture and the faiths of either Judaism or Christianity means doing violence to a set of texts that are open, mutually contradictory, historically situated, utterly diverse in genre and all the more suggestive for that.

Fundamentalists will not be queuing up to up to buy A History of the Bible: the Book and its Faiths. But for believers of a more open disposition, and non-believing lovers of great literature, reading it will be a revelation and a delight.

The second review is by another Barton, Barton Swaim in today’s Wall St. Journal, which closes with this:

Like many biblical scholars of a more “liberal” disposition, Mr. Barton wants to find a path between revering the Bible as in some sense a genuine revelation of God and dismissing it as a collection of ancient delusions. The evidence makes that middle path a hard one to travel. … John Barton’s reluctant, lukewarm “admiration” for the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures will impress some readers as perfectly respectable. But surely the Bible—a book that has outraged, captivated and upended greater minds than his—demands a more decided response.

Paulson Review of THGNT

I’m driving cross country today but, through the magic of Blogger, here is a review of the THGNT from Greg Paulson for you. Here’s the conclusion:

In spite of these lingering queries, there is no doubt that the THGNT possesses many quintessential hallmarks of a hand-sized critical edition. The edition, which boasts high quality collaboration among some of the discipline’s foremost text-critics and scholars, is a most welcome addition to the market. The apparatus cites pertinent manuscripts to elucidate the editors’ decision-making process and includes other editorial features that greatly assist the reading experience, such as paragraphing, accents, and breathing marks. In sum, the editors have achieved their goal of creating an edition that is easy to use. They have removed some of the cumbersome barriers of other critical editions and offered a stream-lined approach to delving into the text—even though users will have to get accustomed to the edition’s distinctive aspects like its orthography and an alternate order of books. The edition’s sleek page design, void of cross-references and other marginal features, containing a minimal apparatus and simple paragraphing, seem especially advantageous for those who want to read through the Greek text with as few distractions as possible—and for that purpose, it is heartily recommended

New Review of THGNT

In the latest Puritan Reformed Journal, Jeffrey Riddle has a review of the THGNT which he has uploaded to Academia. I believe Jeff is a proponent of either the Majority Text or the Received Text (not sure which exactly) and that pokes through at various points, notably in this latest sentence: “Despite all the scholarly erudition reflected in this work, however, the question remains as to whether modern text critical methodology will ever be able to offer a scholarly approximation of the text.” It’s pretty clear that Jeff’s answer to that question would be no. But the review is quite fair and evenhanded. For more on his view of the THGNT, he has a podcast episode on it here.

I’ll leave you with this snippet:

In the final analysis, the THGNT is a visually attractive printed edition of the Greek New Testament. It is inspired by the text-critical approach of Tregelles and focuses on the earliest extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (papyri and uncials). It reflects the modern “reconstructionist” method of text criticism, which emerged in the nineteenth century and eventually led to the toppling of the Textus Receptus as the standard text among most Protestants including evangelicals. It also departs at points, however, from the current trends manifest in the application of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) in the Editio Critica Maior and in the most recent critical handbooks produced by the Institute für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and the United Bible Societies. As noted, this reflects an effort “to constrain editorial choice” as “a check on editorial fallibility and eccentricity” (505) and appears to be in keeping with a long history of both Anglo adaptation and dissent from German higher criticism.

I don’t know if Dirk and the Petes saw themselves as dissenting from German higher criticism or not, but there we are.

The Biblical Canon Lists Reviewed by Lee Martin McDonald in RBL

Reviews of The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity keep coming out. See the earlier ones from Reading Religion and JETS
respectively. Last week, Review of Biblical Literature published Lee Martin McDonald’s (long-time canon scholar and recent author of The Formation of the Biblical Canon) musings on the book.

He provides a great summary of the work, a few items for Ed and me to think about in the event of expanding the work in the future (e.g. more comment about the texts of the books in these lists such as forms of Mark’s gospel or forms of Jeremiah et al.), a few disagreements with us  (e.g. whether Melito refers to Wisdom or not), and a strong recommendation for the book. You can read the whole review here [PDF]. McDonald concludes his review as follows:

Gallagher and Meade are also to be commended for their frequent use of the words “possibly” and “may be” when the evidence in their sources is not as clear as they would hope. I also want to commend them for their irenic position toward all those with whom they disagree without demeaning either the scholars or their positions. They have produced a superb volume with a wealth of information about canon formation that cannot be ignored in all future investigations of this topic. They have produced what I think may well remain the standard volume on canon lists that scholars and students alike will appreciate for years to come. I heartily recommend this impressive volume.

Thanks for a gracious and helpful review, Professor McDonald!

Kruger on Ehrman’s Latest

Over at the Gospel Coalition, Mike Kruger has a review of Bart Ehrman’s latest book. It’s another popular volume, this one on why Christianity spread so quickly, a topic Kruger and his Doktorvater have recently published on as well. The surprising thing here? Kruger likes the book and says it’s an important resource.

Here’s the conclusion.

Ehrman has written an intriguing, helpful, and well-balanced volume exploring the development, and eventual dominance, of early Christianity.

Certainly there are areas were I, and others, would disagree—for example, on the treatment of miracles, analysis of martyrdom, and the role of tolerance and intolerance. But this volume is a refreshing shift away from the tone of some of Ehrman’s earlier volumes that seemed more polemical and critical in their assessment of early Christianity. Indeed, as a whole this is an enjoyable read that is clear, insightful, and well-written.

Thus, Ehrman’s volume will be an important addition to any reading list exploring the emergence of Christianity in the first four centuries.

How about that.

Initial thoughts on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament

Dan Wallace, Larry Hurtado, James Snapp, Todd Scacewater, and Brice Jones have all given us their first impressions on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) and, since I have now had some time to look over my gratis copy, I thought I would share some of mine.



Since I was able to see the final stages of the edition up close and personal, I cannot feign neutrality—I am an unashamed supporter of the effort, the editors, and (mostly) of the results. For what they’re worth, here are some of my initial reflections on the edition.

• The most important distinctive of the edition is its documentary approach which aims to follow early manuscripts as much as was feasible. This is most obvious in the paragraphing and the textual choices but also in more subtle details of orthography. In terms of establishing the text, this approach means that only readings attested by at least two witnesses are printed and one of them (except in Revelation) must be from before the sixth century (p. 506). Within this documentary constraint, the editors gave special weight to matters of scribal tendencies. Where a variant could be explained transcriptionally, it was and was thereby set aside. The strict constraint bears some unexpected similarity to the Byzantine priority method of Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont. The difference is that here early external evidence sets the boundaries whereas in the Byzantine priority approach, late evidence plays that distinctive role. The result is that neither method is open to rejecting their take on external evidence where the internal evidence strongly goes against it. For examples, consider ὀνόματι vs. μέρει in 1 Pet 4.16 in THGNT and ἐπηγγείλατο vs. ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ κύριος in Jas 1.12 for Robinson-Pierpont. In both cases, strong internal evidence gives way to the editors’ external constraints.



The THGNT hardcover is
just slightly taller than NA28.

• The editors passed on printing nomina sacra in the main text though they do occasionally show up in the apparatus (e.g., Rom 8.34). This was because there was not time for a systematic review. While the nomina sacra would trip up beginning Greek readers, I think they would be great to have a in a printed edition. The trick, of course, will be deciding which nomina sacra to use and where. But its the same issue that faced the editors with the next matter of formatting so, I suppose, there is cause for hope for the future.
• The paragraphing too has been drawn from the early manuscripts as much as possible. The editors only present a new paragraph where such is found in at least two pre-sixth-century manuscripts. Unfortunately, it is not clear from the edition itself which manuscripts these come from in any given case. How did the editors decide when two such manuscripts disagreed with two others? We are not told. This problem aside, I find the paragraphing to be one of my favorite features of the new edition. The amount of paragraphing is really quite surprising, especially in the Gospels. But even outside, the breaks will surprise many of us who are accustomed to reading, say, Romans in a certain way (note, for example, the non-break at Rom 3.21). One curiosity on this front is how often the THGNT’s paragraphs match the versification. So far, I’ve only spotted a small handful of places where a new paragraph does not line up with a new verse (e.g., Gal 4.12b).
• Orthography is another major area of distinction as far as presentation goes (see Pete’s various posts). Much effort has clearly gone into matters of spelling here, so much that I think it is safe to say that no edition since WH has done more. Certainly, none that I can think of has been more transparent about it. Capitalization is kept to a minimum such that even χριστος is given a lowercase. However, I do question the decision to use uppercase letters at the start of paragraphs. Would doing otherwise really be a “stumbling block” (p. 511) to readers? I would think that the other changes introduced to the paragraphing (their frequency and ekthesis) are different enough, that it would be a small thing to also give way to the habit of capitalizing them too. There is also no distinction given to text cited from the Old Testament. I must say, this is one place I wish the edition had followed the early manuscripts more than it does. It seems to me that this is a perfect place to introduce the common use of the diple symbol to mark such quotations. Couldn’t that be handled in the same way as paragraphing? Perhaps something else for a 2nd edition. 
• The apparatus is small and unencumbered. I cannot say I am happy that the versional evidence was excluded or that it seems to have played such a minor role in the editorial decisions (p. 507). But one thing I really like about the apparatus is that it gives much more detail about legibility. For instance, P75 is not merely marked with “vid” at John 13.10, but what appears to be in P75 is also listed as νι[ψ]α̣σ̣θ̣αι. This extra detail is quite nice to have in an appratus.
• The order of books is a pleasant change. The editors have printed the Catholic Letters before Paul’s but have placed Hebrews at the end of the latter section. I am happy to see from the ECM for Acts that it too is moving this direction. Perhaps the NA29/UBS6 will adopt the same?
• The type used in printing Greek New Testaments is one of my pet interests and I was very pleased with the use of Adobe Text here. Some letter shapes (like alpha) grate just slightly but, on the whole, it is a clean, crisp face that is a pleasure to read. I should confess that I campaigned several times for the use of Porson Greek given its Cambridge roots. But, alas, I failed to convince. Mostly I am just glad they did not settle for Times New Roman’s Greek. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to avoid Times New Roman altogether and here it managed to sneak itself into the edition in the book titles and the running heads.

These are some initial impressions, then. Overall, the edition is refreshing in its visual simplicity and some of the novelties such as paragraphing are a nice change. I will still use my NA, of course, for serious work but I expect to be reading the THGNT devotionally in 2018 and perhaps as my new church NT.

With only a few exceptions, the THGNT is set in Adobe Type throughout.

Reviews of Lin’s Erotic Life of Manuscripts

Sometime in the spring while my head was still in boxes, BBR published my review of Yii-Jan Lin’s provocatively titled book The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences (Oxford, 2016). I must say that I did not expect to like the book when I first picked it up but the more I read the more it grew on me. There were still some problems and some... weirdness (cyborgs, anyone?), but overall I found it a helpful exercise to step back and consider the conceptual metaphors we use in the discipline. Lin admits up front that she is an outsider and occasionally it shows. But, on the whole, her outsider perspective was more benefit than liability. 

Here is my conclusion:

In the end, what is most enduring and helpful about Lin’s book is not its particular conclusions (will any be taken with her “cyborg” textual model?), but its method of interrogating past practitioners to see how their categories of thought have shaped their work. In that the work succeeds admirably and should generate a good deal more self-awareness on the part of textual scholars.

Read the rest here. For another review, see Hugh Houghton’s in BMCR.

Tischendorf’s ‘Wounded Vanity’?

In 1858, Hort reviewed the latest editions of both Tischendorf and Tregelles. He was much more positive about the latter than the former. In closing, he says this about Tischendorf:

Both editors in fact deserve the praise of conscientiousness in their actual work. But Tischendorf is becoming less careful than he used to be. We must add that the merits of his labours would be at least equally appreciated by duly qualified judges, if he were less given to proclaiming them himself. Even his title-page deserves reprobation: what he calls his seventh is to all intents and purposes his third edition: he has presumed far on his readers’ ignorance in reckoning his two Paris editions, which we should have thought he would have been only too glad to have forgotten. His old ungenerousness to every other editor is worse than ever: such an absurd effusion of wounded vanity and spite against his friend Dr Tregelles as he has prefixed to his third number will do him no good in the eyes of candid men.*

Now, in my experience, the British have a noticeable distaste for anything much beyond self-effacement. But this still seems a bit harsh from Hort. I’d like to hear from readers who have read more of Tischendorf than me: Is there some truth to what Hort says here or is he being unfair?

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*F. J. A. Hort, “Notices of New Books,” The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, 4 (1858): 201–211 (211).

Hort’s Review of Burgon’s Last Twelve Verses

In 1871, F. J. A. Hort wrote a short review of Dean Burgon’s well-known defense of the longer ending of Mark in The Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark. The review itself isn’t especially noteworthy. Hort found himself unconvinced and unimpressed by Burgon’s case. Burgon was no fan of Hort’s text critical work either, of course.

What is a bit more interesting is that Hort wrote his review just before the committee of the Revised Version was set to meet in Westminster to discuss this very text. So Hort must have gone into the meeting with the issues fresh on his mind. Here is what Hort wrote to Westcott about the review.

To the Rev. Dr. Westcott
St Ippolyts, All Saints’ Eve [Tuesday, October 31], 1871

Mr Burgon, aided by various interruptions, has swallowed up two precious days:—not more, I hope. I send you the result for correction or approval. I want to send it to Cheyne as early as possible, hoping that it may be in the Academy of the 15th, which will appear just when we are discussing Mark xvi.9–20 at Westminster. If you have not seen the book, you will still be able to judge on most points. Even the brief statement of principle may be useful. It was useless to attempt particulars without more space, and I have already transgressed. Is not what little I have said about Mr Burgon’s style necessary? It was difficult not to say much more. The point about + τέλος + is very curious and deserves further working.

Here is the review that was published in The Academy the same year (vol 2, pp. 518-519):

A Bounty of Text Critical Reviews in the Latest NovT

Roughly the number of books
J. K. Elliott reviews in a year.

Here is a list of what is reviewed in the latest issue of Novum Testamentum with some snippets that caught my eye. All but one of these are reviewed by J. K. Elliott with his characteristic flare for spotting misstatements and typos.

(In the spirit of the latter, I might mention that the ECM for the Catholic Epistles does not restrict itself to manuscripts from before A.D. 1000 as claimed on p. 420. Rather it gives evidence for the transmission history up to A.D. 1000 but it does so using many manuscripts from well after that cut off.)

Anyway, enjoy!

Marcus Sigismund, Martin Karrer and Ulrich Schmid (eds.) Studien zum Text der Apokalypse (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2015)

This rich array of well-documented facts and figures in the volume makes it a worthy research tool to sit along other long-lasting volumes in this prestige series. We congratulate Martin Karrer, his Mitarbeiter and other colleagues for their steadfast progress towards the goal of publishing the definitive 21st-century edition of Revelation.

J.K. Elliott, A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts. Third Edition. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 160.

Information about manuscript families is missing from the third edition. There are no longer cross-references to 07 or 041 for manuscripts which are treated in studies of Family E or Family Π. Even though Family 1 and Family 13 have separate entries at the beginning of the section on Minuscules, the list of members is now absent: similarly, the indication has been dropped from the entries for manuscripts such as 118, 131, 205 and 209 that they also feature in publications on the whole family. No doubt this can quickly be put right in the electronic version, but those who prefer printed books will once again have to return to the second edition.

Warfield’s Review of Westcott & Hort

Princeton Seminary has put their old journals online. These go back to 1825 with the Biblical Repertory. There are plenty of essays from the bright lights of Old Princeton. Among the articles is Warfield’s 32-page (!) review of Westcott and Hort’s GNT.

The PDF is available at https://commons.ptsem.edu/id/presbyterianrevi3101unse-dmd007. Here’s a great diagram offered as an illustration of WH’s genealogy of the NT text (p. 340):

Update

Yesterday I also came across some of Warfield’s reviews of Burgon, Scrivener, Kenyon, and a few others. These are from a 1932 reprint. You can download them here.

New Article and Reviews in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism

One new article by John Granger Cook and a number of new reviews have appeared in the current issue of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 20 (2015).

More to come soon!

New article

John Granger Cook, Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s Contra Iulianum: Two Witnesses to the Short Ending of Mark

Abstract: A Syriac MS (British Museum Add. 17214, fol. 65a–65b) preserves an excerpt from Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s response (the Contra Iulianum), which indicates that both authors either did not know the longer ending of Mark (16:9–20) or regarded it as spurious. The evidence has apparently been overlooked in studies of the longer ending of Mark. If the argument is sound, then Julian should be added to the apparatus criticus of Mark as a witness to the short ending (16:8). Cyril should be reevaluated as a patristic father who probably knew MSS that omitted the longer ending, but, unlike Jerome and Eusebius, did not assert that fact about the MSS in the surviving text.

New reviews

W. Andrew Smith, A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus: Codicology, Palaeography, and Scribal Habits (Thomas J. Kraus, reviewer)

Lincoln H. Blumell, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus (Malcolm Choat, reviewer)