The Order of Books in Nestle 1

Here’s something I never noticed before. The order of books in Nestle’s 1st ed. (1898) follows Luther’s 1522 NT. Here you can see the two side-by-side. What makes the Nestle odd in a way even Luther’s is not is the headings. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember Hebrews ever being included with the Catholic Letters in any manuscript.

Luther Bible (1522)

Nestle 1 (1898)

By the third edition (1901) the books were back in their Erasmian order, although Hebrews was still set off just slightly from the other Pauline letters. You can see it here in my copy of the 13th edition which is the same.

Nestle 13 reflecting the changed book order

It’s worth mentioning this because my understanding is that the NA29 will switch the order of books, placing the Catholic Epistles immediately after Acts. As a result, the NA will match one of its original three sources and the one that Nestle himself called “the one constituent factor” in his edition (=WH).

Minor update: I notice the Nestle 13th ed. (1927) has the following note at the bottom of the page of Rom 1: “HTWS [=WH, Tischendorf, Weiss, and von Soden] Epistolas Catholicas (Jc, 1.2 P, 1-3 J, Jd) Paulinis anteponunt; epistolam ad Hebraeos datam epistolis pastoralibus praemittunt.”

P.S. Did you know you can look at scans of all the Nestle/Nestle-Aland editions in the VMR? In the Manuscript Workspace, search for N1, N2, etc. in the Manuscripts tab search box. From the 22nd ed. on, search for NA22, etc.

What Happened to the Van Kampen Collection?

Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman reports on the closure of the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. I’ve never been, but their Scriptorium attraction used to house the Van Kampen collection which apparently included part of the library of Eberhard Nestle. Do any of our readers know the fate of either the collection or Nestle’s library?

Eberhard Nestle on His Revision of Scrivener’s GNT

For some time now, my main church Bible has been a nice hardcover of Scrivener’s 1906 Greek New Testament. It combines several features I like: it’s hardy (mine having been rebound); the text is clear and uncluttered (verse numbers are in the margin); it gives clearly marked differences between the major editions of the GNT and Stephanus 1550; it details differences even in accent; it’s small.

This fourth edition is, however, a revision done by Eberhard Nestle that includes about 500 corrections to the third. I know this number only becasue Teunis van Lopik recently sent me the following note published by Nestle in 1905. Tuenis shared with me that he found it in his copy of Scrivener’s 4th edition which he purchased in 2006. His copy had been owned by the Dutch NT scholar F.W. Grosheide in 1907 according an exlibris signature and owner’s stamp. My thanks to Teunis for sharing this with us. I’ve printed it out to put in my own copy.

Interesting Material from the Archives at Westcott House

Westcott House in the summer

This morning I spent some time going through a cabinet of material from B. F. Westcott kept at Westcott House in Cambridge (see here for details). Westcott founded the school in 1881 as Cambridge Clergy Training School and it took its current name only after his death.

The archives has a number of interesting things belonging to Westcott. There are about ten books that either he owned or that he gave to others. These include Hort’s copy of Tischendorf’s Greek Old Testament, H. B. Swete’s copy of Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, and a copy of the Revised Version (NT) that Hort gave to Westcott.

The manuscript of Westcott’s
book on the history of the canon.

Speaking of Hort, there is this nice note to Westcott when the latter left Cambridge to become the Bishop of Durham: “… It does not often happen that two friends work together almost literally day by day for forty years; and now, in one sense, our end comes, and some words of farewell which are indeed God speed may well be spoken, & yet it is not the words themselves so much as the blessing of the presence.”

The archives also contain a number of Westcott’s original manuscripts from his published books including his History of the English Bible, History of the Canon of the New Testament, and his commentary on John.

But the most interesting item in the collection, as far as I’m concerned, is Westcott’s own copy of Eberhard Nestle’s first edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece (1898). This, of course, is the precursor to the Nestle-Aland edition we are all familiar with today. Westcott and Hort’s edition was one of the three that Nestle originally used to determine his own text. What makes the copy at Westcott House special is that it is the copy Nestle himself sent to Westcott as a thank you. Inside the front cover there is a short letter from Nestle.

Ulm, Germany
end of March
1898

Dear Sir

It is my pleasant duty, after I have finished the edition of the Greek Testament, which I have undertaken for the Bible Society of Wurttemberg, to renew to you the expression of our sincerest thanks, for the permission so graciously granted to us, to make use for it of the Greek Testament revised by yourself and Professor Hort. As you will see from the copy, which will be forwarded to you by same post, your text is the one constituent factor of the new edition, and I testify once more with the greatest pleasure, I never handled a book made up with so much care and thoughtfulness in the smallest details as your edition. The forthcoming number of the Expository Times (and that of May) will bring the small list of Errata or Inconsistencies, which I have detected, while I was collating your edition with Weymouth and Tischendorf. I shall recommend it to your kind attention and remain in lasting thankfulness.

yours
most faithfully
Eb. Nestle

Here’s a photo. (Sorry about the quality.)

Now, I can’t talk about Westcott House without mentioning my favorite feature: their tortoise named Hort. He literally gets put in a fridge for the winter to hibernate so I didn’t see him today. But during the warmer months, he can be seen trawling the courtyard for food. I’m told he used to have a friend named Lightfoot, but he lived up to his name and ran off!

“Hort” at Westcott House

Eberhard Nestle on His First Edition

The publisher’s advertisements
at the back of the edition
list “E. Nestle” as the editor.

Just recently, I came across Eberhard Nestle’s report in the Expository Times on the first edition of his Greek New Testament. I found this by way of Warren A. Kay’s helpful article “The Life and Work of Eberhard Nestle” (in The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text, ed. Scot McKendrick and Orlaith O’Sullivan, [2003], pp. 187-199).

I do, however, have a problem with Kay’s description of the article as a “glowing review of the anonymous Greek New Testament [which] was written by none other than Nestle himself” (p. 193; emphasis mine). In the first case, it seems to me that this is much more of a report than a review and second, while it is true that Nestle is not listed on the title page of his first edition, his name is clearly given as the editor of the various formats advertised at the back of the book (see image). So I don’t think it’s right to call it anonymous.