New Testament Textual Criticism Collection (6 Vols.)

Encountering New Testament Manuscripts

• Author: Jack Finegan
• 203 pages | William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company | 1974

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The field of textual criticism remains an exciting one. Thousands of manuscripts have been recovered in recent years. Some are only papyrus fragments found in the sands of Egypt, while others are handsomely copied parchment volumes long-preserved in ancient monasteries. Using the methods of textual criticism, translators have been able to discern from these manuscripts a probable reading of the original New Testament text—a difficult but important task.

Several scholarly books describing the process of textual criticism have already been written, but Encountering New Testament Manuscripts is uniquely different in its approach. This volume provides the opportunity to see and read portions of the chief manuscripts and learn firsthand the principles of textual criticism.

Reproduced at or near actual size are twenty four photographs of some of the oldest and most important manuscripts, including papyri, parchment, and paper texts with both uncial and minuscule script. Through the steps of transcribing the original manuscripts and organizing the various evidence presented, readers can develop their own conclusions about reading the original text.

A comprehensive introductory chapter surveying the nature and history of textual criticism and a concluding chapter on the question of methodology make this book a complete course on the subject. Helpful indexes and lists of important New Testament manuscripts make in an excellent resource volume as well.

About the Author

Jack Finegan is Professor of New Testament History and Archeology at the Pacific School of Religion, and pastor of the University Christian Church in Berkeley, California.

Praise for the Print Edition

This work is characterized by a combination of thorough scholarship and clarity of presentation. The student of the New Testament text will find herein far more than an introduction to New Testament criticism. As the title indicates, he will, in effect, be encountering New Testament manuscripts. He will do this in chronological sequence, beginning with the earliest papyrus fragments and on through the whole manuscript tradition. He will also find generous and lucid treatment of the technicalities of ancient writing and the history of textual criticism. While not supplanting the work of other modern textual scholars such as Metzger, Colwell, and Zuntz, the work will probably become a standard reference tool for New Testament scholars and teachers. As a textbook of New Testament textual criticism, I would rate it as the best available.
—Thomas W. Leahy, S.J., Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament

• Authors: Keith Elliot and Ian Moir
• 111 pages | T & T Clark | 1995

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Does the famous story of the adulteress belong in the New Testament? Did Jesus offer a cup after the bread in Luke’s account of the Last Supper? Does Luke’s Gospel refer to the ascension or not? How does Marks’ Gospel begin, and how does it end?

These and other questions arise because the Greek manuscripts on which we depend for our New Testament are not in agreement here, nor in many other important passages. Why are there discrepancies in the manuscripts? Can we decide how or why these variations arose? Can we recover the truly original words of Matthew, Paul, Luke, and the other biblical authors?

This introductory guide to the manuscripts is intended for general readers as well as students of the New Testament. It presumes no previous knowledge of either the subject or Greek.

About the Authors

Keith Elliott is Reader in New Testament Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds.

Ian Moir lectured in New Testament at the University of Edinburgh.

Praise for the Print Edition

This valuable primer takes the general reader on a tour of the many important and interesting variant readings noted in modern English versions of the New Testament… An impartial introduction to the problems and to ways of resolving them.
—The Rev. Dr. D. C. Parker, University of Birmingham

… [This book] will enlighten the general reader as to problems that confront editors and translators of the Greek text of the New Testament.
—Bruce M. Metzger, Princeton Theological Seminary

New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide

• Author: David Alan Black
• 79 pages | Baker Academic | 1994

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Which translation of the New Testament carries the most authority? What are the criteria for evaluation? This beginner's introduction presents the fundamentals of textual criticism in a concise manner and includes case studies to offer the student helpful examples. It is dedicated to the principle that an understanding of this subject is possible for all students of the Bible. David Alan Black aims to take inquirers behind the dust of scholarship to the living faith that pulsates in the New Testament documents. He attempts to make the findings of scholarship accessible to a wide readership. Pastors and laypersons will especially benefit from this volume.

About the Author

David Alan Black (D.Theol., University of Basel) is professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Praise for the Print Edition

The best concise introduction to the textual critical study of the Greek New Testament.
—Fuller Theological Seminary Bookstore

Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism

• Editors: Eldon J. Epp and Gordon D. Fee
• 414 pages | William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company | 1993

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The seventeen studies in this volume provide a comprehensive presentation and assessment of past and current methods applied to the New Testament text. Both acknowledged specialists in historical and methodological studies of textual criticism, coauthors Epp and Fee offer an introductory survey of the whole field of New Testament textual criticism, followed by sections of essays on the following topics:

• Definitions of key terms
• Critiques of current theory and method
• Methods of establishing textual relationships
• Studies of the papyri with respect to text-critical method
• Guidelines for the use of patristic evidence

This volume represents a coherent and complementary collections of essays whose abiding worth and considerable influence have been demonstrated through extensive citation by textual critics and exegetes.

This compilation of studies will serve as a welcome resource for biblical scholars and students taking seminary or graduate courses in New Testament. From the more introductory studies to the constructive critiques of current theory to the more specialized analyses concerning New Testament textual criticism, this volume will provide information and challenges to beginners and experts alike.

About the Editors

Eldon Jay Epp is Harkness Professor of Biblical Literature at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He is editor of the Critical Review of Books in Religion. His essay, “Textual Criticism in the Exegesis of the New Testament, with an Excursus on Canon” appears in A Handbook to the Exegesis of the New Testament, also available from Logos.

Gordon D. Fee is Professor of New Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia. He serves as editor of The New Testament International Commentary on the New Testament, and he is the author of The First Epistle to the Corinthians, a highly acclaimed volume in that series. He has also authored To What End Exegesis, available from Logos.

Praise for the Print Edition

An outstanding collection of the most significant essays on New Testament textual criticism by the two leading North American scholars in the field. This volume is an essential aid in exploring questions of method. Every library should have it; every New Testament textual critic should read it.
—William L. Petersen, Pennsylvania State University

Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee represent the best of North American textual scholarship, and this collection of seventeen of their essays is a significant event in the discipline. The essays are broad-ranging in scope, yet precise in detail; together they comprise some of the most important advances made during the past twenty-five years in our understanding of text-critical method and the history of the New Testament text.
—Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze

• Mark Goodacre
• 181 pages | T & T Clark | 2001

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Perhaps the greatest literary enigma in history, the Synoptic Problem has fascinated generations of scholars who have puzzled over the agreements, the disagreements, the variations, and the peculiarities of the relationship between the first three of our canonical Gospels.

Yet the Synoptic Problem remains inaccessible to students, who often become quickly entangled in its apparent complexities. Now Mark Goodacre offers a way through the maze, explaining in a lively and refreshing style exactly what study of the Synoptic Problem involves, why it is important and how it might be solved in this readable, balanced, and up-to-date guide.

About the Author

Mark Goodacre is Associate Professor in New Testament, Department of Religion, Duke University.

Praise for the Print Edition

This introduction is fair and helpful, especially to a beginning student. It has the special advantage of making the whole subject matter relevant, which is no small task… It is well written…
—Mark A. Matson, Michigan College

The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research

• Editors: Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes
• 401 pages | William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company | 1995

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Compiled in honor of Bruce M. Metzger, the most highly respected American textual critic in the history of the discipline, this volume comprises twenty-two full-length essays on every major issue relating to New Testament textual criticism, each written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field.

The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research focuses on important advances made in textual criticism during the past fifty years due to manuscript discoveries and refinements of methodology. Each essay is designed to present an overview of the current state of knowledge with respect to a wide range of important topics: Greek manuscripts, the early versions, patristic citations, studies of scribal habits, approaches to manuscript classification, the use of computers for textual criticism, recent apparatuses and critical editions, methods for evaluating variant readings, and the use of textual data for early Christian social history.

About the Editors

Bart D. Ehrman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is chairman of the Society of Biblical Literature’s New Testament Textual Criticism Section, editor of the New Testament in the Greek Fathers series, a co-editor of the New Testament Tools and Studies series, network editor of Religious Studies Review, and a member of the North American Committee of the International Greek New Testament Project.

Michael W. Holmes is Professor of Biblical Studies and Early Christianity, Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota. The author of numerous papers on questions of textual criticism, he is also the North American editor for the International Greek New Testament Project and a member of its North American Executive Committee. In addition to co-editing The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, he has also authored The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, available from Logos for individual download and as part of The Apostolic Fathers in Greek and English (3 Editions, with Morphology).

Praise for the Print Edition

Repeatedly one hears that rigor mortis has set in for textual criticism of the New Testament. But the present publication suggests that in place of lamentation one ought to celebrate the pains a number of scholars have taken to ensure revival of the patient. Much of the credit for resurgence of interest in the discipline goes to Dr. Bruce Manning Metzger, to whom this volume is dedicated.
—Frederick W. Danker, Professor, Luther School of Theology at Chicago, and editor of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature Third Edition (BDAG)

This volume, produced in honor of Bruce M. Metzger, is a worthy tribute to a scholar of acknowledged distinction. We have manuals of textual criticism in plenty, but there is need for the occasional survey of the status quaestionis to complement them by reviewing the current situation when omission of some of the details necessary to a manual may leave room for consideration of the results that have been achieved and the tasks that remain to be done. This book fulfills that function very well.
—R. McL. Wilson, St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews, Scotland

A very helpful, up-to-date treatment of this very difficult topic. These contributions by recognized scholars are worthy of the great scholar the volume honors.
—Raymond E. Brown, Union Theological Seminary

This collection of essays, written by a group of outstanding scholars, presents a remarkable survey of contemporary research on the Greek text of the New Testament. It treats not only the papyri, manuscripts, and early versions but also the patristic witnesses to the text, and it discusses well all the modern methods and tools used in the textual study of the New Testament. One could not look for a better survey of these topics.
—Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The Catholic University of America

An essential reference work for all those interested in the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether they be beginners in the field or experienced research workers.
—M.É. Boismard, École Biblique et Archéologique Française, Jerusalem