Over the past three centuries, there are a plethora of scholars who have published introductory handbooks on textual criticism, but there are far fewer who have thoroughly researched and published on the history of New Testament editions, collating them, and setting forth the principles of comparative textual study. And fewer still are those who have compiled critical editions of their own. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles may very well be the only scholar to have done all three and more. And in the Samuel Prideaux Tregelles Collection (2 vols.), two of his incredibly important works are available digitally for the first time.
The name Tregelles is known in Old Testament studies for his translation of Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. But it was his New Testament efforts, particularly in textual criticism, that gave him a solid place in the history of biblical studies. It was an unfortunate accident of history that his work in textual criticism and his published text has, up to very recently, not received the hearing it deserves.
In delineating the history of textual criticism, scholars have tended to describe the nineteenth century in a linear manner that finds its climax in The New Testament in the Original Greek edited by Westcott and Hort. This, combined with the fact that the massive critical edition edited by Tischendorf was published just after that of Tregelles, prevented the work of Tregelles from receiving the full recognition it deserved. But with the publication of the German Bible Society's still-in-progress Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior, the entire perspective of nineteenth century textual criticism and Tregelles' important role has completely changed. Textual critic David C. Parker, in comparing the new Editio Critica to Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort, notes that of these editions, Tregelles' work has the fewest number of differences with the text of the new edition. Moreover, he observes,
Tregelles anticipated the Editio Critica Maior in nearly every place where the latter disagrees with Westcott and Hort. Only in the two readings at [James 5:4] do Tregelles and Westcott/Hort agree against the new edition.
For this reason, Tregelles' discussions of text critical methodology deserve our renewed attention. And with the Samuel Prideaux Tregelles Collection (2 vols.) for Logos Bible Software, the scholarship of this first-class scholar is made more accessible than ever, completely indexed and searchable with quick access to the Biblical texts, the papyri, and other text-critical resources.