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5 - Critical editions of the New Testament, and the development of text-critical methods: From Erasmus to Griesbach (1516–1807)
- from PART I - RETRIEVING AND EDITING THE TEXT IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
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- By Eldon J. Epp, Case Western Reserve University, Emeritus
- Edited by Euan Cameron, Union Theological Seminary, New York
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge History of the Bible
- Published online:
- 05 August 2016
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2016, pp 110-137
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Summary
Introduction: the surviving Greek New Testament manuscripts
Writings from antiquity, such as the Greek New Testament, have been transmitted to us through manuscripts that were copied and recopied numerous times until the printing press, by permitting the production of multiple identical copies, slowed and eventually brought hand-copying to an end. Currently some 5,500 different Greek manuscripts of New Testament writings on papyrus, parchment and paper have survived (as well as thousands of manuscript copies of translations in Latin, Syriac, Coptic and several other ancient languages). Only 1 per cent of these Greek manuscripts contain the entire twenty-seven books, because most manuscripts, as they were produced and circulated, contained a smaller group of writings, commonly the Four Gospels or the Pauline Letters, or Acts and the Catholic Letters. Surviving manuscripts, however, frequently have only a single book, as is the case with about 83 per cent of our manuscripts (excluding lectionaries) up to around 800 CE, while 15 per cent have two to nine books, and only seven manuscripts from this period (2 per cent) contain ten or more New Testament writings. Often it is not possible to tell how many writings originally occupied an individual manuscript, especially in the numerous cases where portions of only one or a few writings survive.
Then too, the quantity of manuscripts in use in Christian communities at any given time cannot be known or even estimated, yet the proportion of extant early manuscripts (from the first eight or nine centuries) compared to later surviving copies became a crucial point in the text-critical developments and controversies to be assessed below. The table shows that only 6 per cent of all surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament date prior to the period around 800 CE, and therefore 94 per cent were copied and utilised after that period. The table indicates also that manuscripts from the first eight centuries of Christianity very often are fragmentary: 90 per cent survive with only one to twenty-four leaves (written on both sides), so that a mere 10 per cent have twenty-five or more leaves. The size of a complete ancient codex depended on numerous factors, but volumes with significant portions of the New Testament generally contained 150 to 300 leaves.
1 - Critical editions and the development of text-critical methods, part 2: from Lachmann (1831) to the present*
- from Part I - Producing the Text
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- By Eldon Epp
- Edited by John Riches, University of Glasgow
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge History of the Bible
- Published online:
- 09 June 2015
- Print publication:
- 13 April 2015, pp 13-48
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Summary
A history of critical editions of the Greek New Testament and the methods developed to create them coincide with virtually the entire history of New Testament textual criticism. Thereby, Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann's Greek text became the first to be recognised as a decisive break from the textus receptus, which in some form stood at the head of the pages in virtually all preceding editions. This chapter explores Lachmann's text-critical criteria in systematic fashion. A new tool, the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, developed by Gerd Mink in Münster, is currently being refined for assessing relationships among the texts in all of extant New Testament manuscripts by a highly sophisticated computer program that, by employing the present array of external and internal criteria, constructs a local stemma for each place of variation. Reasoned Eclecticism has a history that began with the first discussions of canons of criticism, accompanied by refinements along the way.
Contributors
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- By Janice Capel Anderson, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Constantine Belezos, Ian Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Edward Breuer, Daniel Bruno, Mark Chapman, W. T. Dickens, Mark W. Elliott, Eldon Epp, Tassilo Erhardt, Timothy Gorringe, Harriet Harris, Peter C. Hodgson, Leslie Howsam, Werner G. Jeanrond, Scott McLaren, Wayne A. Meeks, Néstor Míguez, Stephen D. Moore, Robert Morgan, Halvor Moxnes, Peter Neuner, Mark Noll, Jorunn Økland, Gaye Ortiz, John Riches, Christopher Rowland, Nicolaas A. Rupke, Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Lamin Sanneh, Constantine Scouteris, R. S. Sugirtharajah, Willard M. Swartley, William R. Telford, David Thompson, Elena Volkova, J. R. Watson, Gerald West, Michael Wheeler, Keith Whitelam
- Edited by John Riches, University of Glasgow
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge History of the Bible
- Published online:
- 09 June 2015
- Print publication:
- 13 April 2015, pp xi-xii
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
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- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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It's All about Variants: A Variant-Conscious Approach to New Testament Textual Criticism
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 100 / Issue 3 / July 2007
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 31 July 2007, pp. 275-308
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- July 2007
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The goal of New Testament textual criticism would appear to be simple enough: to restore the original text written by each author of the New Testament books. Upon examination, however, the notion of simplicity vanishes immediately and each of the key terms here—“restore,” “original,” “text,” and “author”—has its problematic aspects, but more importantly the simply stated goal itself turns out to be inadequate. Grist for the text-critical mill consists of textual readings or variants, which for the relatively small collection of writings called the New Testament are not merely in the hundreds or thousands, or even the tens of thousands, but run to perhaps a third of a million. They stem from the nearly 5,500 Greek manuscripts, some 10,000 versional manuscripts, and innumerable patristic citations of New Testament passages.
The Multivalence of the Term “Original Text” in New Testament Textual Criticism*
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 92 / Issue 3 / July 1999
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 June 2011, pp. 245-281
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- July 1999
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One hundred and ninety-one years ago, in 1808, Johann Leonhard Hug's Introduction to the New Testament carried statements that, in part, may strike textual critics as being far ahead of their time. Hug laments the loss of all the original manuscripts of the New Testament writings “so important to the church” and wonders: “How shall we explain this singular fact?” Next, he observes that Paul and others employed secretaries, but Hug views the closing salutation, written in the author's own hand, as “sufficient to give them the value of originals.” Then, referring to the further role that scribes and correctors must have played after such a Christian writing had been dictated by its author, he says:
Let us now suppose, as it is very natural to do, that the same librarius [copyist] who was employed to make this copy, made copies likewise for opulent individuals and other churches—and there was no original at all, or there were perhaps ten or more [originals] of which none could claim superiority.
New Testament Textual Criticism Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the Alands' Text of the New Testament
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 82 / Issue 2 / April 1989
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- 10 June 2011, pp. 213-230
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- April 1989
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History, theory, and practice are interwoven in most realms of human knowledge, yet students approaching a field often care little about its history; they are more concerned with its application and how the discipline is practiced. This may be illustrated from the physical and biological sciences, where it is common not only for novices but even experts to take an interest only very late—if at all—in the history of science, and more so among physicians, to whom the history of medicine is usually a curiosity at best. Students first grappling with NT textual criticism are not likely to be different—they want to know the “jargon,” the “rules,” and the basic methods that will permit them to practice the art and (as they are more likely to view it) the science of textual criticism. In this particular subfield of NT studies, however, the history and the practice of the discipline cannot easily be separated. After all, the canons of criticism—the so-called “rules” in textual criticism—are anything but objective standards that can be applied in a rigid, mechanical fashion.
Jewish-Gentile Continuity in Paul: Torah and/or Faith? (Romans 9:1–5)*
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 79 / Issue 1-3 / July 1986
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- 10 June 2011, pp. 80-90
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- July 1986
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Judging from his relatively few surviving letters, Paul—whether as Jew or Christian—was a person with both outer and inner conflicts. We know much less than we would like about these external confrontations and inner struggles, but time and again his letters show evidence of his wrestling with one or another serious ambivalence. Actually, it is not often a present struggle that is portrayed or revealed, for Paul writes with a remarkable maturity and with the confidence of one who has moved well beyond the tossing and turning of a continuing inner struggle. Yet at times, most notably in Romans 9–11, Paul's simple statement of a mature judgment still evokes, in the very restating of his conclusions, the intensity of the original ambivalence and conflict. A further indication that Paul was this kind of person is found, if only incidentally, in his dialectical mode of thinking: if he mentions “death,” at once he thinks of “life”; if he refers to “flesh,” immediately “spirit” crosses his mind, or if he speaks of “slaves” or “slavery,” then “sons” or “freedom” is instantly present.
A Continuing Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism?*
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 73 / Issue 1-2 / April 1980
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- 10 June 2011, pp. 131-151
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- April 1980
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The following reassessment of present-day NT textual criticism requires, by its very nature, a brief statement of the circumstances that occasioned it. Seven years ago, in the W. H. P. Hatch Memorial Lecture at the 1973 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, I attempted in fifty minutes an adventuresome—if not audacious— assessment of the entire scope of NT textual criticism during the past century. Though this was an instructive exercise for me and one that others report as instructive also for them, it was inevitable that so bold an undertaking would elicit sharp criticism. The first hint of this came from Münster in 1976, but more clearly within the past year or so in an invitation to subscribe to a Festschrift for Matthew Black containing an article by Kurt Aland of Münster with an announced title—appearing as it did in English—that had a highly familiar ring: “The Twentieth-Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” obviously the title of the Hatch Lecture, which, following its presentation, had been published in the 1974 volume of JBL When the Festschrift itself appeared, it seemed obvious from Professor Aland's article that some reassessment of the course and significance of twentieth-century NT textual criticism was in order. Late in September 1979, Aland's article was reprinted in the annual report of his Münster foundation for NT textual research, now under the title of “Die Rolle des 20. Jahrhunderts in der Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Textkritik.”
The Eclectic Method in New Testament Textual Criticism: Solution or Symptom?
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 69 / Issue 3-4 / October 1976
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 June 2011, pp. 211-257
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- October 1976
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The “eclectic method” in NT textual criticism is one of several disguises for the broad and basic problem of the “canons of criticism” or of the “criteria for originality” as applied to the various readings in the NT textual tradition, and in a real sense eclectic methodology—in its several forms as currently practised—is as much a symptom of basic problems in the discipline as it is a proposed and widely applied solution to those problems. By the same token, perhaps every methodological approach and even every discussion of methodology in NT textual criticism could be described as symptomatic of the problems; yet the eclectic method seems in a particularly pointed way to veil the problems of the discipline, for by its very nature it tries in one way or another to utilize all available approaches to textual problems, and in a single given case of seeking the original text it often wishes to apply to the problem several established text-critical criteria, even if these criteria have the appearance of being mutually exclusive or contradictory.
The “Ignorance Motif” in Acts and Antijudaic Tendencies in Codex Bezae
- Eldon Jay Epp
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 55 / Issue 1 / January 1962
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 23 August 2011, pp. 51-62
- Print publication:
- January 1962
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The striking text which Codex Bezae presents, aside from evoking much controversy and several novel theories, has long been at the center of the yet unsolved mystery of the so-called “Western” text, which is itself one of the most urgent and yet most enigmatic areas of New Testament textual criticism. B. H. Streeter did not exaggerate when he said that many a scholar “… has met his Waterloo in the attempt to account for, or explain away, the existence of the Bezan text.”