Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament Textual Criticism
What are the most essential works you should read if you want to get acquainted with the field of New Testament textual criticism? I have compiled a general bibliography and marked the top ten with asterisks. What are your proposals?Introductions and surveys
*Aland, Kurt, and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament. 2nd ed. Transl. by Errol F. Rhodes. Grand Rapids, Mich./Leiden: Eerdmans/Brill, 1989.
Black, David Alan ed. Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2002.
*Ehrman, Bart D., Michael W. Holmes, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds. The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research. Essays on the Status Quaestionis. SD 46. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995. [An excellent overview of the field; a second edition will come out in 2012, which is a must read.]
Ehrman, Bart D. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. [Important and controversial.]
*Epp, Eldon J., and Gordon D. Fee. Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism. SD 45. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993.
Hull, Robert F. The Story of the New Testament Text: Movers, Materials, Motives, Methods, and Models. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010.
Metzger, Bruce M. and Ehrman, Bart D. The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4rd ed. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
[The third edition is better in many respects; see review by D. C.
Parker in JTS.]
*Parker, D. C. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. [This is a rather technical book, part of which could fit in the two categories below; it is very useful for more advanced readers, e.g., PhD students who want to know the resources for manuscript work; note that it is primarily focused on New Testament manuscripts, as the title says, and less on the practice of New Testament textual criticism]
Parker, D. C. The Living Text of the Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Westcott, B. F., and F. J. A. Hort. Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek. Reprinted from the edition by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1882. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988. [A classic groundbreaking work laying the foundation for textual criticism in the following century and beyond.]
[Note that these introductions cover several topics which are treated in the specialized reading list below. For example, several of Fee's essays in Studies in the Theory and Method relate to the use of patristic citations.]
Current trends, views and debates
Houghton, H.A.G. "Recent Developments in New Testament Textual Criticism." Early Christianity 2.2 (2011): 245–268. [An excellent and up-to-date overview.]
Holmes, Michael W. "What Text is Being Edited? The Editing of the New Testament." Pages 91-122 in Editing the Bible: Assessing the Task Past and Present. Edited by John S. Kloppenborg and Judith H. Newman. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.
Hurtado, L. W. “Beyond the Interlude? Developments and Directions in New Testament Textual Criticism.” Pages 26-48 in Studies in the Early Text of the Gospels and Acts the Papers of the First Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, edited by David G. K. Taylor. Text-Critical Studies 1. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999.
Stewart, Robert B. ed. The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace in Dialogue. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011.
*Wachtel, Klaus and Michael W. Holmes, eds. The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research. Text-Critical Studies 9. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
Wasserman, Tommy. “The Implications of Textual Criticism for Understanding the ’Original Text’.” Pages 77-96 in Mark and Matthew I: Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First-Century Settings. Edited by E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson. WUNT 271. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011.
Manuscripts and their world (books, scribes and readers)
Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995.
Haines-Eitzen, Kim. Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
*Hurtado, Larry. W., The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.
Johnson William A. "Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity." In AJP 121 (2000): 593-627.
Kraus, Thomas J., and Tobias Nicklas, eds. New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their
World. Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 1. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006.
Roberts, Colin H. and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex. London: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Schmid, Ulrich, "Scribes and Variants – Sociology and Typology." Pages 1-23 in Textual Variation: Theological and Social Tendencies? Papers from the Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Edited by H. A. G. Houghton and D. C. Parker. Texts and Studies. Third Series. Vol. 6. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2008.
Working with manuscripts
Finegan, J., Encountering New Testament Manuscripts: A Working Introduction to Textual Criticism (London: SPCK, 1975).
*Metzger, Bruce M. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Greek Palaeography (New York–Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press, 1991 corrected edition; 1981).
Current trends in dating NT papyri
Barker, Don. "The Dating of New Testament Papyri." New Testament Studies 57 (2011): 571-582.
Nongbri, Brent. "Grenfell and Hunt on the Dates of Early Christian Codices: Setting the Record Straight." Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 48 (2011): 149-162.
Nongbri, Brent. "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in Dating of the Fourth Gospel."Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005): 23-48.
Scribal habits
Hernandez, Juan Jr., Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi. WUNT II 218. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
Jongkind, Dirk. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. Texts and Studies Third Series 5. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2007.
*Royse, James R. Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri. New Testament Tools and Studies 36. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
The Earliest Text
*Hill, Charles E. and Michael J. Kruger, eds. The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Petersen, William, ed. Gospel Traditions in the Second Century. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989.
Patristic citations
Ehrman, Bart D. “The Use and Significance of Patristic Evidence for NT Textual Criticism.” Pages 118-35 in New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis, and Early Church History. A Discussion of
Methods. Edited by Barbara Aland and Joël Delobel. CBET 7, Kampen [The Netherlands]: Kok Pharos, 1994.
Fee, G. D. [See Epp and Fee, Studies, 1993 for several of Fee's works on patristic citations]
Osburn, Carroll D. "Methodology in Identifying Patristic Citations in NT Textual Criticism." In
Novum Testamentum 47.4 (2005): 313-343.
Early versions
Metzger, Bruce M. The Early Versions of the New Testament. Their Origin, Transmission And Limitations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
Practice of NT textual criticism
*Metzger, Bruce M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2d ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994. [This reference work and companion volume to the UBSGNT reflects the dominant practice of textual criticism (reasoned eclecticism) which takes into account external and internal evidence in passages where there is textual variation.]
Conjectural emendation
Krans, Jan. Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New. Testament. New Testament Tools and Studies 35. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
Wettlaufer, Ryan. “Unseen Variants: Conjectural Emendation in New Testament Textual Criticism." Pages 171-194 in Editing the Bible: Assessing the Task Past and Present. Edited by John S. Kloppenborg and Judith H. Newman. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.
Other NT text-critical "classics"
Colwell, Ernest C. Colwell. Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969. [Groundbreaking in methdology at the time, now outdated in some respects.]
Zuntz, Günther, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum. The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1946. London: British Academy, 1953.
General textual criticism
Housman, Alfred E., "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism." Pages 131-150 in A. E. Housman: Selected Prose. Edited by John Carter. Cambridge, 1961.
Maas, Paul. Textual Criticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.
Pasquali, Giorgio. Storia della tradizione e critica del testo. 2nd ed. Florence, 1952.
Reynolds, L. D. and N. G. Wilson. Scribes and Scholars. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1991.
Timpanaro, Sebastian. The Genesis of Lachmann's Method. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
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