A number of tools form a vital part of text-critical research. These tools range from commentaries on the textual tradition of the Greek text to biblical commentaries to collections and/or editions of individual manuscripts to a number of digital and Web-based tools.
Textual commentaries essentially provide a verse-by-verse commentary on the textual tradition behind the NT and offer the rationale for a committee’s or an individual’s text-critical decisions regarding specific passages. Bruce M. Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: UBS, 1971; corr. ed. 1975), commenting on UBSGNT3, and the 2nd edition (London: UBS, 1994) commenting on UBSGNT4, is certainly the best known of these types of resources. This is an important commentary as it provides insights into the rationale that governed the committee that created the two editions discussed in chapter 12. There are tensions within the committee revealed by comparing occasional comments from one edition to another. The comments need to be used with discretion. An expanded edition for Bible translators is Roger L. Omanson’s A Textual Guide to the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006). However, other commentaries are arguably just as good, if not better, and should be consulted in the text-critical process. Philip Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2008) is another important textual commentary. It is much more thorough than Metzger and offers implications for translation as well — a very helpful tool. Daniel Wallace includes a textual commentary for the Greek text of the NET Bible as an appendix in the NET Greek diglot edition as well.
Many biblical commentaries include sections on textual criticism or address text-critical issues within the narrative of their commentaries. Commentaries such as the Word Biblical Commentary (WBC), International Critical Commentary (ICC), and the New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) attempt to emphasize text-critical issues, but in many cases these merely resort to citing Metzger’s textual commentary as the authority on text-critical decisions. The student will want to look for biblical commentaries that engage with the manuscripts themselves and are text-critically competent, revealed on at least one level by the abilities of commentators to make their own evaluations of the evidence. Otherwise, these are not a second kind of tool at all — just a restatement of the UBSGNT’s textual comments.
Those desiring to do further work on textual criticism or writing a research paper on a text-critical issue will certainly want to familiarize themselves with the relevant journal articles, collections of individual chapters, and monographs pertinent to their interests. Most of the major academic journals focusing on biblical studies or the NT specifically welcome articles on textual criticism. These include, but are by no means limited to:
The articles that appear in these journals typically focus on a specific variant or manuscript and represent cutting-edge work within the field. The following is a good example of a journal article dealing with an important text-critical matter:
Peter M. Head, “The Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64): A Response to C. P. Thiede,” TynBul 46 (1995): 251-85.
Head is assessing the date of a Matthew manuscript held at Magdalen College in Oxford in response to another textual scholar, Carsten Peter Thiede.
Collections of individual chapters are also a means of presenting work on textual criticism. Sometimes these collections bring together the work of a single scholar, and sometimes they are by various scholars.
A collection of one author’s work is found in the following:
Eldon Jay Epp, Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism: Collected Essays, 1962-2004 (NovTSup 116; Leiden: Brill, 2005).
James Keith Elliott, New Testament Textual Criticism: The Application of Thoroughgoing Principles: Essays on Manuscripts and Textual Variation (NovTSup 137; Leiden: Brill, 2010).
A collection of essays by various authors is found in the following:
Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (2nd ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2013).
A monograph is a specialized academic work focusing on a specific area of study — think of it as a number of coordinated journal articles or scholarly chapters on the same topic. We may contrast a monograph with the volume you are reading, which is a textbook (a summary and necessarily abbreviated statement of scholarship with the student particularly in mind). Monographs in textual criticism have a considerable range. They may encompass the treatment of the textual history of a particular book, as we find in:
Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission (ConBNT 43; Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2006).
Or they may focus on the textual history of a single chapter or section of a NT book, for example:
Harry Y. Gamble, The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans: A Study in Textual and Literary Criticism (SD 42; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977).
Gamble’s study really focuses on Romans 14, 15, and 16 and tries to resolve the original form of Romans, since we have various versions (some manuscripts with Rom 1–14, some with 1–15, and some with 1–16) represented in the textual history.
Monographs may also tackle a topic within textual criticism, as we find in:
Kent D. Clarke, Textual Optimism: A Critique of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (JSNTSup 138; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).
Students interested in further study in textual criticism will want to take a look at some of these studies to see how modern textual criticism is done.
As with journals, some specific monograph series are especially rich with text-critical study. These include, but are by no means limited to:
Texts and Editions for New Testament Study (TENTS) (Brill)
New Testament Tools and Studies (NTTS) (Brill)
New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents (NTTSD) (Brill)
Studies and Documents (SD) (Eerdmans)
Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement (JSNTSup) (Sheffield)1
These are vital sources for cutting-edge, book-length, text-critical research.
More important than the various commentaries, articles, and books written on the evidence is the evidence itself — the actual manuscripts, or at least editions of them. Too often text-critical work is reduced to merely consulting one of the textual commentaries or a journal article or monograph dealing with the relevant textual issue. This merely amounts to citing text-critical works and not doing fundamental textual criticism. Several editions and transcriptions enable access to the biblical manuscripts (or least reproductions of them) in print form. Transcriptions for most of the earliest manuscripts, including several papyri and early majuscules, can be found in:
Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001).
Several others can be found in:
Stanley E. Porter and Wendy J. Porter, New Testament Greek Papyri and Parchments: New Editions. Vol. 1: Texts (Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek n.s. 29; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008).
Hendrickson has recently released a handsome facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010) that can be consulted by those wanting to further investigate that manuscript. There are many others besides, but these give an idea of what is available for those desiring to access and evaluate the original manuscripts in printed form.
Finally, we turn to digital tools. Logos, Accordance, and BibleWorks — the three major biblical software platforms — have all emphasized the availability of text-critical resources. Both Accordance and BibleWorks offer images and transcriptions of most of the major codices, with Logos the least developed in this regard. One limitation of these image collections, however, is that they contain only the NT portions of the manuscripts, not the Septuagint or Apostolic Fathers. Logos is catching up, having released transcriptions for Codex Bezae and, most recently, Sinaiticus — both made available for free by the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (University of Birmingham). One can also access a number of text-critical tools within each software program. BibleWorks and Accordance lead the way since they make available the Center for New Testament Textual Studies’ New Testament Critical Apparatus, an extensive digital-only text-critical apparatus that its producer (New Orleans Baptist Seminary) claims contains the equivalent of over seventeen thousand pages of printed textual information. Each software platform also makes available the NA27/28 text and apparatus as well as Tischendorf’s 8th edition of the Greek NT. These highly annotated texts should not be used early on as they will almost certainly impair the student in acquiring text-critical skills.
Many Web sites exist that aid in textual research. One noteworthy achievement is:
Users can view the entirety of Codex Sinaiticus at this site, along with a running transcription.
Codex Alexandrinus, along with several other important manuscripts housed at the British Library, can be viewed here:
Images of Codex Ephraimi Rescriptus can be viewed here:
Images of several of the earliest papyri, including 𝔓46, can be examined here:
Images of several manuscripts and transcriptions can be viewed at the University of Münster’s virtual manuscript room:
Images and transcriptions of the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern Manuscripts held at Special Collections in the University of Birmingham can be viewed here:
The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has photographed and hosts images of significant NT manuscripts, which can be viewed here:
There are many other Web sites as well, but these provide an entry point for the student who desires not only to read the text-critical studies of others, but to engage with the biblical manuscripts themselves.
1. The series is now published by Bloomsbury and has been renamed Library of New Testament Studies (LNTS).