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A Continuing Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Eldon Jay Epp
Eldon Jay Epp
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106
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Extract

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.”

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Articles
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 73 , Issue 1-2 , April 1980, pp. 131 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

1 Aland, Barbara, “Neutestamentliche Textkritik heute,” VF 21 (1976) 5Google Scholar.

2 JBL 93 (1974) 386–414Google Scholar; a major portion was translated into Japanese and published in Studia Textus Novi Testamenti 103–9 (1975) 856–60; 866–68; 875–76; 890–92; 898–900; 907–8Google Scholar.

3 Though the title is English (“The Twentieth-Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism”), the article is in German in Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black (ed. Best, Ernest and Wilson, R. McL.; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University, 1979) 1–14Google Scholar.

4 Bericht der Hermann Kunst-Stiftung zur Forderung der neutestamentlichen Textforschung für die Jahre 1977 bis 1979 (Münster/W., 1979) 28–42. The first two paragraphs and the last few lines of the original article were omitted in the reprint.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 28.

6 See Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 387.

7 Kurt Aland, “Neutestamentliche Textforschung und elektronische Datenverar beitung,” Bericht [see n. 4, above] 70–74.

8 Aland, Kurt, Studien zur Überlieferung des Neuen Testaments und seines Textes (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 2; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967) 213. The article cited was first published in 1965.Google Scholar

9 Aland, Twentieth-Century,' 3.

10 Ibid., 2.

11 See Aland, Bericht, 74–75.

12 The Hatch Lecture mentioned two other areas in which progress was not evident: (1) major critical editions/apparatuses of the Greek NT (in addition to popular critical editions), but these can be treated together since the major editions/apparatuses that have been announced have not appeared as yet; and (2) the return to the textus receptus as the best NT text by a few, but this requires no additional comment, though there are continuing attempts to provide a scholarly basis for that viewpoint. Treatment of the evaluation of readings has been incorporated into point 2, below, but see also “The Eclectic Method in New Testament Textual Criticism: Solution or Symptom?” HTR 69 (1976) 211–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

13 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 3.

14 See Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 388–90.

15 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 3. The Weiss text, which highly valued B, held the deciding vote for the older Nestle editions.

16 Ibid., 4.,

17 Ibid., 5.

18 Ibid., 4–5.

19 Aland, Kurt, “The Significance of the Papyri for Progress in New Testament Research,” The Bible in Modern Scholarship (ed. Hyatt, J. Philip; Nashville: Abingdon, 1965) 346. The article was updated for publication in Aland's Studien (pp. 180–201), though without this comparison.Google Scholar

20 Aland, , “Twentieth-Century,” 11; cf. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece (26th ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1979) 43*. His phrase is “the unfulfillable dream,” but I have taken the liberty of using the language of the popular song, “The Impossible Dream,” from Dale Wasserman, Man of La Mancha (music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion), which conveys, of course, the same meaning.Google Scholar

21 Nestle-Aland26, 43*.

22 Colwell, Ernest C., “Genealogical Method: Its Achievements and Its Limitations,” JBL 66 (1947) 109–33Google Scholar; reprinted in his Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS 9; Leiden: Brill, 1969) 63–83; see esp. p. 82.Google Scholar

23 Nestle-Aland26, 43*; Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 10.

24 Bericht, 42.

25 Nestle-Aland26, 43*.

26 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 10.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Aland, Bericht, 80–82.

30 See n. 20 above.

31 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 10.

32 Nestle-Aland26, 43*, where the “local-genealogical method” is also discussed.

33 Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (2d ed.; New York/Oxford: Oxford University, 1968) v.Google Scholar

34 Fee, Gordon D., Papyrus Bodmer II (P66): Its Textual Relationships and Scribal Characteristics (SD 34; Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1968) esp. 76–83.Google Scholar

35 Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 399–401.

36 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 3.

37 Nestle-Aland26, 12*; cf. 49*.

38 Ibid, 43*.

39 Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 407.

40 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 11.

41 Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 401.

42 Some scholars past and present have suggested that the Fourth Gospel may have been written in Alexandria, but the view has meager support; see the standard commentaries on John. No other NT writing has even a plausible claim to authorship in Egypt.

43 Nestle-Aland26, 43*.

44 Aland, “Significance of the Papyri,” 334.

45 Robinson, James M. and Koester, Helmut, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971).Google Scholar

46 Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 397–400; the reader is directed to the Hatch Lecture for details, for they cannot be repeated here.

47 Aland, “Twentieth-Century,” 6. Actually—and unfortunately—he quotes my description of Westcott-Hort as my view, but the point about two early textual streams is made later by me, though not in Westcott-Hort's terms.

48 Epp, “Twentieth-Century Interlude,” 399.

49 Ibid., 390–401.

50 In New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger (ed. Epp, E. J. and Fee, G. D.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1981).Google Scholar

51 Ibid. This (with some omissions) is the last paragraph of the essay. Aland gives in English the words “in the original Greek,” quoting from the title of Westcott-Hort's edition. He does qualify his statement to the extent of acknowledging that it is not made with the “self-certainty of Westcott-Hort,” for the “standard text” has an extensive apparatus that will alert scholars to numerous “thoughtful considerations” (whereas Westcott-Hort presented no apparatus to suggest that other options were viable—although vol. 1 has a ten-page list of rejected readings and vol. 2 has an “Appendix” containing 140 pages of “Notes on Select Readings”).

52 See n. 21, above.

53 See Epp, “The Eclectic Method,” n. 12, above.