Evangelical Textual Criticism

New book: Scribal Habits in Greek New Testament Manuscripts

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Andrew Wilson has a new book coming out in SBL’s Text-Criticism Studies series. It’s a major study of scribal habits and is something Andrew’s been working on for some 20 years! (I remember reading his chapter on the subject in MAR’s Festschrift during my PhD.)

Publisher's Description

Singular readings (textual variants attested in only one Greek New Testament manuscript) are considered among the least reliable of all textual variants, far more likely to be scribal changes than the words of the authorial text. In this groundbreaking study, Andrew W. Wilson revisits long-held suppositions about textual variants and how they arose through a thorough analysis of more than ten thousand readings likely to be scribal errors. Wilson takes this evidence and reevaluates previous studies of scribal habits to assess the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies for determining what those habits were and what impact they might have had on the wording of New Testament textual transmission. Biblical scholars and students interested in the formation of biblical texts will find new possibilities for how to approach disputed wording in the New Testament.

To give you a taste of the book, here is the table of contents courtesy of Andrew.

Discount

Finally, over on Facebook, Juan Hernández, who edits the series, shared that you can order the book at a 30% discount through June 5 via the SBL online bookstore. Use discount code SP2026.

‘The Most Beautiful and Glorious Task of Learned Men’

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Mon, 04 May 2026 21:16:00 +0000

“The most beautiful and glorious task of learned men” — that may be the best description of textual criticism I’ve ever come across. It’s from the sixth-century Roman senator, Christian writer, and monk Cassiodorus. In his book Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning, he has an entire section on the importance of correcting biblical manuscripts as part of the proper study of the Bible.

Ezra in Amiatinus (source)

He closes his section on the three ways the Scriptures have been divided (by Jerome, Augustine, and the LXX) by saying, “Now it remains for us to say how we ought to correct scribal errors in Holy Scripture. What use is it to read through many texts and not to know what should properly be corrected in them?” (XIV.5). His next section (XV) gives 16 points on how to do it properly. Here is his first one:

1. You, therefore, who have a good knowledge of divine and secular letters and the understanding to discover what is not in harmony with common usage, read through sacred literature in the following manner; for the few who are learned must prepare material for the simple and less educated community. Therefore, first read carefully and correct the errors of the writers in such a way that you do not deserve criticism for trying to correct others without due deliberation; this kind of correction is, in my opinion, the most beautiful and glorious task of learned men.

And here are his last two.

15. I pray also that you who presume, nevertheless, to emend, make the letters you add so beautiful that they appear to have been written by the scribes. For it is wrong to find in that beauty anything foul which afterwards may shock the eyes of scholars. Consider, therefore, the sort of case entrusted to you, your service to Christians, the treasury of the Church, the enlightenment of souls. See carefully to it, therefore, that no error is left in the truth, no falseness in the purity, and no scribal mistakes in the corrected text.

16. First, with the Lord’s aid, we have listed the nine volumes of the law and detailed the introductory writers with their commentaries as carefully as we could. Next we touched on the three divisions of the whole divine law which our ancestors have given us. Then we included a section on the rules covering emendation of texts of divine authority to prevent disruption as well as the transmission of troublesome confusion in the text to posterity because of excessive liberty with the text. Now we must discuss in all respects the excellence of divine reading so that each passage may abound in its own sweetness.

The whole thing is worth reading, and it’s online here courtesy of James W. and Barbara Halporn.

Among the reasons Cassiodorus is important is that he is thought by some to be the inspiration behind the famous depiction of Ezra the Scribe in Codex Amiatinus. The nine books in Ezra’s bookcase do match Cassiodorus’s description of the Bible into nine parts.

Now the next time someone tells you textual criticism is boring, you just tell them it’s actually the most beautiful and glorious task of learned men!

Review of UBS6 in Themelios

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:41:00 +0000

The latest issue of Themelios is a special issue dedicated to D.A. Carson and the influential NSBT series he edited for three decades. The bulk of the issue is taken up by key authors from the series who summarize and reflect on their volumes. If you’ve never heard of the NSBT series, this would be a great way into it.

But this is not a blog about biblical theology so we’ll save that for another place. Instead, this blog post is to alert you to my review of UBS6 that is also in this issue. I am thankful to the editors who let me go a little longer than the typical Themelios review. Here’s the introduction

First published in 1966, the UBS Greek New Testament hits its 60th birthday this year. It has long been the preferred hand edition for its intended audience of translators, students, and pastors. The arrival of this new, sixth edition is a major publishing event, especially as it is accompanied by a completely new textual commentary (reviewed separately). So much has changed with this edition that it can fairly be called the most significant update to the UBS edition in fifty years (when the third edition was first linked with the Nestle-Aland). By way of review, we can highlight the salient changes under the following headings: editors, format, text, and apparatus.

And part of the conclusion:

I expect this edition to increase the UBS’s already loyal fan base, especially among those new to the Greek New Testament. If I have an overriding concern, it is that the apparatus surrenders too much in the process so that those of us accustomed to leaning on the UBS for its extra detail will now have to go elsewhere, perhaps all the way to the ECM. But all editions have their limits, and this one is no different. It makes for an excellent hand edition, one that is well conceived and well executed, and promises to carry on the UBS legacy for many years to come—perhaps another sixty.

The only thing I would add is that I’ve now been using the UBS6 since I picked it up at SBL in November and I have really enjoyed it. I love the thinner size, the better typeface, the much cleaner page, and the simplified introduction. I would dare to say that the changes make this a true competitor to the THGNT in terms of simplicity and easy of use—especially for new students. I am myself a proponent of the NA, so I won’t be abandoning that any time soon. But I have adopted the THGNT for my first year Greek students the last few years and I am now thinking carefully about switching to this. I like that it has the visual benefits of THGNT, but with a better apparatus. Personally, I have been using UBS6 whenever I want to enjoy the simple pleasure of reading without distraction.

This same issue of Themelios also has reviews of the accompanying textual commentary by Thomas Haviland-Pabst and Kruger’s new volume on miniature codices by Ched Spellman. I will also be reviewing the commentary for JTS and have just been approved to present a combined review of UBS6 and the textual commentary at ETS this fall in Denver. If you are a glutton for reviews, come along.

Lanier on UBS6

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:45:00 +0000

Over on his new YouTube channel, Greg Lanier has posted a long, 45-minute review of UBS6. I haven’t watched it all yet, but what I did watch was in-depth and thorough. Overall, he seems to like it but recognizes that it will not supplement the NA edition the way it has in the past given the reduction in the apparatus. My own review is forthcoming in Themelios, and I’ll post it here when it's out. Until then, give Lanier’s video a watch.

New Blog on NT Critical Texts

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:49:00 +0000

Greg Paulson and Katie Leggett have a new website that ETC readers will be interested in. It’s called Critical Texts and is described as “the personal academic blog of Dr. Gregory S. Paulson and Dr. Katie Leggett, offering a creative space for reflection on critical texts in the field of Greek New Testament textual criticism.”

Students new to the subject will find links to some helpful articles from other sites answering question like “What is the Kurzgefasste Liste?,” or “What is the NTVMR?,” and, everyone’s favorite, “What is the latest tally of NT manuscripts?” (answer: 5,711 as of 2 days ago). Of course, we have addressed that question here before. Greg has also put together a video introducing the new UBS6.

This may also be a good time to note that their website reminded me that a third edition of the printed Kurzgefasste Liste is scheduled for later this year. We’ll look forward to that. In the meantime, add this new website to your reading list, or just check out the blogroll in the right column of this website—yes, we still have a blogroll. Who says blogs are dead?

Was Romans Partly “Performed” by Phoebe – Not Just Written by Paul?

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:11:00 +0000

UPDATE: Happy April Fool's Day!

It is best to indicate here that it is a joke (since on of our previous jokes written by P.J. Willliams some years ago, that archaeologists have found Q, has spread like a fire). At the same time, it is true that Phoebe likely delivered Romans and that she may have read it and been able to clarify its contents.

_________________________________________

Recent discussion among New Testament scholars has highlighted a startling and almost revolutionary aspect of ancient letter delivery — one that could fundamentally change how we think about the earliest receptions of Romans.

Building on the work of Oxford scholar Peter Head — particularly his detailed study of named letter‑carriers in ancient documents — some commentators have playfully suggested that early letter carriers did far more than merely deliver letters: they may have actively shaped how these letters were understood, interpreted, and even performed.

As Head demonstrates in several publications, ancient letter carriers were far from passive couriers. In his “Named Letter‑Carriers among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri” (JSNT 31.3, 2009, pp. 279‑299), he shows that the person physically carrying a letter often added oral context when presenting it to the recipient — essentially functioning as an authorized live interpreter, capable of clarifying, emphasizing, or dramatizing key points.

On the subject of Pauline letters, Head observes (p. 298):

Perhaps the crucial point for our thinking about the delivery of Pauline
letters is the understanding that the trusted letter-carrier often has an
important role in extending the communication initiated by the letter.

[...]

This model suggests that the earliest reception of specific Pauline
letters would have been accompanied by a Pauline representative who
could relate the specifics of the letter to the general Pauline tradition
known to him (or her). But I leave that for another day.

Today, we may finally take up that challenge — and perhaps push it even further.

In a forthcoming article in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (for which I am editor), the authors have examined the Corpus Paulinum alongside thousands of papyrus letters from Greco‑Roman Egypt, comparing named letter carriers across contexts. Their findings suggest that couriers not only supplemented written messages with oral interpretation, but may have effectively performed them, mediating meaning in ways that could radically shape early audiences’ understanding. In other words, early Christian letters might have functioned less like static texts and more like scripts staged for live performance.

Taking up Head’s suggestion, the authors provocatively propose that Phoebe — the female co‑worker commended in Rom 16:1–2 and widely identified as the letter carrier of Romans — may have done far more than deliver the letter: she may have clarified Paul's arguments, answered follow-up questions on the spot, and even expanded or dramatized difficult passages in real time. One can almost imagine Phoebe “directing” the reception of Romans like a seasoned stage director, shaping the audience’s understanding as she went.

Given the complexity and density of Romans, this leads to an intriguing possibility: what if parts of the letter’s meaning were always intended to be mediated through the person delivering it? After all, if the carrier could supply additional information beyond the written text, how much of what was understood depended on Phoebe’s performance?

This leads to a provocative — and admittedly playful — question: Was Romans simply written by Paul, or was it, in some sense, also performed by Phoebe?

GA 2685 in Romans: A Close Relative of the 6-424KC/1739/1881/1908K Cluster of Witnesses

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Montoro IV) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:30:00 +0000

GA 2685 is a 14th century manuscript housed in the Varlaam Monastery in Metora, containing the Gospels, Romans and Hebrews. Although the folio numbers themselves are not clear, the images in the NTVMR seem to show that Hebrews begins on 291v, while Romans ends on 291r which would make this one of the few Greek manuscripts that (as with P46) has Hebrews immediately after Romans. This witness was transcribed by the IGNTP for the ECM of Romans and is included in the collation published here.

In my recently published book, Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans and the Textual History of the New Testament (Brill, 2025), I included a phylogenetic reconstruction of the textual history of Romans (also freely available in the online supplement), based on an apparatus of high-entropy variation units derived from the IGNTP transcriptions. In this stemma, GA 2685 was placed as a sister manuscript to GA 6, closely related to GA 424KC, and in turn to GA 1739, 1881, and 1908K. Since this section of the tradition was not especially relevant to my focus in that book, I did not think much about this at the time or discuss it further.

However, I’m currently working on a paper with Joey McCollum that will introduce a set of tools for identifying manuscript groupings within a large collation, and GA 2685 came up again. This time I paid attention. Based on a quick preliminary search, this witness doesn’t seem to have been discussed in any detail in connection with the cluster of witnesses related to GA 1739 (while included in a table in a recent article by Gäbel on Hebrews in GA 1739, it isn’t discussed; it isn’t mentioned in Birdsall’s or Peterson’s dissertations), though please let me know in the comments if this connection has already been pointed out. However, it shares a large number of distinctive readings with this cluster, far too many to be a coincidence.

In the table below (based on one of Joey’s extremely helpful tools, that will be properly introduced in the paper we are working on), I’ve ordered the readings that connect GA 2685 and one or more members of the GA 1739-related cluster based on how distinctive they are, with the list limited to readings shared by ten or fewer witnesses including GA 2685 (there are many more agreements that involve a larger number of witnesses).

The first column has the reference to the ECM collation, the second has the distinctive reading found in GA 2685, the third has the witnesses that share this reading, and the fourth has the other readings found in this location. I’ve highlighted in blue the readings that seem to me the most significant agreements. While the connections to GA 6 are the most striking (not only does it have two unique agreements, but it agrees with GA6 in 98.99% of readings in the full collation), GA 2685 also agrees with other witnesses in this cluster in places where it disagrees with GA 6, meaning that it is unlikely to descend from it directly. In any case, GA 2685 should be included in subsequent investigations of this fascinating cluster of witnesses.

New Greek New Testament Study Bible

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:09:00 +0000

I’m not often surprised by new Bibles, but today I was. On his Facebook page, Con Campbell shared the cover of a new Greek NT he’s edited called The Greek New Testament Study Bible. It’s published by Zondervan. I suppose you could compare it to Crossway’s Guided Annotating Edition of the THGNT, but at 1168 pages, this appears to be much more than that. The release date in the U.S. is not until October and I couldn’t find a list of contributors at Zonderan’s website. Here is the description from Amazon:

The Greek New Testament Study Bible provides you with access to the insights into the Greek text from some of the world’s leading scholars, while encouraging and assisting you in the use of your Greek reading skills for sermon preparation, devotional study, and New Testament courses. If you sense you are losing your competence in Greek because of the passage of time or the pressures of ministry, yet you desire to study the text in Greek for preaching, teaching, and personal study, then The Greek New Testament Study Bible will help.

In one convenient volume, you get access to the full Greek text as it is found in the Reader’s Greek New Testament. At the bottom of each page of Greek text you will find a list of infrequently occurring words with short definitions, which means you don’t need to consult a separate lexicon for basic translation work. Right page notes identify key areas of grammar and syntax pertinent to the text under consideration, including insights into the use or absence of articles; particular lexemes; connectives; prepositions; pronouns, adverbs, and particles; verbal aspect; voice; questions; case; discourse analysis; prohibitions; the use of the imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive moods; and important textual variants.

The Greek New Testament Study Bible will:
Give you competence and confidence in your handling of the Greek text
Enable you to make exegetical decisions based on the Greek text, grammar, and syntax
Equip you to continue using your knowledge of the Greek language beyond seminary in pastoral ministry and devotional studies
Provide you with a quick reference guide to some of the key questions and insights in the text.
Help you discern the major contributions that a study of the Greek text brings to your understanding of Scripture
Key features of The Greek New Testament Study Bible:
Lefthand pages provide the Greek text based on UBS5, while righthand pages contain study notes
Contains more than 9,500 study notes on the Greek text
At the bottom of each page of Greek text, definitions are provided for Greek words that appear 30 times or fewer in the New Testament.
Includes contributions from 19 internationally recognized experts on the translation and interpretation of the Greek New Testament.
Study notes comment on the use, or absence of articles; particular lexemes; connectives; prepositions; pronouns, adverbs, and particles; verbal aspect; voice; questions; case; discourse analysis; prohibitions; the use of the imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive moods; and important textual variants.
Includes a glossary of 198 technical terms.

It is not clear to me what the Greek text is exactly. It says it is “based on UBS5” but then also says it’s the Greek text found in the Reader’s edition, which is really a retroversion from the NIV. So, perhaps they mean it’s based on the UBS5 the way the NIV is. It’s a bit of an odd way to say that though.

‘Conjecture Magnets’ Ranked

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:14:00 +0000

In his chapter on emendation in the book Pen, Print, and Pixels, Jan Krans gives some very interesting data from the Amsterdam Database. It’s the kind of data that makes you want to ask follow up questions, which is what this post does.

On pages 175–177, Jan gives a list of places that he calls “conjecture magnets.” These are the most conjectured about problems in the NT and show, as Jan points out, that those conjecturing agree there’s a problem but obviously can’t agree on the solution!

A passage is a “magnet” if it has five or more conjectures for it. Jan lists 46 such places. What he doesn’t do in the article is tell us the number of conjectures for each one or rank them accordingly. Thankfully, that’s the perfect kind of thing you can do easily with the Amsterdam Database. So, listed below are Jan’s 46 conjecture magnets ranked by the number of conjectures in the database as of today.

You’ll have to go to Jan’s chapter or to the database itself to see what the issue is in each case. But, as one initial observation, it’s interesting that Matthew and especially Revelation do not make the list at all.

Rank	Passage	Total Conj.
1	1 Cor 11.10	36
2	Acts 2.9	27
3	Rom 16.16-23	22
4	Rom 7.25-8.2	21
	Heb 11.37	21
	2 Pet 3.10	21
5	Eph 1.1	20
6	John 18.13-24	19
	Jas 3.6	19
7	Col 2.18	17
8	Luke 2.2	14
	Acts 5.12-16	14
	1 Cor 4.6	14
9	2 Cor 11.30-12.1	13
	Gal 4.25	13
	Heb 2.9	13
10	John 3.25	12
	John 19.29	12
	1 Cor 15.2	12
11	Mark 9.23	11
	Acts 4.25	11
	1 Cor 15.29	11
	1 Thess 3.3	11
12	Acts 13.33	10
13	1 Cor 2.4	9
	2 Cor 1.13	9
	Jas 4.5	9
14	Mark 14.41	8
	Luke 18.7	8
	John 19.39	8
	Acts 1.18	8
	Acts 16.12	8
	Rom 4.12	8
	Col 2.14	8
15	Mark 14.3	7
	Acts 10.30	7
	Eph 5.26	7
	2 Pet 1.20	7
16	Acts 18.5	6
	Acts 27.9	6
	1 Tim 4.3	6
	Heb 12.18	6
	Jas 3.1	6
17	Acts 20.4	5
	Acts 27.7	5
	1 Cor 6.5	5

News from CSNTM: Digital Manuscript Collection Interface is Coming!

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 15:13:00 +0000

The countdown has begun —on Monday 16 February, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscrips (CSNTM), for which I am a boardmember since 2010, will launch its new CSNTM DIgital Manuscript Collection at collections.csntm.org. According to Denis Salgado, Lead Research Fellow and Assistant Executive Director, this platform will offer enhanced functionality, increased flexibility, and the ability to host a broader range of manuscripts and resources that will be added in coming months. Whether you are a scholar, student, or someone passionate about biblical studies, this database will undoubtedly serve as an essential resource for New Testament manuscript research and discovery for years to come.

On the Origin of the Nomina Sacra

noreply@blogger.com (Dirk Jongkind) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:22:00 +0000

Where do the typically Christian shortforms for words such as ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, ‘God’, and ‘Lord’ come from? What is their origin? In a recent essay I argued that their origin lies in a necessary Christian response to Greek Jewish manuscripts in which the Tetragrammaton was dealt with in a special way. And the nomina sacra of the group of words listed above are a coherent and unified response to that Jewish practice, prompted by the fact that the early church saw Jesus in the Jewish Scriptures, and that from the beginning Jesus could be referred to by any of these terms.

Though a unified response, I still argue for a logical beginning in the contraction of the word κυριος. In the essay I suggest that the form κ̅ϲ goes back to the numeral 26, which provides a nice link to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton.

Since writing that essay, I found a number of publications I could have used in support, and one that came out at the same time my piece was published.

First is that the link between nomina sacra and numerals had been suggested for the variant of the number of the beast in Revelation 13:18 by Pete Williams (yes, my boss) back in 2007 (bibliography see below).

Secondly, in 2021 Jesse Hoover showed how the reading 616 had been used within the Donatist church. The number 616 can be represented by χι̅ϲ, which was then interpreted as a combination of the nomina sacra for Christ and for Jesus (basically the same point Williams made, but then 1,400 years earlier).

So my suggestion that κ̅ϲ and 26 are related would make sense within the reception history of the nomina sacra.

There is a ‘thirdly’ here, though. Around the same time my essay was published, HTR published an article by Alexander Kulik. I don’t think we have met or have been otherwise in contact, both pieces are conceived independent of one another (and come from different angles as well). But his study makes an elaborate and thorough case for the plausibility of connecting the nomen sacrum κ̅ϲ with 26, much better than I could have done. You will have to read the full essay by yourself, but I think that Kulik’s piece strengthens the case to regard κυριος as the origin considerably.

Of course, Larry Hurtado had seen the similarity in shape between numerals and nomina sacra, and this led him to seeking the origin of the phenomenon in ι̅η as the initial form of a nomen sacrum for Jesus, with 18 traced back through Barnabas. Though Hurtado was on the right track, I think there is more mileage in κυριος and 26 and it is pleasing to see that some real progress may have been made.

Bibliography

Hoover, Jesse. "The Apocalyptic Number 616 and the Donatist Church." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 72, no. 4 (2021): 709–25.

Jongkind, Dirk. "On the Origin of the Nomina Sacra, Yet Again." In Die Bibel zum Sprechen bringen: Festschrift zu Ehren von Holger Strutwolf, edited by Marie-Luise Lakmann, Gregory S. Paulson Paulson and Jan Graefe. ANTF 61 (De Gruyter, 2025), 105–18.

Kulik, Alexander. "Counting on God’s Name: The Numerology of Nomina Sacra." Harvard Theological Review 118, no. 3 (2025): 425–63.

Williams, P.J. "P115 and the Number of the Beast." Tyndale Bulletin 58, no. 1 (2007): 151–53.

Darrell Post Finds a New Member of Family 13 – L1080

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:40:00 +0000

In recent years, Darrell Post has worked to collate all manuscripts in John 11 and in this process he has just discovered a new member of Family 13 – Lectionary 1080 (Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, A' 80, 13th century). Post tells me that the manuscript "was found to be a perfect match to Family 13 in its core group, in John 11:1-45. The lesson that covers 11:47-54 is of a slightly different pattern, but is a match to L547, also belonging to Family 13."

This is the third lectionary which has been identified as a family member:

In 1964, Jacob Geerlings analysed L547 in his study on The Lectionary Text of Family 13 according to Cod Vat Gr 1217 {Gregory 547) [ The Ferrar Lectionary] (Salt Lake City, 1964).

In 1982, Yvonne Burns published an article on L574, "A Newly Discovered Family 13 Manuscript and the Ferrar Lection System" in Studia Patristica 12 (pp. 278–299).

And now Post has identified a third lectionary, L1080, as a member of F13, but he points out that a full collation is necessary to see if it is a family member throughout the manuscript. Post sent me a chart which shows the pattern of readings in the chapter and also illustrates its close relationship to L547 in the lesson in 11:47–54.

Copyright of Digital Images of Biblical Manuscripts

noreply@blogger.com (Peter M. Head) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:06:00 +0000

The other day I attended an interesting professional development session on "Foundations of Copyright for Researchers" (by the way, this was not punishment for using academia.edu). One of the interesting things about this was a discussion about a recent UK court case and its implications for copyright of digital images - something many of us are interested in and use pretty much every day.

In brief it seems that the Judge in this court case (Lord Justice Arnold) broadly ruled that simply taking a photograph of an object was not sufficiently "creative" to warrant the copyrighting of the digital image.

"What is required is that the author was able to express their creative abilities in the production of the work by making free and creative choices so as to stamp the work created with their personal touch […] This criterion is not satisfied where the content of the work is dictated by technical considerations, rules or other constraints which leave no room for creative freedom.”

If you are interested in this, then there is more information here: https://douglasmccarthy.com/2024/01/after-thj-v-sheridan/ (and also further reading and references to follow up).

Want to learn to read Greek Manuscripts?

noreply@blogger.com (Elijah Hixson) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:31:00 +0000

Reading manuscripts is one of the best ways to get into textual criticism and even theology of Scripture because it forces you to deal with what an actual person actually did for someone’s actual Bible. It doesn’t allow you to make assumptions about what you think should have happened and assume that the evidence will simply prove you right.

Dr. Jacob Peterson has created a wonderful website that takes readers who can read printed Greek texts from easy Greek manuscripts on to harder ones.

Screenshot of lesson 1

Just today, I stepped into the main room of CNTTS and saw that our newest employee was being trained on this website before he starts next week.

If you’ve ever wanted to be able to read the manuscripts themselves instead of relying on others to tell you what they say, I recommend xeirographa.com (with an x, not a χ).

A photo of xeirographa.com being used in the wild, which was definitely not staged.

Cole on Preservation and the Westminster Divines’ Sermons

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 20:44:00 +0000

Zach Cole of RTS Orlando has a new article out in JETS. Actually, it was out in September issue, but I just got my hardcopy. Zach’s been working on the subject of TC in the Westminster divines for a while now and his ETS paper this year built on that. It dovetails nincely with my recent article on the topic and I’ve been enjoying following Zach’s parallel work on the subject. I recommend this one. Here is the abstract.

Providential Preservation of Scripture and Textual Criticism in the Sermons of Westminster Divines
Abstract: The men who claimed that Scripture had been “kept pure in all ages” were also regular preachers who routinely dealt with textual variations and marginal readings. By giving attention to the manner in which they addressed text-critical problems in the pulpit, we can understand more precisely what the Westminster divines believed about the manner of God’s preservation of his word. It is argued that the authorial intent of WCF 1.8 allows room for the practice of textual criticism and that it does not require adoption of one particular strand of the Greek textual tradition as “approved” in every point of variation.

And here are his concluding observations in short form:

First and most obviously, the men who affirmed that the word of God had been “kept pure in all ages” were aware of textual criticism and its challenges.
Second, we do not find our preachers engaging in conjectural emendation, that is, advocating a reading that lacks extant manuscript support.
Third, beyond these similarities across our preachers, we also find a modest diversity of approaches and practices when adjudicating textual problems.
Fourth, several of the Westminster divines show a degree comfortability with textual variation.

You can read the whole article here, although it may be paywalled for non-ETS members.

Review of Baker, Why a “New Testament”?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Montoro IV) — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 20:13:00 +0000

Note: A few months ago, Levi Baker, whom I’ve not yet met, emailed me to ask if I’d be willing to do a review of his new book for the blog. Especially since I’d just made the same request of someone else (Matt 7:12), I agreed to do so. This is that review.

Levi S. Baker, Why a “New Testament”?: Covenant as an Impetus for New Scripture in Early Christianity, Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 19 (Brill, 2025). xxiii + 364.

While we don’t have nearly as many early manuscripts of the New Testament as we would like, we are privileged to have a few from the second century and a good number from the third. Given the current state of debate over the canon of the New Testament, this raises an interesting question. Are such manuscripts themselves copies of (a portion of) the New Testament or are they instead copies of works that would only much later become the “New Testament”? In other words, were our earliest manuscripts already considered by (many of) their users to be “New Testament/Covenant Scripture,” or is this an anachronistic status that assumes the results of a much later process? Though Baker’s study does not focus directly on this question about the manuscript tradition, it is of considerable relevance for how we answer it.

Baker opens with a provocative quote from Harry Gamble: “It ought not to be assumed that the existence of the NT is a necessary or self-explanatory fact. Nothing dictated that there should be a NT at all.” This quote serves a foil against which Baker develops his own argument. While Baker of course recognizes that the final fuzzy edges of the canon were not clarified until the fourth century, he argues that the books we know today as the New Testament would have been received as “New Covenant Scripture,” potentially from the time of their composition and certainly long before the fourth century.

His basic thesis is that “a significant factor that led to the early acceptance of NT writings as scripture alongside the HB was the connection between covenants and covenant documents. Specifically, given the covenant → covenant document pattern in the HB, since early Christians believed that Jesus had inaugurated the new covenant, they received some of their early writings as the documents of that covenant, to be held alongside the documents of the old covenant (the HB).” [4] This argument is developed over seven chapters.

Chapter 1: The Impetus of the New Testament Canon

The lengthy introductory chapter reviews the status quaestionis of the canon debate, and sketches out the primary argument of the book. Baker provides a helpful taxonomy of current views regarding the impetus for the development of the New Testament canon:

1. Second Century Crisis Response: This view sees the concept of the New Testament primarily as a response to a second century threat (Marcion, Montanism, Gnosticism, etc) that forced the “proto-orthodox” to respond by beginning to develop a canon of the New Testament.

2. Fourth-Century Solidification Without Impetus: This view shifts the decisive period of canonical history to the fourth century and sees even the concept of a New Testament canon as being foreign to the earliest stages of Christianity.

3. Early and Internal Impetus: “Scholars within this category believe the canon was not created in response to early pressures...this view locates the impetus for the canon within the theological environment of early Christianity.” [15–16] While working from within this paradigm, Baker seeks to provide a “stronger case for the expectation of new scripture and the early reception of the NT writings as covenantal documents,” [33] arguing that “the connection between ‘scripture’ and’ new covenant’ is not something novel that emerges within the second century, but rather it is part of the fabric of first-century Christian theology...it is appropriate to speak of a functional canon within the first century.” [57]

Baker’s case is essentially textual, and proceeds over five chapters, each of which deals with a different body of literature.

Chapter 2: The Hebrew Bible Foundation for a Scriptural Expectation

The second chapter argues that, already in the Hebrew Bible itself, there is a close connection between covenant renewals and the expansion of the collection of covenant documents. As Baker summarizes his case: “The claim defended here is that early Christians would have recognized a pattern within the HB of God making covenants with Israel and providing them with scriptural texts that address how God’s people might relate to him within those covenantal arrangements. If so, they would have expected God to provide new scriptures that address how they might live faithfully in the new covenant Jesus inaugurated.” [61n2] I found this to be one of the strongest chapters in the book. His development of James Watts’s model for the semantic, performative, and iconic ritualization of texts as “scripture” was particularly helpful, and sparked a number of reflections about the formatting and use of New Testament manuscripts.

Chapter 3: Covenant and Scripture in Second Temple Judaism

The third chapter examines a variety of works from Second Temple Judaism for evidence of (1) the reception of the Hebrew Bible (and especially the Torah) as a covenant document and (2) “an openness to new scriptures (possibly including their own works) that is connected to the notion of covenant.” [113–114] Baker concludes that: “First, the reception of the HB in whole or part as a covenant document is pervasive. Second, some 2T Jewish works were amenable to or claimed to be new scriptures in a manner that was connected to the notion of covenant....an inherent openness by early Christians toward new scriptures associated with the new covenant is entirely plausible, given their belief that Jesus had inaugurated a new covenant.”

Chapter 4: New Covenant and New Scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls

This chapter extends the broader study of Second Temple Judaism in the preceding chapter to “explore the connection between covenant and scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” [153] As Baker sums up: “The sectarian community responsible for the DSS collection believed...that God had inaugurated a new covenant, and therefore, they apparently received their own, recent writings as the new scripture of that new covenant.” [196–97]

Chapter 5: New Covenant and New Scripture in the New Testament

The previous three chapters considered background evidence that makes an association between the initiation of a new covenant and the composition and recognition of new covenant scriptures plausible. This chapter considers the evidence that the New Testament authors themselves (1) saw the work of Christ as the initiation of a “New Covenant” and (2) associated this new covenant with the composition of new covenant documents. Rather than a survey of the full New Testament evidence, this study focuses on the Gospel of Matthew, with brief treatments of 2 Corinthians 3, James 2, and Hebrews. Given the importance of this chapter for the overall argument of the book, this is one place where I would have wished for more extensive treatment than Baker seems to have had the space to provide— especially of Paul’s conception of the authority of his letters (in the conclusion, Baker does highlight this as the “most significant lacuna” in his study).

Chapter 6: New Covenant Scripture in the Second Century

This chapter, like the previous one somewhat pressed for space, argues that “there is significant, early and geographically-diverse evidence for the reception of the Gospels as new covenant scripture.” [271] Crucially, Baker argues that there is significant evidence, even before διαθήκη was established as a title for a collection of New Testament writings, for a strong association “between the reception of the NT documents as scripture and the notion of covenant.” [244n2]

Chapter 7: Conclusion

The brief final chapter summarizes the argument, considers the implications, and provides suggestions for further research. Given my own work as a pastor, I found this paragraph particularly moving:

Finally, the most significant implication is a pastoral one. Frequently, the NT canon is presented as the creation of the church to battle heresy or the result of a lengthy and contentious process of development. Furthermore, it is often asserted that that process began only after Christians were convinced to receive new scripture. Faced with these characterizations, Christians today may ask, “What if they were wrong?” However, if in response to the redemptive and covenant-inaugurating work of Jesus and the Scriptures of Israel, early Christians sought new covenant scripture, an increased level of confidence is warranted. For the early church’s canon was the natural response to God’s redemptive and revelatory work. [282]

Baker’s work significantly advances the case for an “early and internal impetus” for the recognition of the writings that we now know as the “New Testament” as canonical scripture. If Baker is right (and I think he is), we have every reason to believe that most of our earliest manuscripts were already regarded by many of their first users as “New Testament Scripture.” On this account, though the fuzzy edges of the canon took some time to come into focus, the concept of new covenant scripture, far from being a later imposition or a response to an external threat, was already present before any of these documents was composed.

In addition to the arguments and evidence he provides, Baker also interacts with an impressive range of sources (the bibliography runs to no fewer than fifty-one pages!), which makes his work an excellent starting place for further research.

A few points of minor critique:

1. As noted earlier, the crucial Chapters Five and Six seemed slightly disproportionate to the scale of the previous chapters. While my guess is that this reflects a lack of time and space when the original dissertation was written, it would perhaps have been helpful to have developed these further at the publication stage.

2. On a similar note, there are an abundance of very lengthy footnotes (a number of which contain arguments important for the flow of thought), with many pages having more text in the footnotes than in the main text frame. While I would again suspect that this has something to do with getting under the word count for the original thesis, it would have been helpful if more of the argument had been placed in the main text for the published volume, as this sometimes makes for difficult reading.

3. Although they rarely interfere with comprehension, I would be amiss not to note that there are quite a few typos throughout the volume, as well as some stylistic infelicities. Having recently gone through this process myself, it is frustrating that (while their type-setting is excellent) even a prestigious publisher like Brill provides no meaningful editorial assistance other than a few automated checks for particularly common errors.

These, however, are quibbles. On the whole, this is an important book that makes a significant contribution. Given Baker’s obvious pastoral concern, it is to be hoped that he will follow this technical work up with a briefer treatment that makes his work accessible to a much broader audience.

New Reviews in the TC Journal (30) 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:58:00 +0000

The following review article and reviews have now been published in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 30 (2026):

Review Article
On Reconstructing the Shorter Edition of the Book of Jeremiah: A Review of Michael B. Shepherd’s A Commentary on Jeremiah (reviewed by Matthew B. Quintana)

Reviews
Silvia Castelli. Johann Jakob Wettstein’s Principles for New Testament Textual Criticism: A Fight for Scholarly Freedom (reviewed by Jennifer Knust)

Hila Dayfani. The Transmission of the Pentateuch: Analysis of Variants Due to Graphic Similarities between MT and SP (reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus)

Seth M. Ehorn. 2 Maccabees 8–15 (reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus)

Russell E. Fuller and Armin Lange, eds. A Companion to Textual Criticism: The History of Research of Textual Criticism (reviewed by Anthony Ferguson)

Todd M. Hickey and James G. Keenan. Edgar J. Goodspeed: America’s First Papyrologist
(reviewed by Jennifer Knust)

Jennifer Brown Jones. Psalms 89–105: A Handbook on the Greek Text (reviewed by
Thomas J. Kraus)

Comments that aged poorly

noreply@blogger.com (Elijah Hixson) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:38:00 +0000

Digging through some of Maurice Robinson's writings for a doctoral independent study on the Byzantine Priority position this Spring, I came across a reference to a 1908 work of Kirsopp Lake entitled "Professor H. von Soden's Treatment of the Text of the Gospels." I did some digging and was able to find that it was a two-part review/article in the "Review of Theology & Philosophy Edited by Professor Allan Menzies, D.D., vol. IV (July 1908–June 1909)." In this wonderful age of digital availability, Google Books has it here. Lake's review is on pp. 201–217 and pp. 277–295. I haven't read that part yet, because I was distracted by something else by Kirsopp Lake in this volume.

Lake also has reviews of Harnack's Die Apostelgeschichte (pp. 500–503) and—relevant to my purpose here—Gregory's Die griechischen Handschriften des neuen Testaments. For those who don't know, Gregory's work is the precursor to the Kurzgefasste Liste and the reason manuscripts have Gregory-Aland numbers and not just Aland numbers. It is Gregory in this book who devised the system for majuscules to be listed with numbers starting with zero (e.g. 01, 02, etc.), and before Gregory, a manuscript might be one number in the Gospels and a different number elsewhere. For example, if you read Tregelles' account of his collation of the "Queen of the Cursives," he notes "This MS., in cursive letters, is noted 33 in the Gospels, 13 Acts and Cath. Epp., and 17 in St. Paul's Epistles." Of course, now that manuscript is just 33, wherever it is cited—this is thanks to Gregory.

After describing Gregory's system (which we all now take for granted), Lake makes a remark that, in hindsight, is almost laughable: "In spite of the formidable list of names of those who approve of Prof. Gregory's scheme, I do not believe that there is any great probability that his new notation will be widely u[se]d."

It gets better:

Excuse me, what? Lake does admit that von Soden's edition is still not published at the time of his writing, but he optimistically looks forward to von Soden's manuscript numbering system. Lake gives a summary of the three competing systems of numbering in his day:

Lake does admit that Gregory's system could be useful if it were adopted by a major edition (in his assessment, that Gregory himself would publish an edition), and over a century later, we can see now how things have shaken out. I don't think it is the only time Lake has been wrong, but it's still a sobering reminder that even the most brilliant people can be completely wrong about something significant.

The Most Common Misconception about the CBGM

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:44:00 +0000

The CBGM, invented by Gerd Mink, is not the easiest method to understand. I think we would all agree on that. Various attempts have been made to explain it including mine and Tommy's. Given the learning curve it takes to understand it, misunderstandings are inevitable. I addressed some of these in my PhD thesis. But what is the most common one? And what does the inventor think is the most common misunderstanding of his own method? Here is Mink's answer from the recent Festschrift for Holger Strutwolf:

The most common misconception when using the CBGM is that the role of potential ancestors in constructing stemmata is not understood, and the connections in textual flow diagrams are read like connections in a stemma. However, one must resist the suggestiveness of these graphs. The textual flow diagram is not a stemma. (p. 579)

I would agree with Mink on this as I argued in my dissertation. Here is what I say there in my chapter on the Harklean text:

textual flow diagrams should not be used for the purpose of studying the text’s overall development. Their simplicity can have a mesmerizing effect. But their clarity can become a hindrance to their proper use when it tempts one to make more of the distinct relationships than is appropriate. Most importantly, they should not be treated as stemmata. (p. 88)

In our intro to the CBGM, Tommy and I have a subsection in ch. 4 devoted just to this point. There we say this:

The fact that there is always far more genealogical data than is shown in the textual flow diagrams brings us to our second caution: a textual flow diagram is not a stemma. Textual flow diagrams reduce and simplify the total genealogical picture, somewhat like a map of the London Underground. They are very good for studying coherence at a point of variation, but they are not good for studying the history of the text on a larger scale. Because a textual flow diagram usually connects each witness with one potential ancestor and does so by agreement whenever possible, we need to resist the temptation to interpret it as a traditional stemma, giving us a map of the text’s historical development. (p. 92)

And, back in 2019, I gave an example of the problem of confusing textual flow and stemma on this very blog.

So, heed the warning: Do not use textual flow diagrams as if they were stemmas. They are neither designed nor intended for use in making simple historical judgments about manuscript relationships. Along with that, do not use them to try to critique the CBGM as being non-historical. In short, do not use them for historical judgments in a box with a fox or in a house with a mouse, do not use them Sam I am!

Call for Papers: 2026 CSNTM Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:00:00 +0000

The next CSNTM Text & Manuscript Conference is scheduled for May 28-29, 2026 in Plano, TX (just north of Dallas). I went to the inaugural conference and really enjoyed it. This year's theme is on the ECM and the call for papers has just gone out. Here are the details:

New Article on Textual Criticism in the Reformation

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Gurry) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0000

A few years ago I presented a paper at ETS on textual criticism in the Reformation. The session was well attended and the feedback I received was positive. So I’m pleased to say that a revised version has just been published in my seminary’s journal, the Midwestern Journal of Theology.

This article is not meant to be a comprehensive study by any means: it’s more of a potted history. But for those new to the subject, I think it provides needed historical and theological context for understanding how the Reformation debates influenced and encouraged textual criticism.

You can read it on my Academia page or at the journal’s website. The entire issue is open access. (Sorry in advance for the typos.)

40% Conference Discount on The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:10:00 +0000

At the SBL in Boston I met my co-editor Sidnie White Crawford at the OUP booth to take a picture with our “baby” – The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible which has just been published (see here for more details).

There is an SBL/AAR promocode, EXAAR25, which is valid thru 9 December (three more days) which gives 40% discount! (which means $136 in US and only £69 in UK/Europe).

You will find the whole conference promotion list here.

New article by Peter Rodgers On P75 and P4

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Rodgers) — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 23:57:00 +0000

New article by Peter Rodgers in Filologia Neotestamentaria, XXXVIII, 2025

P75 and P4 Reconsidered

Peter R. Rodgers

In recent years the dating of some early Christian papyri has been challenged. Brent Nongbri especially has questioned the value of paleographic dating, noting that several papyri, chiefly P75, could be placed as confidently in the fourth century as in the second/third. This essay seeks a new criterion for assessing the dates of early Christian manuscripts: Nomina Sacra. The abbreviation/suspension of sacred names began with only the four or five, and gradually expanded to include other words treated in this way. Those papyri with fewer Nomina Sacra should be dated early, whereas those that include an expanded list should be deemed to be later. The staurogram is also important in this calculation. On this reckoning, P4 may be placed in the second century, P75 in the third.

Keywords: Papyri, dating, paleography, Nongbri, Nomina Sacra, Staurogram.

Full text found on Academia.edu

ETC Anniversary Blogdinner 2025 with Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 13:18:00 +0000

Here are some photos from the ETC blogdinner held at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church. Peter Gurry welcomed the 60 guests and held a quiz with fabulous bookprices including Peter Montoro’s Brill book (800+ pages), two copies of Hugh Houghton’s new Textual Commentary, T.C. Schmidt’s new book on Josephus and Jesus, book packages on Simondes the forger and others.

Blogdinner speech by Tommy Wasserman

The ETC blog celebrates its 20th year anniversary! And I have attended all the blogdinners through the years except for last year (was there a blogdinner last year?).

Founding father Peter Williams published the first blogpost on October 14, 2005 titled “What this blog is about”. Essentially, he said, “what I’m wanting to do is to create a blog for those who wish to discuss textual criticism of the Old or New Testament from an evangelical perspective. There are many textual critics out there who are evangelicals and here I am trying to create a forum for us to discuss ideas together.”

What an excellent idea! We have of course returned to the question what is evangelical textual criticism, but this has remained the foundation … we are a bunch of qualified textual critics who are evangelicals and we are discussing ideas together. I will not try to define what evangelical is – the label has many connotations these days, but, let’s say we have room for many different evangelicals, who have in common a high view of Scripture, inspired by God. At the same time, we acknowledge that the Bible did not fall down from the sky in the blessed year of 1611, but it was penned by authors on parchment and papyri and copied through generations by fallible scribes – as Peter Head once remarked, “It is because many scribes did their job well that we are able to study those who did not.” And, as I tell my students, each individual biblical manuscript, in all its fragility, is a witness to the word and we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.

What actually sparked Peter Williams to start the blog, does anyone remember? It was the publication of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, a book that really made Peter angry and he reviewed it in December that first year and for long it was our most read blogpost. It was the most read when we celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Atlanta.

Peter Head wrote his first blogpost on 26 Oct, although he had already made these pertinent and characteristic comments to the first post:

“I think a white background would be more appropriate for an evangelical blog:
a) more echoes of positive biblical symbolism;
b) better approximation to brightness of original manuscripts (both parchment and papyrus);
c) better reflection of the history of the Bible as a published book;
d) I could probably read it without squinting.”

I personally joined the blog in 2006. I was asked to join the team and Pete actually phoned me from Aberdeen to interview me before I was admitted. In the end of 2006, blogfather Williams was appointed the new warden of Tyndale House, and from about that time he handed over the main responsibility for the blog to Peter Head and myself.

In October 2014, Peter Gurry, then PhD student in Cambridge, joined the blog and helped us give it the current nice new look.

For many years I was very active, and could post long summaries in several parts of entire SBL sessions, and all sorts of stuff. As I got older and more busy, and as new and younger blogmembers like Peter Gurry, Elijah Hixson, Peter Malik, and now recently Peter Montoro, came on board, I took a step back and lost some pace, but I like to post occasionally.

And I am also happy to note that my own post on the Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament textual criticism is back on the top; in particular because for quite some time Peter William’s April Fools Joke that archaeologists had found Q was on the top). The blog, in general, has lost pace and so has many biblioblogs, many have been discontinued, but we are still out there.

So far this year we have posted 36 blogposts with 216,844 views. In 2006, we would have posted nearly ten times as many posts, but 36 are better than none. Nowadays, more people read our blog. When we celebrated our 10th anniversary, we had had 2.7 million pageviews. The last time I held a speech at a blogdinner, a few years ago, we had 4.8 million views, so we have nearly tripled since then. Now, the blog has had over 12 million views and over 23,000 comments on blogposts.

The blog was for many years, especially when blogs were the big thing, a great venue for me personally to contribute to the discipline of biblical studies in general and textual criticism in particular, and in some ways, it helped my academic career for which I am thankful.

In any case what I appreciate most with the ETC blog is actually the relationship with the fellow bloggers, and by extension our followers and fans (you all here)! This month Oxford University Press published my Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible and seven ETC bloggers have chapters in that handbook and two more bloggers were offered to write chapters…

Finally, when I think back on my most memorable blogposts they are closely related to my dear friend Peter Head who is not here today, and his alternative career as an athlete (you can go ahead and read about that yourself on the blog, just type in “Britain’s new hope in racewalking” in the Google search box.

Blogdinner Nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Tommy Wasserman) — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 22:28:00 +0000

I have just written a speech for ETC blogdinner tonight in Boston, when we will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of this blog and we will have a big anniversaryquiz where guests can win fine bookprices.

Here are a few random images from past blogdinners for the sake of pure nostalgia. I cannot remember when exactly we had our first blogdinner, but I said we broke a new record in New Orleans 2009 with 35 participants so that was not the first. The first photo shows Peter Head preparing his legendary blogdinner address – spiritual, witty and starting out from a Greek text read from his well-worn Novum Testamentum Graece. Normally, they were written a few minutes before delivery, and sometimes, I think, on a handkerchief (that might be my improvement of a good story).

ETC blogdinner, New Orleans 2009

ETC blogdinner, New Orleans 2013

ETC blogdinner Atlanta 2015 (10th anniversary speech)

ETC blogdinner Denver 2018 (first one with a quiz)