Abstract
The Early Text of the New Testament presents and assesses the earliest extant evidence for the state of the New Testament text up to the beginning of the fourth-century and includes an investigation into the scribal and literary culture surrounding it. Responding to the call of Kurt and Barbara Aland in 1989 for a review of the New Testament text prior to the emergence of the major text types associated with the fourth and fifth century uncials, the editors, Hill and Kruger, put forward this volume as ‘a first attempt at such a review’ (2). This expansive yet detailed treatment of data and sources consists of 21 expert contributions divided into three parts: 1) The Textual and Scribal Culture of Early Christianity; 2) The Manuscript Tradition; and, 3) Early Citation and Use of New Testament Writings. Hill and Kruger introduce the project by presenting the major issues, voices and approaches in the discussion of the nature of the earliest attainable text and in the analysis of the earliest extant copies.
The first part looks at the commercial and non-commercial publication and circulation of books in the Roman Empire (Gamble); the standardization and thus ‘catholicity’ evident in certain physical features of the earliest gospel manuscripts (Charlesworth); the ‘Christian reading-culture’ visible from the formatting of earliest New Testament manuscripts (Hurtado); and, the cultural attitudes towards textual reproduction exhibited in earliest Christian literary sources (Kruger).
The second part forms the bulk of the volume. Each contributor applies his own approach to the extant manuscript evidence for his respective book or corpus. Matthew (Wassermann), Mark (Head), Luke (Hernández), John (Chapa), Acts (Tuckett), Paul (Royse), the Catholic Epistles (Elliott), and Revelation (Nicklas) are treated. These assessments generally include analysis of singular readings, corrections, and textual affinities, while interacting with the Alands’ classifications (‘free,’ ‘normal,’ or ‘strict’) given for each manuscript. This section ends with a cautionary discussion concerning the importance of identifying ‘translation technique’ behind each of the early versions for their use in textual criticism (Williams).
The third part treats the use of the New Testament in copies/versions of second-century sources. It offers an assessment of the character of citations and the limitations involved in using them for determining the state of the New Testament text (Hill), before treating the evidence from the Apostolic Fathers (Foster), Marcion (Roth), Justin (Verheyden), Tatian (Baarda), the early Apocryphal Gospels (Porter), Irenaeus (Bingham and Todd), and Clement of Alexandria (Cosaert).
The most obvious strengths of this volume are its conceptual and structural clarity, the breadth and depth of its treatment, and the diversity of approaches taken in presenting and analyzing the manuscript evidence for each book or corpus. The expertise of the contributors taken together with the concise, dense and meticulously referenced treatments of each category of evidence make it the go-to source for anyone interested in this facet of early Christianity or this period of New Testament textual history. The contributors are realistic about the limitations of the evidence yet relentless in drawing inferences and conclusions from the data that is available.