Book Review: The Greek New Testament,Produced at Tyndale House Cambridge Edited by Dirk Jongkind,Peter J. Williams,Peter M. Head,and Patrick James

The aim of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) is to “present in an easily readable format the best approximation to the words written by the New Testament authors, within the constraints of the documentary evidence that survives” (505). In the introduction, the editors explain the inception of the new edition as well as their method for creating the text and apparatus.

THGNT began as a revision of Tregelles’s nineteenth-century edition of the Greek New Testament, selected because of “Tregelles’s strong reliance on the testimony of documents and on the principle of proven antiquity” (506). The editors changed Tregelles’s text wherever they saw fit, and the revisions proved so extensive that the text evolved into a completely new work.

The editors made the Greek text the center point of their edition, saying, “Other New Testament editions have a much fuller apparatus, but we believe that this edition’s chief significance, like that of Westcott and Hort, lies not in its apparatus but in the text itself” (507). ¹ To produce “the authors’ composition itself,” the THGNT editors claim they “will not depart from what is contained in at least some Greek witnesses” (505). Thus, those who use this edition can rest assured that the text, including orthography and paragraphing, is firmly grounded on early testimony.

Two primary criteria are employed to establish the Greek text. First, the editors insist “that our text be attested in two or more Greek manuscripts, at least one being from the fifth century or earlier” (506). Second, they give priority to well-documented scribal tendencies, for instance, harmonization, omission of small words, and “copying the text in the form that requires least energy to retain” (506).

To gain a general impression of how the THGNT text differs from other editions, I collated it against Tregelles, NA28, ECM, and the Robinson–Pierpont Byzantine Textform in the first six chapters of Acts. ² THGNT shows an almost even rate of disagreement between the editions of Tregelles (17 disagreements), NA28 (16 disagreements), and ECM (14 disagreements)—some of these are shared instances. In contrast, there are 137 disagreements between THGNT and Robinson–Pierpont. Thus, the editors of THGNT show a clear preference for the earlier manuscript tradition as is reflected in Tregelles, NA28, and ECM. ³

The editors intentionally offer a minimalistic textual apparatus aimed at highlighting their decision-making process. Instead of sigla within the main text to refer the reader to the apparatus, the apparatus provides a lemma and its variant(s) with a selection of witnesses; this is intended to offer fewer distractions for the reader. The apparatus of THGNT generally records three types of variants: (1) those that are considered close to the main text, (2) exegetically significant variants, and occasionally (3) variants that “illustrate scribal habits” (515). ⁴

THGNT contains a comprehensive list of manuscripts found in the apparatus, which clearly demonstrates the editors’ preference for the oldest manuscripts—only two minuscule manuscripts are consistently cited. There are no early versions or patristic evidence in the apparatus because the editors do not believe they are superior to what is already found in Greek manuscripts for the purpose of reconstructing the text. Paragraphing in THGNT reflects the agreement of at least two manuscripts from the fifth century or earlier, although this criterion does not seem to be strictly followed (512). ⁵

Another distinctive feature of THGNT is the sequence of books. THGNT differs from NA28 in that the Catholic letters are positioned directly after Acts. This sequence follows what is probably more commonly found in Greek manuscripts and is also the order that ECM (1.18*) follows as well as the Robinson–Pierpont edition, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and Tischendorf. Of the aforementioned editions, only THGNT places Hebrews before Revelation—the others place it before the epistles to Timothy.

While this well-crafted edition merits an abundance of praise for its achievements, one fundamental matter still stands out as rather ambiguous and counter-intuitive, namely, how using traditional criteria for establishing the text can achieve the desideratum of being “the most accurate possible printing of the New Testament in its earliest well-documented form.” ⁶ Many twentieth-century critical editions have utilized traditional criteria to establish their text with varying degrees of emphasis on documentary evidence and internal criteria. Though the texts of these editions differed from one another, many claimed to have printed a reliable text. Similarly, the editors of THGNT relied heavily on two traditional criteria: the oldest manuscripts and scribal tendencies. Regarding the former, they do not include old versions even in cases where, for example, Old Latin manuscripts are dated contemporaneously to early Greek manuscripts; likewise, the editors omit all patristic evidence regardless of its potential value for insights into the earliest manuscript tradition. Although the editors of THGNT have more Greek manuscripts at their disposal than previous generations of scholars, their method of practically excluding minuscule manuscripts is reminiscent of Lachmann, although even Lachmann included the Latin tradition and several church fathers in his edition (1842–1850). While THGNT is unique for omitting these types of witnesses (i.e., all early versions and patristic evidence as well as most minuscules), it seems like a needless limitation of worthwhile testimony, and it is not evident how this might produce the best attainable text.

Furthermore, the way the editors describe their second criterion of employing scribal tendencies seems nearly identical to how Metzger describes transcriptional probabilities (Metzger 1994, 12*–13*). Thus, it would be promising for the editors to support their reconstructed text with a detailed explanation of what they call “scribal tendencies” and how these are employed to establish their text. If, in fact, these do not differ from what has traditionally been known as “transcriptional probabilities,” then it is not clear how their text can get us any closer to the autographs than Westcott and Hort or the best of the twentieth-century critical editions. This will hopefully be fleshed out in the planned textual commentary where the editors promise to “give further transparency to our editorial reasoning” (506, 516).

In spite of these lingering queries, there is no doubt that THGNT possesses many quintessential hallmarks of a hand-sized critical edition. The edition, which boasts high-quality collaboration among some of the discipline’s foremost text-critics and scholars, is a most welcome addition to the market. The apparatus cites pertinent manuscripts to elucidate the editors’ decision-making process and includes other editorial features that greatly assist the reading experience, such as paragraphing, accents, and breathing marks. In sum, the editors have achieved their goal of creating an edition that is easy to use. They have removed some of the cumbersome barriers of other critical editions and offered a stream-lined approach to delving into the text—even though users will have to get accustomed to the edition’s distinctive aspects, such as its orthography and an alternative order of books. The edition’s sleek page design, void of cross-references and other marginal features, containing a minimal apparatus and simple paragraphing, seems especially advantageous for those who want to read through the Greek text with as few distractions as possible—and for that purpose, it is heartily recommended.