Best Resource (Book) for History of Bible texts and canons, etc

[fmcfee]

Hi,

 

I am looking for a written resource (a book) on on the texts, MSS, a extensive glossary of terms used for both NT and OT if possible from a conservative viewpoint..I am concentrating on the NT for now...I have a lot of original language resources in Accordance...I am not looking for just a scholarly text but one I could use when I do "my own research..A "how we got our Bible" but with more details.....I have the Zondervan resources (ZEPB) and I might buy a hard copy ...it would be nice to have a graph of time and the various texts, payyrus, etc that includes Greek, latin, syriac, etc.......

 

 

Any suggestion would be helpful....thanks for your help

 

Frank

 

PS I have a lot of great resources in Accordance but find it awkward sometimes to "pull everything" together....if I had a "paper" resource that would supplement my study..I normally do no like books because they take up space, etc so I keep my purchase to only ones that really help..

Edited March 12, 2013 by fmcfee

[Abram K-J]

I don't know whether it's available in Accordance or not, but have you considered Aland and Aland's Text of the New Testament? That might get at quite a bit of what you're after.

[Fr. Rich]

If you search Amazon dot com for "formation of the canon of scripture" you will get a good selection. FF Bruce and Craig Evans are both recognized for conservative scholarship.

[fmcfee]

I don't know whether it's available in Accordance or not, but have you considered Aland and Aland's Text of the New Testament? That might get at quite a bit of what you're after.

AbramK-J,

 

I just looked at it....it might work...does is have a good glossary of terms?

I could not determine this from my view...thanks for your reply

 

Frank

[Abram K-J]

No, that is one thing it lacks, though it has a good index. It also has a nice graphical representation of the contents of various papyri. Tov has a four- or five-page glossary at the back of his Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible that might even be available online via Google Books or Amazon. Don't think Tov is in Accordance, though I believe he is an avid user of the software!

[fmcfee]

If you search Amazon dot com for "formation of the canon of scripture" you will get a good selection. FF Bruce and Craig Evans are both recognized for conservative scholarship.

Rich,

 

Thanks for your reply...I did a search on Amazon before I posted to this forum.....I was looking for a personal recommendation if possible....there are a lot of books out there...I so appreciate the Accordance users forum.....

 

Frank

[fmcfee]

No, that is one thing it lacks, though it has a good index. It also has a nice graphical representation of the contents of various papyri. Tov has a four- or five-page glossary at the back of his Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible that might even be available online via Google Books or Amazon. Don't think Tov is in Accordance, though I believe he is an avid user of the software!

Rich,

 

I decided to buy Aland book on the NT and a cheaper OT Criticism by P McCarter...thanks again for your help!

 

Frank

[Matthew Burgess]

I'm a little late to this thread, but I thought I would add my thoughts anyway! The Alands' introduction is very good in many respects, but it is often extremely dry and technical. The charts and appendices that Abram mentioned are the best parts of the book. For something more accessible to the introductory reader, I recommend Robert F. Hull's The Story of the New Testament Text. It features a brief glossary at the beginning of the book, as well as a subject index and a scriptural index. Also, Philip Comfort's New Testament Text and Translation Commentary, which is available in Accordance, includes a brief introduction to textual criticism as well as a glossary.

 

If you're interested in an introduction to the New Testament canon, Harry Gamble's brief book is a nice place to start. (It's part of the same series of introductory books as McCarter's. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should add that he's my advisor, so I may be a bit biased.)

[Rick Bennett]

Do you have the EBC (original edition)? If so, there are a number of introductory articles that are worthwhile. I note a few here:

 

Transmission and Translation of the Bible, F. F. Bruce

 

Textual Criticism of the Old Testament, Bruce K. Waltke

 

Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Gordon D. Fee

[Anon]

You might also look into Wegner's Monograph (directed to an educated Lay audience or Undergraduate Religion course)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Texts-Translations-The-Development/dp/0801027993/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363186301&sr=8-2&keywords=Paul+D+Wegner

[Ken Han]

Rick, what is the EBC?

[Outis]

EBC = Expositor's Bible Commentary.

[Alistair]

You might also look into Wegner's Monograph (directed to an educated Lay audience or Undergraduate Religion course)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Texts-Translations-The-Development/dp/0801027993/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363186301&sr=8-2&keywords=Paul+D+Wegner

This is what I would have suggested.

 

PS cannot comment on the "conservative viewpoint."

Edited March 13, 2013 by Alistair

[Matthew Burgess]

PS cannot comment on the "conservative viewpoint."

 

I would say that Wegner's views are generally more conservative than those of Hull, Epp, Parker, or other more mainstream practicioners of New Testament textual criticism.

[Alistair]

Does "conservative" mean promoting MT and textus receptus in this context?

Edited March 14, 2013 by Alistair

[Matthew Burgess]

That's not the way in which I was using the term. (This is one of the reasons why I dislike the use of loaded, ambiguous terms such as "conservative" and "liberal"... no one really knows what you mean when you use them!) Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of Prof. Wegner's views on the primacy of the Masoretic Text or the textus receptus. However, his approach to basic questions such as the purpose of textual criticism, the possibility or desirability of finding an "original text," and the value of variants judged to be secondary or erroneous would probably be described as "conservative" rather than "moderate" or "liberal."

[Alistair]

I think a "liberal" viewpoint might endorse purely conjectural readings that, while logically plausible, are not found in any mss; a "conservative" viewpoint would have to chose an extant reading that is supported by mss evidence. ?

[Anon]

I think a "liberal" viewpoint might endorse purely conjectural readings that, while logically plausible, are not found in any mss; a "conservative" viewpoint would have to chose an extant reading that is supported by mss evidence. ?

Using such words as "liberal" and "conservative" to describe one's view of conjectural emendation is problematic on many levels. BHS implements prp in its critical apparatus, but BHS has several significant problems, this being only one. The Oxford Hebrew Bible and Hebrew University Bible Project jettisons the prp premise from their methodology—for scientific reasons. Here I point you to Moshe Goshen-Gottstein's articles in HUBP Introduction to Isaiah (for reasons as to why conjectural emendation is invalid for entry into a Critical Apparatus).

[Matthew Burgess]

I agree with James that conjectural emendation is not a helpful litmus test for determining a "conservative" or "liberal" approach to textual criticism. However, I would add that some textual critics would disagree with his negative judgments on the use of conjectural emendation, especially in circumstances when the manuscript tradition is sparse or significantly removed from the archetype. It has been used in classical scholarship for many years. Like any other scholarly discipline, textual criticism is a diverse field, and there are multiple perspectives on all of the major issues.

[Abram K-J]

To add to James's comments, BHQ (what's published of it) doesn't really use "prp" either. From the introduction:

 

In cases where the editor proposes that a reading other than that of the base text is to be preferred, this is presented in the concluding portion of the entry following a double vertical stroke and the abbreviation “pref” (for “preferred reading”). The evidence supporting the preferred reading is recapitulated. If the preferred reading is not directly attested by any of the extant witnesses, but is only implied by their evidence, it is marked by the signal “(origin)”, i.e., that it is the indirectly attested origin of the extant readings. If the grammatical form of the preferred reading is not found otherwise in Hebrew of the biblical period, it is marked either as “unattest” (= “unattested”) or as “conjec-phil” (= “philological conjecture”), depending on the kind of external support for the reading. Where the proposed reading is a conjecture, it is not introduced by the abbreviation “pref” (= “preferred reading”), but by the abbreviation “conjec” (= “conjecture”). In line with the focus of the apparatus on the evidence of the text’s transmission, proposals for preferred readings will not seek to reconstruct the literary history of a text. Readings that are judged to derive from another literary tradition for a book will be characterized as “lit” (see the definitions of characterizations below).

There may still be "conjecture," as noted above, but there is much more description than just the BHS's "prp." Also:

 

Since the apparatus is devoted to the presentation and evaluation of the concrete evidence for the text’s transmission, a hypothetical reading (i.e., a conjecture) will have place in the apparatus of BHQ only when it is the only explanation of the extant readings in a case.

 

One can judge how well the BHQ does in living up to these criteria, but it does seem to be a different approach than just the BHS's blanket "prp."

[Abram K-J]

Matthew, looks like I posted just after you did. Agreed--not all view conjectural emendation as a thing to avoid in a critical apparatus. When I reviewed the BHQ for Accordance, I found that John Hobbins did not appreciate the approach of the BHQ that I mentioned above. He has an interesting section called "In Defense of Conjectural Emendation" in his "Taking Stock of Biblia Hebraica Quinta" (pdf here).

Edited March 14, 2013 by AbramKJ

[Matthew Burgess]

To give another practical example, Gordon Fee, a scholar many would consider to be a "moderate" or "conservative" textual critic, has argued that Paul's comments on women in 1 Corinthians 14 are a later interpolation, despite the fact that their omission is not strongly supported by the manuscript tradition. (One Latin manuscript, Codex Fuldensis, may have lacked the verses originally; they are added in the margin. All other surviving manuscripts contain the verses, albeit with some variations.) At the very least, this is close to a conjectural emendation.