Bruce M. Metzger (1914–2007)

Textual criticism manuals are to be weighed and not counted.

That's a variation on an old rule of textual criticism, "Manuscripts are to be weighed and not counted." The idea is that not all manuscripts are equally valuable in reconstructing the original text of the New Testament (some are badly copied, some have seen many generations of corruption, and so forth). Just because a type of text is popular doesn't mean it's good.

And that applies to textual criticism manuals, too. Based on show more LibraryThing ownership statistics, it looks as if there are more copies of this book out there than all other textual criticism manuals combined.

It's easy to see why. Bruce M. Metzger was an immensely respected scholar, and a member of the committee that prepared the well-known United Bible Societies text. His introduction is easy to read and understand. And it's relatively modern.

But there are a number of weaknesses. Metzger's assessments of the type and value of manuscripts have not kept up to date -- most manuscripts are classified as they would have been around 1940. The lesser "versions" (early translations into languages other than Greek) are rather poorly covered -- ironic from a man who edited a book on the versions of the New Testament. The Church Fathers and lectionaries are given only the most cursory inspection. The canons of criticism -- the rules by which one reconstructs a text -- are not given much attention. And Metzger's whole theory of the text goes back in large extent to the views of Westcott and Hort -- the basis for all modern criticism, but significantly modified in the more than a century since their time.

I just don't think you can learn all you need to be a good textual critic from this book.

To be sure, I can't point you to a better alternative. There really doesn't seem to be one. You just have to read many, many books, and study a critical apparatus in depth -- and, if possible, take some statistics classes, and even a class in stemmatics and non-Biblical textual criticism. Stir that all up, and you might finally get a feeling for all it takes to be a textual critic. So maybe this book is a good place to start. It's not a good place to finish. show less

My latest deep dive subject is biblical history, and on top of my decades-old New Oxford Annotated Bible and my recently purchased Harper Collins Study Bible, I wanted a version without all the extras that might be easier for just reading without distraction. I'm sure not everyone is reviewing the same version here. Mine is the paperback, which was a bargain at $5.99 on Amazon. The print is tiny--I mean the scriptures themselves--and the short footnotes, which are just references or show more alternate readings, are smaller still. The print does appear readable, however, and there may be room for a note here or there, although the margins are very small. I'll treat this as almost a disposable version, and see how long it lasts! I must add though that despite its reputation for being the most accurate translation, the NRSV lacks the poetry that I have come to associate with the bible. No one will be quoting many of these translations alongside Shakespeare, that's for sure. show less

My son’s gone back to college. He left this book lying around on his bedroom floor, so I decided to read it. After all, I’m leading a Bible study on the book of Mark on Tuesday mornings. Knowing more about the New Testament, Its Background, Growth and Content, can only help.

Since the book was clearly a college text book I wasn’t sure how far I’d get. After all, college texts can be really slow to read. But I actually finished the book in two days and could scarcely put it down.

Since show more I grew up with a “Catholic” Bible, I was fascinated to learn more about the history of intertestament times and the Maccabean revolt. The insights into all the different groups of people in Judea at the time of Christ help bring a lot of the Gospel stories and Christ’s teachings to life. And the information on local customs, in action and in speech, are truly amazing.

Interesting examples included the use of Judean overstatement (as opposed to British understatement I suppose), and picturesque speech (logs and specks in peoples’ eyes). Rhythm and puns that we miss in translation were quite fascinating too. And the insights into how texts were collected, combined, used and preserved make the whole question of where our New Testament comes from much more interesting and well-grounded, besides providing a logical background to modern arguments about “hidden” and “lost” books.

I liked the fact that the author didn’t shy away from difficulties. He doesn’t assume that every word in some favorite translation is perfectly preserved, but instead looks at how the translations were made, how changes crept in, and how well-researched the analysis of those changes is. I’ve always known that the historical evidence for the Bible rivals and probably beats that for the Roman documents I studied in Latin in school, but it was nice to see the arguments so clearly laid out.

I really enjoyed this book. I don’t know that I’m ready to take an exam on it, and I probably don’t want to go back to college to find out. But I’m glad my son left it lying around. show less

The NRSV has consistently struck me as a poor comedown from the RSV. I am not able to do a full assessment of the OT portions -- my Hebrew is minimal -- but I have a good grasp of classical / koine Greek and am continually irritated by the way in which the NRSV slides, by choice of words, from translation to paraphrase; in some cases misleading paraphrase.

To take a random example: in the Gospel of John, the chief priests' reply to Pilate's "Behold your king" is not "We have no king but show more Caesar"; instead, it is "We have no king but the emperor". Aside from the fact that the Greek actually says "Kaisara". in the third decade of the first century, under Tiberias, "Caesar" was still a family name and not a title: the new translation gets the implication wrong: not a reference to the person currently holding an office but to a person of a given name.

The text does represent, by and large, the current established Nestle-Aland NT text and the current up-to-date text of the OT and Deuterocanonical books. However, its failures as a translation seem to me to outweigh the advantage of its better source-text.

For all its pervasive use as a liturgical text I cannot recommend this translation. show less