T.S. Pattie

Textual criticism is the study of manuscripts, trying to eliminate errors from the text. But, sometimes, the errors are in the books about manuscripts.

This is a very elementary introduction, devoted primarily to a handful of manuscripts rather than to their use (i.e. it talks mostly about the Codex Sinaiticus, not how it is used in textual criticism). But what it says is often inaccurate -- e.g. when it describes the manuscript Additional 33277, it says "In the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John this manuscript has the same sort of readings as the later Byzantine text (i.e. like the Authorized Version), but in Mark it is much more nearly related to Sinaiticus than in the other three gospels." (p. 38).

But if we look in a reliable reference, we learn that Add. 33277 is the manuscript New Testament scholars know as 892 -- and its text does not change from Matthew to Mark to Luke. There are, it is true, a number of manuscripts where Mark has a text of a different kind from the other books; these include the manuscripts with the symbols Δ Ψ 28 and 565. But 892 is not one of them. 892 has the same "Alexandrian" text in all four gospels, except in the latter parts of John where the original pages have been lost and additional leaves grafted in to replace them.

There are several other places where the author makes statements which shows he knows much more about manuscripts than about New Testament Textual Criticism. And the use of Additional numbers, instead of standard "Gregory" numbers, is a big fat inexcusable pain.

This is a pretty book. It shows samples of a number of very important manuscripts (to use their "Gregory" numbers, א A N R 700 892) -- although there are also photographs of some not-very significant manuscripts (478 686 699, plus one whose number isn't even listed). All the photos are fascinating, at least if you read Greek or are interested in history. But if you can't trust the text to accurately describe the contents of the manuscript, what's the point?… (more)