A Student's Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods and Results

This book is a great introduction to the field of Textual Criticism of the Bible. For those desiring to understand the thought process behind some of the scholarly footnotes in various translations of the Bible, this book will give context and better understanding of those footnotes. i.e. "...some manuscripts have..." The interplay between linguistics, culture, politics, and the sheer vicissitudes of time create an interesting story of how the current translations we have today have been arrived at. It also highlights - in general - how copying and translation is both a science and an art.

The great advantage of this book is that it provides a guide for textual criticism for both the Old and the New Testaments. But this may also be its disadvantage since some students may be unfamiliar with both languages. Also, it is peculiar that one would include both testaments since textual criticism is done radically different in each Testament. Wegner does a good job of making the chapters readable on their own and this is an advantage of this book. Also, the bibliographic information for the major primary and secondary sources for textual criticism is extremely helpful, especially if one wants to pursue this study further. For an introduction textual criticism in general this is highly recommended. But if one is serious about show more textual criticism more than this book is needed, and it can be overlooked. Though this may not be as detailed as Tov's work on the Old Testament or Metztger's work on the New Testament, for those who just want basic information on the subject, this book is perfect. show less

I really loved this book. It has alot of info, and covers both OT and NT criticism. It also goes through the critical apparatus.