BOOK REVIEW

Nestle-Aland: NovumTestamentum Graece post Eberhard Nestle et Erwin Nestle communiter ediderunt , Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, Allen Wikgren; apparatum criticum recensuerunt et edi- tionem novis curis elaboraverunt Kurt Aland et una cum In- stituto Studiorum Textus Novi Testamenti Monasteriensi (Westphalia); Deutsche Bibelstiftung 1979 , 26. neu bearbeitete Auflage, pp. 78* + 779.

Einheitsübersetzungder Heiligen Schrift: Das Neue Testament; Stuttgart, 1979, Katholische Bibelanstalt, Deutsche Bibelstiftung, pp. 662.

J. G. Plöger und Otto Knoch (herausg.): Einheit im Wort, Informationen, Gutachen, Dokumentezur Einheitsübersetzungder Heiligen Schrift, Katholische Bibelanstalt, 1979, Stuttgart, pp. 150.

The twenty-sixth edition of Nestle-Aland (= NA26) has been long awaited. appeared in 1963 and N-A26 had been announced more than once. Great changes have been promised and made: 1) For the old Nestle text has been substituted the text of the Greek New Testa- ment (UBS3 1975). The old Nestle text is now available with few and slight varia- tions mainly orthographical only in the edition of H KAINH .1IA8HKH (1958 etc.) of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 2) The apparatus has been remade. It is a complicated and compressed collec- tion of material, but for those who learn how to use it it is far and away the best select apparatus that we have. In this connexion we pay tribute to the learning and devoted labours of those who have cooperated to produce this tool. 3) Inevitably the prefatory matter has been substantially changed. Except for the foreword all the introductory matter is in German with a careful and reliable English translation made by Dr. E. F. Rhodes. The foreword is important and it is a pity that it too has not been translated as it gives particulars of the contributions of the various workers at the Mfnster Institut fur neutestamentliche Textforschung. I translate part of it here: "However the various spheres of work allow themselves to be delimited as follows: particulars from the Latin manuscripts, V. Reichmann; from the Syriac versions, G. S. Wendt and B. Aland; from the Coptic versions, G. Mink and F. J. Schmitz; from the Church Fathers, Chr. Hannick and G. Schmalzbauer. The papyri have been collated by W. Grunewald, the oversight of the collation of other Greek manuscripts was held first by K. Junack and then by M. Welte who was also responsible for the supervision of the numerous corrective procedures, and the final control was in K. Junack's hands". They are to be congratulated on their work. We can criticize the apparatus at length in detail, but any such criticism must not detract from its solid achievement. We must also salute Dr. Barbara Aland's association with N-A editorially as well as for her contribution to the Syriac. After the Introduction comes the text of Eusebius' letter to Carpianus with the Canons. At the end of the book are four appendices and at this stage Latin, already the language of the title, takes over from Greek, German and English. The first appendix, a useful piece of work, lists the Greek and Latin manuscripts used in the edition, the second gives a collation of the Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, 370 von Soden, Vogels, Merk, Bover, Nestle 25,the third lists quotations from and allu- sions to the Old Testament and related texts and pagan authors, and the fourth ap- pendix gives symbols and abbreviations. We have also a blue card giving the main symbols and abbreviations, a service frequently provided by German publishers which is most unpopular with British publishers. We may notice that among printed editions NA26does not quote Tasker, A ( 1 964),to my mind the least unsatisfactory printed text of the New Testament. NA26 is published not by the United Bible Societies but by the Deutsche Bibelstiftung. The indications are that Stuttgart publications will no longer appear under the United Bible Societies' imprint whatever is done elsewhere. The edition is a marvel of compactness and here and there we can see signs of a rigorous compression. The type is an improvement on the old Nestle type, though a Porson type would be easier on the eyes, the upright type here employed saves space. In explaining appendix II the introduction refers (36*, 70*) to the text of NA26 as "the standard text". This expression finds itself not only in the introduction, but also in the Bericht der Stiftung zur Forderung der neutestamentlichen Textforschung 1975-76 (p. 22 "Standard-Text"), 1977-79, 31 ff, 59ff. This reference gives us the opportunity of turning to the second of the two books here reviewed. NA26 appeared at the end of September 1979 and I received my copy of the Einheitsubersetzung early in November 1979. Einheit im Wortwhich ap- peared at the same time, serves as a general introduction to the Einheitsuberset- zung. __ At the beginning the title Einheitsubersetzung (EU) had a more limited mean- ing. Answering to the new demands for vernacular translations of the Bible conse- quent on Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Bishops in German-speaking lands decided to produce a common German rendering which would meet these demands and especially the needs of liturgy, and replace the various versions previously in use. The Roman bishops from early on invited the cooperation of the scholars of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands and of the Deutsche Evangelische Bibelwerk. Consequently the first edition of EU (1972) enjoyed a limited cooperation. In the second edition this cooperation has gone all the way and we have a list of some thirty seven scholars, Roman Catholic and Evangelical, who have cooperated in this undertaking. The preface is signed by Cardinals H6ffner, Bengsch and Konig representing West and East Germany and Austria, by Bishops P. Mamie for Switzerland, J. Hengen for Luxemburg, J. Gargitter for Bozen- Brixen and G.-M. van Zuylen for Liege, and on the Evangelical side by Landesbischof E. Lohse, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Though I have heard the German style of the translation well spoken of, it is not the purpose of this review to discuss style but matters of text and interpretation, and to these we will now proceed. At once we notice that nothing is said of Aland and his alleged "Standard Text". On pp. 635-6 are two sections on "The Greek Text" and "The Old Latin Versions and the ". They are careful, judicious statements though we may think the second paragraph on p. 635 a little optimistic. If however we may take it more or less to mean that the translators have assumed that the original form of the text has always survived somewhere or other among our manuscripts, we can ac- cept this as a reasonable practical policy. __ Let us return to the "Standard Text". It is clear that EU translates a different text from the "Standard Text" and we may suspect that for the most part translators started from NA25(1963), though from 1975 the "Standard Text" (ST) has been available in UBS3.