BOOK REVIEWS KURT ALAND Und BARBARA ALAND, Der Text Des
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BOOK REVIEWS KURTALAND und BARBARAALAND, Der Text des Neuen Testaments.Einfiihrung in die wissenschaftlichenAusgaben und in Theoriewie Praxis der modernenTextkritik, Zweite, ergänzte und erweiterte Auflage (Stuttgart. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1989) 374 pp. KURTALAND and BARBARAALAND, The Text of the New Testament:An Introduc- tion to the CriticalEditions and to the Theoryand Practiceof ModernTextual Criticism. Translated by Erroll F. Rhodes. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged (Grand Rapids. William B. Eerdmans, and Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989) xviii + 366 pp. Textual criticism is not as static a subject as some mistakenly think. The com- prehensive and detailed introduction to the discipline by Kurt and Barbara Aland published in 1982 has now been expanded and revised. In the seven years between the first and second German editions several significant developments have occur- red and are represented here. The first English edition appeared in 1987 and thus was able to incorporate some of these changes. The English translation of the second edition (ET2) is in parallel with the Ger- man (G 2). This was not the case with ET As a publication ET 2 has certain advantages over G 2. The German publishers were reluctant to reset large numbers of pages, hence extensive additional material has had to be relegated to an appen- dix : ET 2 has assimilated all these additions ad loc, which makes it easier to consult. It is particularly helpful to have both lists and both tables of Byzantine manu- scripts in one place as in ET 2. The charts of the textual character and contents of New Testament papyri and uncials are printed as an end-paper in ET, the Ger- man equivalents are virtually indecipherable especially now that many more manuscripts have been added in G has abandoned the use of graph paper for these charts but this has not increased legibility). In table 1 giving the variant- free verses in the New Testament, again it is ET 2 that is better than G 2 insofar as the actual percentages are printed (even though it may be argued that it would be more telling to show the percentage of disagreement,i.e. verses with variation, thereby revealing for example that Mark has 54.9% of verses with textual varia- tion). The tables on ET2 pp. 103-4 are clearer than in G2 pp. 113-4. Where the German edition scores is in the photographs of manuscripts: these show up better on the glossier paper used in G 2. An unfortunate blemish in G 2 is the absence of the text of Rom 16:24 as example 15 on p. 305. Among the changes since G is an increase in the number of manuscripts cited in descriptions, analyses and examples and more will be said below on this, because in many ways such information represents the important scientific advances we have come to depend on from the resources of the Milnster Institut, whose manpower lies behind this publication. But apart from additional manu- scripts, we can detect certain shifts in emphasis and principle especially on the nomenclature adopted by, and on the policies initiated by, the authors. For instance, the justifiable criticism that was universally levelled against their use of the term Standard text' to describe the text of Nestle-Aland 26th edition (N-A26) and its bedfellows has resulted in this term having been jettisoned: in its stead 'the new text' is to be found. The overweening arrogance of tone in G has been 375 modified and, as part of this process, even the term 'Nestle text' is now preferred (in at least the German edition) to 'Nestle-Aland.' Following criticism in reviews of the first edition, I note that a greater degree of tolerance is shown towards publications emanating from outside Münster, such as Greeven's Synopsis(an attitude already prefigured in Barbara Aland's significant statement in ET' p. 260). However, Duplacy's name and work still seem to be taboo. Hodges' and Farstad's Majority Text is still summarily dismissed despite its obvious influence in certain quarters. (Kurt Aland himself has felt moved to discuss the enduring phenomenon of renewed respect for the ecclesiastical text in The TrinityJournal 8 (1987) pp. 131-44.) In view of the subtitle of the present book an introduction to this text would have been natural. A shift of emphasis, again probably in response to criticism, is a recognition, albeit tentative, of contemporary scholarship in tex- tual criticism outside Germay. (ET' had already added some bibliographical details relevant to its anglophone readership.) Another change since 1982 has been the abandonment of `the early text', a term which seemed to suggest that we could hope to locate such a text type. Instead we have 'the text of the early period'. Even though such a text still seems to be con- sidered as tantamount to the original text and that this is equivalent to N-A 26,the change implies a less doctrinaire approach to the textual history of the New Testa- ment. Such a change is allied to the increased emphasis on the minuscules. One of the major projects of the Milnster Institut in recent years has been to sift through the vast bulk of previously unstudied or underexamined minuscules and then to classify them. This work has resulted in the new series Text und Textwert der griechischenHandschriften des Neuen Testaments(see my review of the first instal- ment in Nov T 30 (1988) pp. 187-9). An introduction to the sifting method was given by Barbara Aland to a textual criticism conference in Birmingham in 1987. This was subsequently published in the Milnster Bericht 1985-7, pp. 33-50: now it has been revised and printed as a valuable appendix to the present book. Those of us who have been inclined to be charitably disposed towards certain readings found in only a few cursives may previously have been opposed to what seemed to be a rigid classification system devised by the Alands whereby all mss. were to be allocated a rating number from I-V with the aim of directing attention primarily only to those designated I, II or III and away from IV (`Western' or 'D-text-type') and V ('Byzantine'). However G2 and ET2 give us more detail about the Alands' thinking about their categories. They have taken us into their confidence and we now see that their classification system is less rigid and to be more pragmatically applied than seemed originally to be the case. This is welcome. Changes in the tables of the categories in G2pp. 167-71 and ETZpp. 159-62 from those in the earlier editions show the inevitable flexibility that has had to be shown, and of course reveal the results of the further study of the manuscripts in question. In view of the importance attached by the Alands to the utility of their classification system in assisting the rehabilitation of cursive manuscripts and in evaluating all textual witnesses, it may be appropriate here to abstract the changes I have detected in this second edition: p9and p l (I from V); p29 from p 61 (I * IV); (III from II); p 80(I from V); 05 (now firmly IV *); 06 separated into 06 (II) and 06c (III); 016 (II from III); 044 (cath.II from III *); 093 (II? for 1 Peter); 0165 (III? from IV?); 0212 (III from V); 0246 (V from III); 104 (V for Acts); 256 (Paul II from III); 442 (II from III); 579 (II from III); 597 (V from III *); 610 (Acts II from III); 945 (Acts, cath. II from III), 1010 (V from III * but see G p. 152); 1067 (cath. II from III; Acts and Paul V from III); 1175 (I from II); 1292 (Gospels, Acts, Paul V from III); 1359 (Gospels, Acts, Paul V from III); 1505 (Gospels V from III *); 1506 (Gospels V from III); 1891 (Acts II from III); 1962 .