CHAPTER 4 The Edition of the Greek New Testament: A Plea and a Challenge Jean-François Racine At a time when the edition of the Greek New Testament has mostly become a collective endeavor (e.g., the Novum Testamentum Graece, the Editio Critica Maior), Michael Holmes singlehandedly published in 2010 The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (hereafter SBLGNT).1 With the publication of this vol- ume, Holmes demonstrated two things: (1) that an edition of the Greek New Testament could still be produced by a single individual, and (2) that there is room for other texts of the Greek New Testament besides the “standard text” printed in the widely distributed Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies) and Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland). The SBLGNT indeed differs from the “standard text” in more than 540 variation units.2 1 Some Guiding Principles in Contemporary Editions of the Greek New Testament Contemporary editions of the Greek New Testament aim to present a text which contains wording that is close—if not identical—to that of its final stage of production or when it began to circulate.3 Such a text is called 1 Michael W. Holmes, The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Bellingham: Logos Bible Software, 2010). For a description of other contemporary critical editions of the Greek New Testament, either completed or still ongoing, see Juan Hernández, Jr., “Modern Critical Editions and Apparatuses of the Greek New Testament,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (2nd ed.; eds. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes; NTTSD 42; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 689–710. 2 Holmes, SBLGNT, viii. 3 Here I think of complete contemporary critical editions of the Greek New Testament widely available, e.g., The Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies), the Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland), and the New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform (Robinson and Pierpont). Interestingly, the preface and introduction of Holmes’ SBLGNT do not make any claim concerning the ancient age of its text. This is most likely due to its editorial process which, like the 3rd edition of Eberhard Nestle’s Novum Testamentum © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/97890043000�6_006 The Edition of the Greek New Testament 83 “original” or “initial” (in German: Ausgungstext).4 Editions such as the Greek New Testament and the Novum Testamentum Graece proceed from the premise that the pure “original” text was corrupted and must be restored with the appro- priate method, usually understood as “reasoned eclecticism,” which weighs external evidence and internal evidence.5 By contrast, an edition such as the New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform assumes that the text was preserved in certain manuscripts and can be recovered from them. What these editions have in common is that they look for a singular pure text which Graece (1901), selects readings on the basis of the agreements that exist among four mod- ern editions. The editions listed by Holmes, SBLGNT, ix–x, are: Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, The New Testament: In the Original Greek (Cambridge/London: Macmillan, 1881); Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, The Greek New Testament: Edited from Ancient Authorities with the Latin Version of Jerome, from the Codex Amiatinus (London: Bagster, 1857– 1879); Richard J. Goodrich and Albert L. Lukaszewski, eds. and comps., A Reader’s Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003); Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont, eds. and comps., The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform (Southborough, MA: Chilton, 2005). 4 On the “initial” text (i.e., Ausgungstext), see for instance Gerd Mink, “Problems of a Highly Contaminated Tradition: The New Testament. Stemmata of Variants as a Source of a Geneaology for Witnesses,” in Studies in Stemmatology II (eds. P. van Reenen, A. den Hollander, and M. van Mulken; Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2004), 25. Concerning the “original” text, Epp and Holmes have showed that the term “original” can be understood in various ways. See Eldon J. Epp, “The Multivalence of the Term ‘Original Text’ in New Testament Textual Criticism,” HTR 92 (1999): 245–281, esp. 277, and Michael W. Holmes, “From ‘Original Text’ to ‘Initial Text’: The Traditional Goal of New Testament Textual Criticism in Contemporary Discussions,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis (eds. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes; NTTSD 42; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 637–688, esp. 644–646. Epp explains that the original text can be viewed in at least four different ways: (1) A predecessor text-form: i.e., a form of text discoverable behind a NT writ- ing that played a role in the composition of that writing; (2) An autographic text: the text form as it left the author’s desk; (3) A canonical text: the form of a book at the time it acquired consensual authority or when its canonicity was established; (4) An interpretive text-form: any and each interpretive iteration or reformulation of a writing. Holmes surveyed various 19th and 20th century works which describe the goal of NT textual criticism and confirmed Epp’s claim about the multivalence of the term “original text” in view of the diversity of ways it is defined in these works. 5 This perspective is clearly spelled out in the title of Bruce Metzger’s introduction to New Testament textual criticism which underwent four editions (1964, 1968, 1992, 2005)—the last one with Bart D. Ehrman: The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)..