614 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

CAN WE RISK ANOTHER "TEXTUS RECEPTUS"?

A significant event took place in the world of NT textual criticism with the publication in
September 1979 of the long-awaited 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testamentl
This work claims the title of "Textus Receptus" for itself and it has already been so styled by
Franz Neirynck of Louvain (perhaps slightly polemically) as far back as 1976,2 when the text
half of it, as distinct from the apparatus had already appeared in the third edition of the United
Bible Societies' The Greek New Testament3
One does not have to listen very long to a debate m any assembly to get the impression that
many factors enter into the discussion of the case which are more or less irrelevant, but which,
nonetheless, appear to sway the outcome of the debate much more than the merits or demerits of
the matter being considered The phenomenon is not unique and it is one that has had much
influence in many fields (cf e g , the investigation of non-theological factors which relate to the
question of church unity) The situation has appeared also in the world of NT textual criticism
The first published edition of the Greek NT was not made for the love of it but appears to
have been motivated by a desire on the part of the enterprising Basel publisher, Froben, to steal
a march on the rival Spanish Complutenstan Polyglott which was already in print4
The Council of Trent (Session 4 [1546])5 discussed the question of Scripture and Tradition
and the histories of the debate suggest that there was much division of opinion and lobbying
before a decision was reached to advise "that one translation only should be regarded as author
ised, and for this purpose, St Jerome's version, or the Vulgate, was selected and proposed, as
being the most ancient, the most used, as representing more correctly the state of the ancient
copies of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures than any other Latin version, or even, probably,
than any other then, or now, existing, Greek or Hebrew edition, and finally, as having been
prepared ages before the modern disputes, and therefore unbiased by them "6
The history of this debate is interesting as it shows the pressure for monopoly against argu
ments to the contrary One notes too that, in spite of the claims for Jerome, it was submitted
that 'Since it is not to be denied that the Vulgate has come down to us in a faulty condition, the
Council should request the Pope to see to the production of an amended text of the Vulgate,
and also, if possible, of the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible "7
A similar monopolistic motive prevailed in the production of the 1633 second Elzevir edi
tion in Leiden which contains the famous phrase m the preface Textum ergo habes nunc ab

1
Aland, M Black, C M Martini, M Metzger, and A Wikgren Novum Testamentum
Graece (Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1979)
2
F Neirynck, "The Synoptic Gospels According to the New Textus Receptus," ETL 52
(1976)363-79
3
Aland, M Black, C M Martini, M Metzger, and A Wikgren, The Greek New Tes
tament (3rd ed , New York United Bible Societies, 1975)
4
The point has been frequently mentioned See, among others, C E Hammond, Outlines
of Textual Criticism Applied to the New Testament (5th ed , Oxford Clarendon, 1890) 9-10,
C R Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament (Edinburgh & Clark, 1907)
440-41, F G Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible (3rd ed rev and augmented by A W
Adams, London Duckworth, 1975)
5
J Waterworth (transi ), The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council
of Trent (London C Dolman, 1848)
6
Waterworth, lxxxix
7
H Jedm, A History of the Council of Trent (2 vols, London Nelson, 1961) 2 52-98, esp
71
 CRITICAL NOTES 615

omnibus receptum in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus.8 The implications are of
superiority with the combined aims of (a) capturing the market and (b) creating a monopoly.
About a century ago now Westcott and Hort, having convinced themselves of the villain-
ous nature of the "Textus Receptus" on which they had been brought up, set out to provide
better things.9 They were perhaps not unmoved by ideas of Anglican superiority, more particu-
larly vis--vis Tischendorf, when they published their volumes entitled "The New Testament"
with the question-begging subtitle "in the Original Greek."10 If this is the 'original' then, by
implication, all others were inferior and so excluded. This edition enjoyed a wide popularity in
Britain for at least fifty yearsand longer in some places.
In the wake of Vatican II a desire to cash in on the improved ecumenical climate led to
publishing ventures like "The Common Bible" for which, so far as I know, no authorization was
asked from the churches. The imprimatur of the Archbishop of Boston was convenient for an
international publishing firm, and a few catholic and protestant scholars (including the late
William Barclay) were persuaded to lend their names to commending a gimmick title with
which Lady Collins set out to capture the market in 1973.u
It would seem that similar motives have got mixed up with the publication of Nestle-Aland
26. In the first place forces have been joined with the United Bible Societies. The Greek NT is still
a "best-seller" and therefore a market worth capturingso the UBS has made a common cause
with the other main publishing agency, the Deutsche Bibelstiftung in Stuttgart, and so the way is
again set in the direction of a monopoly. This is a situation which is convenient for those who
produce translators' helps in many languages where common basic texts are a godsend; it is also a
convenient situation for those trying to sort out dogmatic chaos since, as was argued at Trent 450
years ago, a standard text either declared or assumed is a convenient starting point.
Now in a world where the aphorism of Heraclitus (500 B.c.) would still apply (kineitai kai
rei ta panta),12 it is understandable that people should wish for some fixed landmarks; and a
fixation of scripture would be a most welcome adjunct to life for Christian thinkers and church

8
"Therefore you now have the text received by all in which we give nothing altered or
corrupt"; Hl Kain Oiathekl, (Leiden: Elzevir, 1633). See T. H. Darlow and H. T. Moule,
Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British
and Foreign Bible Society (4 vols.; London 1903-11) 3.607 item 4679. Prof. Frederic Gardiner
of the Berkeley Divinity School writing on "Principles of Textual Criticism" in BAiotheca
Sacra 32 (1875) 209-65 assigns the phrase to the preface of the first Elzevir Edition of 1624,
but this must be an error since that edition contains no preface. Gardiner did not get this from
T. C. Hammond's work which he professes to follow (216 n.l) but it may be derived from a
careless reading of the rather loose wording of Home and Tregelles's Introduction to the New
Testament (London: Longmans, 1856) 686-87 (Bibliography of Greek Testaments). The main
text of this volume is however quite clear on the matter. "Of the second of these (editions) in
1633, they (the Elzevirs) said in the Preface, 'Textum ergo hohes nunc ab omnibus receptum,'
and from this sort of boast sprang the expression 'Textus receptus'" (see also Darlow and Moule
noted above). M. R. Vincent writing in A History of Textual Criticism (New York: Macmillan,
1889) 61 says, "The term 'Textus Receptus' is, in itself, untruthful. It was put forth simply as a
clever advertisement of an enterprising publisher."
9
See A. F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (London: Macmillan,
1896) vol. 1, esp. 211,250.
10
B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (2 vols.; Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1881).
11
The Holy Bible; Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments with
the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books. An Ecumenical Edition (spine: The Common Bible)
(London: Collins, 1973).
12
"All things are in motion and flux." Cf. Plato Theaetetus 182 C.
616 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

members alike, but to cherish any such desire is to chase an illusion as much as Westcott and
Hort's title did
In the anti-Westcott and Hort controversies of the latter decades of the 19th century, when
the challenge of Darwinian theories was being felt, so too, the defense of the biblical text, as
commonly used by the church, took its extreme form in the outburst of Dean Burgon of
Chichester m the pulpit of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford on 25 November I860 "The
Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne1 Every book of
it,every Chapter of it,every Verse of it,every syllable of it(where are we to
stop?)every letter of itis the utterance of the Most High' The Bible is none other than
the Word of God, not some part of it, more, some part of it, less, but all alike, the utterance of
Him who sitteth upon the Throne,absolute,faultless,unerring,supreme'"13 But as Parvis
says "Long before Burgon preached this sermon in Oxford, textual critics, particularly such
men as Lachmann and Tischendorf, had demonstrated beyond doubt that the text 'commonly
received by all' was far from being the original text of the New Testament "
The position indeed was already that put by the late E C Col well of Chicago "One who
works in the textual criticism of the New Testament is like a traveler in a far country where all
the landmarks were made of clay and the rains were heavy The old maps and road-guides are
useless, for the fixed points have either vanished or been transformed These fixed points were
erected by the epoch-making work of Westcott and Hort " u
Though these words were penned in 1935 one cannot really say that the situation today is
much betterin some ways perhaps it is worse Why is this so? Westcott and Hort claimed to
have established fixed points but how fixed were they? I give only two examples They spoke
about the genealogical relationship of manuscripts, but soon we find them admitting "The
discovery of extant ancestors of other existing documents is however of rare occurrence " 1 5 After
this they proceed to draw up genealogical tables which are not based on actual examples but
are largely hypothetical They classify manuscripts into different more or less geographical
groups, but before long they have to allow that all this is largely modified by the presence of
"mixture" within the family groups they are trying to establish 16 In short, a theoretical desire
for fixation was not matched by such a situation in reality
After 45 years the situation spoken of by Colwell is a little better but not much This is
partly on account of new discoveries which have been seen to render the old theories obsolete
and partly due to the lack of workers in the field Textual criticism is an area which has never
been popular per se A M Hunter describes it as "only a humble handmaid to the Queen of
the sciences " 1 7 Here one suspects a euphemism for "Cinderella " Further the decline of classical
studies has accentuated the lack of students with both the will and the equipment to follow
researches m this field It seems to me also that the reaction against the so-called "biblical theol
ogy" has led to a general neglect of the text, with a consequent concentration on various refine
ments of theological "redaction" study In some ways this is all to the good, but the lessons of
the past would be that such study readily becomes a breeding ground for the various types of
"gnosticism" which are all too ready to flourish in our time
There is some evidence also that the nostalgic hankering after the past which is notable in
furnishing styles, in building styles, in clothing styles, in lettering styles and many other spheres
is making itself felt in church circles in the form of cultivation of 17th century products like the

13
Quoted (with minor variations) by M M Parvis, "The Nature and Task of New Testament
Textual Criticism An Appraisal," JR 32 (1952) 168 (from J W Burgon, Inspiration and Inter
pretation [Oxford and London J H & James Parker, 1861] 89)
14
E C Colwell, "The Complex Character of the Later Byzantine Text of the Gospels," JBL
54 (1935) 211
15
Introduction, para 67, 53
16
Introduction paras 60-65, pp 47-52 and elsewhere
17
A M Hunter, Interpreting the New Testament 1900-1950 (London SCM, 1951) 17
 CRITICAL NOTES 617

Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1611 Authorised (King James) Version of the Scrip-
tures. If the present-day churches (including conservative Free Churches) cannot do better than
use 17th century language and concepts in expressing the meaning of their faith to the persons
of today then the outlook is indeed bleak.
One thing which might help in a rescue operation is a closer study of the third-century
manuscripts of the NT of which there are now not a few. These are still often being studied in
the light of the fourth-century manuscripts of 150 years later and much discussion of their
readings is based on theological views held in the fourth and fifth centuries which were only
marginally if at all relevant around A.D. 200-250.
It is in this study that the new Nestle-Aland 26 should come to our aid, provided its help is
not vitiated by the making of claims of the kind which I have outlined above.
Let it be said firstly that a great work has been accomplished by Professor Aland and his
collaborators. We must express profound gratitude for this and for the many other most
valuable contributions of the Institut fr NT Textforschung in Mnster. As this NT is a selective
Work there will naturally be disagreement by critics and users on what has been put in and on
what has been left out and there will also be room for argument on the principles governing
inclusion and exclusion.
However, the main object of this article is not to raise points of detail, but to express a very
real anxiety about one characteristic claim of this edition in which, as I have indicated, it
echoes words of not a few of its predecessors. Obviously if the work is not going to have
something of a "landmark" status compared with its predecessors it would not be worth
publishing and the presence of new material must be fully taken into account; but a claim of
"finality" is both sweeping and dangerous.
The Introduction of this new work indicates that from the 22nd edition of Nestle-Aland
(1956) onwards, changes were envisaged, which meant that four editions (22nd to 25th) had a
"provisional character / berbrckungs character."18 There is evidence in the new volume itself
and in the German press,19 if not elsewhere, that this long awaited 26th edition is being hailed like
the 25th one as a new "Textus Receptus."20 When the Elzevirs in 1633 introduced this term by
way of a publisher's gimmick to the preface of their second edition, they produced a mischief
which it took 300 years to dispel. To suggest now that we have a final text is to imply that all
textual work is done and that textual critics can put their tools away; but it contains a much worse
threat to the general field of biblical scholarship by implying that it no longer need give thought
to the text it uses and translates. On the basis of a "standard text," theological and historical
affirmations will be made in reliance on statements in 2 Corinthians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and
Revelation (to name only a few books), where the textual issues are still far from secure, and much
of what we know of versional and patristic "back-up" dates from work of three centuries ago.
C. R. Gregory made some interesting comments about the curious appearance of Karl
Lachmann's Greek New Testament in 1831 which followed the publication of his principles in
an article in TSK.21 He says Lachmann should have had a friend by to say to him "You are
searching for a middle text which will lead you over to the true text. . . . Now, you must not
publish this middle text. Nobody wants it." Clearly the editors and the publishers of NA 2 ^ have
been awake to this advice, but in truth the work before us remains, like its predecessors, what

is A 2 6 , Introduction, 3*741*. (This Introduction is given in both German and English and
the references inserted here are those of the German version followed after the slash with the
corresponding page of the English version.)
19
NA 2 6 , Introduction, 36-37770-71; Unsere Kirche of 30.3.1980.
20
Novum Testamentum Graece (25th edn.; Stuttgart: Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1963)
(= NA 25 ); NA 2 6 , Introduction, 2*/40 .
21
Canon and Text (see note 4), 452-55; (C.) Lachmann, "Rechenschaft ber seine Ausgabe
des Neuen Testaments," TSK 3/4 (1830) 817-45; Novum Testamentum Graece ex recensione
Caroli Lachmanni (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1831).
618 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Gregory called "a bridge to be thrown across the gap separating us from the true text," and
time will tell how good a bridge it is and how long it will stand Apart from anything else we
do not know what lies across the bridge and the time is ripe for raising the question "Was there
ever a single 'Urtext'"? According to the NA 2 ^ "It is impossible to proceed from the
assumption of a manuscript stemma "22
It seems to me that in this new edition of the Greek NT we have a valuable tool, but one
which we must not overestimate for a variety of reasons
The UBS editing group has worked along with Aland and it raises the question With
whom are we really dealing? We can go back to one man, but we cannot go back to these
group sessions (cf the similar situation with regard to the NEB)
If this is a better bridge than we have had before then we are called to explore more fully
the proposition that there were probably several "Ur-texts" of the NT derived from oral
tradition and thus we are no nearer the autographs than we were a century ago We need to
rethink again the categories and groupings of manuscripts in the light of the further new
information now made available We must estimate more fully the minuscules and the
lectionanes as sources of readings which have been lost sight of We need modern editions of
much of the versional material, particularly of the Coptic and the Armenian It won't do to say
that the Patristic evidence is of no value or little value until critical editions show us whether or
not the texts have been assimilated to the "Textus Receptus" (the old TR)
Even a casual study of Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament
reveals the remaining uncertainty of the text in many places in spite of the detailed work of a
high-powered group of editors Many accepted readings in the UBS& equivalent text are
prefaced with indicators of considerable or high degree of doubt as to their right to be in the
text and throughout Metzger's pages one constantly meets phrases like "the Committee
preferred X as the least unsatisfactory reading "24 "The text of this verse is in a very confused
state "25 "As a compromise it was decided to follow the testimony of the earliest witness "26
"The Committee decided that the least unsatisfactory reading is that supported by "27
In short we have here neither a "splendidum peccatum"28 nor a "ktma es aei"29 but a bridge
which invites the construction of a bridgehead and further excursions into unknown territory Let
us then drop this dangerous label and recognize NA 2 " for what it isa good milestone

Ian A Moir
New College, Edinburgh, Scotland EHI 2LX

22 N A 2 6 introduction, 43 e (German 5)
23
M Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London/New
York United Bible Societies, 1971)
24
315
25
321
26
537
27
555
28
A splendid error or mistake This is reported to be Scrivener's comment on the work of
Westcott and Hort I cannot now tie down the reference in Scrivener, but perhaps, m any case
the expression is older than the 19th century and may be a recall of Plato's gennaion ti pseudos
("a somewhat noble he") (Rep 414B) where pseudos is rendered by the Latin translators as
nobile honestum generosum (cf Stephanus, Astius and Bekker respectively ad locum) For
similar thoughts (not necessarily m identical contexts cf Euripides' katapseudou kals (Bacch
334), Thucydides to te pseudesthai kals (6 12 1), Horace splendide mendax (Od 3 11 35, see
also Augustine CD 3 4 with reference to Varr Perhaps we have an echo of Lachmann's criti-
cism of Tischendorf's First Edition (1841)tota peccatum est"it is from cover to cover a
mistake " Cf Gregory (see note 4) 456
29
"A possession for all time " Thucydides' own description of his History of the Pelopon-
nesian War (see 1 22)
 ^ s
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