The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration

Bruce M. Metzger

Among books that discuss New Testament textual criticism, perhaps none is so well known as Bruce Metzger’s volume, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission Corruption and Restoration.

The Text of the New Testament is divided into three main sections. The first section discusses the materials of textual criticism. This section describes the ancient processes of book making, and details the various witnesses of the New Testament, including manuscripts of various kinds, ancient versions, and patristic quotations. The second section discusses the history of various printed editions of the Greek New Testament. The final section discusses the application of textual criticism to witnesses, focusing mostly on various methods of textual criticism, the causes of error in transmission, and the practice of textual criticism—this last section offering various examples and functioning as something of an instruction manual for the beginner.

Among the most helpful aspects of this volume are the details given in the second chapter, “Important Witnesses to the Text of the New Testament,” particularly the details given about the manuscript witnesses. For each of the major manuscripts, several pieces of fundamental information are given: type of manuscript (i.e., papyrus, uncial, miniscule), family of manuscript (i.e., Byzantine, Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean), the approximate date when the manuscript was written, and a brief summary of the manuscript’s history and what it contains.

Another helpful point is Metzger’s explanation of some of the fundamental tenets of textual criticism coupled with examples of how it is actually practiced. While it is clearly not intended to be an exhaustive manual on criticism, the basic points he makes about internal and external considerations, coupled with illustrations of textual criticism in action in passage such as Acts 6:8, the woman caught in adultery (John 8), the various endings of Mark, and others make a solid beginning point for the novice in the field.

There are, however, a couple of downsides to this volume. The primary downside to Metzger’s treatment of textual criticism is his wholesale rejection and disparagement of the Byzantine text type. While I make no claims to understanding all the ins and outs of textual criticism and am certainly neither a defender of the textus receptus nor a KJV-only advocate, Metzger dismisses the Byzantine text—and assumes the superiority of the Alexandrian—with very little argument to prove the point. It almost seems as if the strength of the argument against the textus receptus—“Its textual basis is essentially a handful of late and haphazardly collected miniscule manuscripts, and in a dozen passages its reading is supported by no Greek witness” (106)—is sufficient to stand also against all other Byzantine texts. While this book may not be the place for such a debate, and most readers will probably agree with Metzger’s position in the final analysis, he treats the issue as a non-issue, as if there is no debate about the matter—a position which a book like Black’s Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism clearly shows to be false.

The other downside to this volume is the means by which the editions were updated. Rather than integrating new material into the old manuscript, a set of “additional notes” and an appendix was added to the second addition; the third edition kept the additional notes and replaced the brief appendix of the second with a lengthier appendix. While I suppose this is superior to completely ignoring and omitting new material, it is far inferior to a smooth combination of the old and new, in that it is disjointing and distracting to the reader who wants to conduct an exhaustive study. The fourth edition, I understand, has worked on solving this particular issue, but it has it begins its own new set of problems as each new edition henceforth surely will increasingly reflect the theology of Bart Err-man (sic).

In all, The Text of the New Testament is an exceedingly valuable book, offering details on many of the most important Greek manuscripts and elementary information on how one would go about interacting with those manuscripts. However significant the downsides may be, they certainly do not outweigh the positive aspects. All told, it is not surprising that this is one of the standard volumes—if not the standard—on textual criticism.