Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Gerd Mink, and Klaus Wachtel, eds. (for the
Institute for New Testament Textual Research). Novum Testamentum Graecum
Editio Critica Maior. Vol. IV: Catholic Letters. Installment 1: James. Part
1: Text; Part 2: Supplementary Material. Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1997. ISBN: 3-438-05600-3. Pp. xii+19*+102; vi+39. US
$16.99.
1. It was always intended that the Editio Critica Maior (hereafter ECM)
would be more than just a thesaurus of variants from which a critical
edition could be built at a later stage. The Introduction makes it
absolutely crystal clear in its opening words that we have here presented to
us by the Münster Institut a new text "established afresh" and that it is
"established on the basis of all the evidence presented" (p. 11*). In other
words, our new Tischendorf is to give us a newly constructed text, unlike
the International Greek New Testament Project, which was criticized by the
Münster team (on more than one occasion) for not itself having constructed a
new text of Luke. But nowhere are we informed how and on what principles the
ECM text was established! Considering how much in the Introduction to NA27
is concerned with the history of the editing of that text, its goals and
methods, and considering the great play made in K. Aland and B. Aland's The
Text of the New Testament on the principles of the new Nestle, our new
Editio Critica is launched with no explanation of the ways in which its text
was arrived at!
2. Edited as it is by a different team from that behind UBS4 = NA27, with
now only Barbara Aland common to both committees, an excitingly different
new text of James was anticipated. But it is immediately obvious that what
we have in the much vaunted new text is a damp squib--merely a very modest
revision of the UBS text! It rather looks to me as if the editors took the
text in UBS/NA as their working text and only gently or reluctantly adapted
it. In James there are only two differences in text from NA27! These are at
James 1:22 and at 2:3. The jettisoned reading at 2:3 was rated 'B' in UBS4
(having been upgraded from 'C' in the earlier editions), but that increased
confidence by UBS4 (=NA27) has now been exposed in the ECM as unjustified
and is yet one more nail in the coffin of the discredited and arbitrarily
applied ratings system characteristic of the whole apparatus in UBS. A
fuller discussion of this rating system may be seen in my review of
Metzger's Commentary in Theologische Revue 93 (1997) cols. 20-23. Apart from
those two alterations to the text, we are told somewhat dismissively but
tellingly that "there was no need to alter the text" (scil. of NA27) (p.
11*)!
3. One minor but important change is the abandonment of square brackets
(used to indicate uncertain readings in NA27 and UBS4) around words in the
text in ECM. The use of brackets was an unhelpful practice confusingly
overdone in the Nestle-Aland text. Now James 4:12 and 5:14 appear without
brackets. At 5:14 the second occurrence of the pronoun was bracketed in
NA27; the pronoun is read by 01 02 048 and the majority of manuscripts, but
the word is absent in 03 025. ECM at location 30 prints the pronoun without
brackets; the omission is relegated to the apparatus as variant e, and there
is no bold dot to signify that the variant is an acceptable alternative.
Thus the dilemma experienced by the editors of NA27, who resolved their
quandary by resorting to their usual 'solution' of adding brackets, is not a
dilemma recognised or accepted by the current editorial team behind ECM.
4. The changes may be slight, but the fact that any change has been made to
a text that at one time was being promoted as an immutable "Standard Text"
is highly significant. ECM also signals 11 places in the base text where an
alternative reading in the apparatus merits "equal value" (see p. 11*).
These readings are listed in the following table. The stranglehold on the
text by 01 03 (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) would be loosened just a little if
these alternatives were to be adopted, but I am not sure if the editors
really intend those readings deemed "equal" in value ever to displace the
readings in the base text. There is no signal (a bullet point black dot) at
1:22 to indicate that the now jettisoned reading of NA27 is a variant of
"equal value" (although that is provided at 2:3)! We have already noted the
same at 5:14 in respect of the omission of the pronoun.
A List of the Variants of "Equal Merit" in ECM
Variant Primary Support
Verse Numbers Reading of Text Alternative Reading for Alternative
in ECM Reading
1:20 12-14 ouk ou 04* Byz
ergazetai katergazetai
2:3 44-48 h kaqou ekei h 02
ekei kaqou
2:19 8-14 eis estin o eis qeos 03
qeos estin
02 plus 85
3:4 18-20 anemwn sklhrwn minuscules--the
sklhrwn anemwn Byzantine text is
divided here
oudeis damasai oudeis dunatai
3:8 8-14 dunatai damasai 01 02
anqrwpwn anqrwpwn
auth h sofia h sofia auth
3:15 6-14 anwqen anwqen 04
katerxomenh katerxomenh
4:12 6 o omit P74 P100 03
4:14 8 to ta 02
4:14 15 omit gar P74 P100 01c 02
5:10 26-32 en tw onomati tw onomati 02
kuriou kuriou
5:18 14-16 ueton edwken 02
edwken ueton
5. A fuller review of the whole edition will appear in the April 1998
fascicule of Novum Testamentum.
© TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998.
J. K. Elliott
University of Leeds