Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior:
A Non-Specialist's Perspective
Peter H. Davids
Schloss Mittersill Study Center
Mittersill, Austria
1. Let me differentiate my own perspective from that of other members of
this panel. I am not an expert on the NT text; I know relatively little
about how one goes about creating a critical edition like the one we are
examining today. However, I am an exegete who writes commentaries and thus
is very interested in the quality of the product.
2. What issues interest me as an exegete? Naturally, I want the resulting
text to be accurate, but I have not seen the manuscripts, so the text's
accuracy would be difficult for me to judge other than through reviews by
those who are experts in this field. There is a certain amount of trust that
the exegete must have in the textual specialist. At the same time, this
edition gives one as honest a picture of the manuscripts as one could get
without having an ungainly book of photo-reproductions. That is, we are
informed when certain manuscripts have lacunae or are unreadable or might be
construed to support either of two readings. This means that I feel that I
am interpreting as accurate a set of data as is possible without studying
the manuscripts myself.
3. This observation leads to what is most important to me in a critical
text, namely, (1) completeness of the evidence, particularly in terms of the
variant readings, and (2) clarity of the presentation. There is no reason to
have information I either cannot read or I might easily misunderstand. Yet
clarity without completeness might leave me missing significant options.
4. In reviewing this work I went to my own commentary on the Greek text of
James (Davids 1982) and picked out the 30 times that I chose to comment on
textual issues. These are hardly unbiased or necessarily representative. I
note, for instance, that the issue in Jas 2:3 that interests Prof. Aland is
not included. Yet these did give me a relatively even coverage of the
epistle and allowed me to use the new edition to check a discussion that had
already been initiated.
5. In terms of completeness, I was more than pleased. Let me note several
instances. In Jas 1:17 A. Schlatter had emended the text to read h
trophs aposkiasmatos. That reading should no longer be considered an
emendation, for it appears in one or two manuscripts, even though neither I
nor the editors consider it the best reading. Turning to Jas 2:19 I found
several more variants for eis estin o qeos than I had noticed
before, which increase in variants also happened concerning the initial
phrase in Jas 5:10. In three places the addition of [P]100 added support to
the reading in the text (Jas 4:2, 4, 9). Thus wherever I looked at this
edition it was at least as complete as my previous research, and in several
of these random examples it added to my knowledge.
6. When I came to consider clarity of presentation, I felt in general that
this work is wonderful. I rechecked my evaluation of textual information at
several places. I noted variants I had not discussed in Jas 1:5 and 1:9 and
quickly saw why I had not chosen to discuss them. In Jas 1:3 I thought that
I might have discussed another variant than I did had I had this edition.
And this was the story throughout the work. Once I got used to the new
symbols (including those for Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus: 01,
02, and 03 instead of [Aleph], A, and B, respectively; the ECM uses
Gregory-Aland numbers--rather than Hebrew, English, and Greek letters--for
all uncials) I found in each passage that I looked at that I could quickly
evaluate the textual information. It is not that this necessarily solved any
of the issues; in some places, such as the end of 1:17, the text of James is
just not that clear. But at least I could quickly see what the nature of the
lack of clarity was.
7. It is not that this presentation of data was perfect. In Jas 4:14 I would
have preferred it if to ths aurion had been treated as a phrase
and poia had been on the same page. And in Jas 5:20 I found it
quite confusing looking for the variants at the beginning of the verse only
to find that they were on the facing page because they had been treated as a
single phrase along with the last words of the previous verse. But the
information was there once I figured out how it was being presented, and
these two less clear passages are less clear than the rest of a very clear
book. Two out of 30 is not a bad ratio, especially when at least 6 of the 30
had a clear presentation with more information than I had previously had.
8. It is also pleasing to me that I have both extensive coverage of textual
variants and intensive coverage of the variants in the same place in a
readable format. Before this I would use the Nestle-Aland text to help me
scan all of the variants in a given verse and then switch to the UBS text
that gave me the greater number of witnesses for variants it chose to
include. Furthermore, the UBS type was larger and more readable. Now I can
have it all in one book, although it is not a book that will fit into my
pocket or be easy to thumb through on a lectern, so the other editions are
far from being replaced. Still, for detailed study I only need one volume.
9. A final observation that it is relatively easy to make is that of what
puzzled early interpreters. The tenth century writer of 1175 corrects Jas
2:24 to be rather Pauline. Had he been reading a lot of Paul and simply
slipped, or was he trying correct James' theology? We may never know if he
was an early Luther or not, since he did not make similar changes in Jas
2:21 or 2:22. One suspects that Athanasius may have had a reason for reading
"God is" rather than "God is one" at Jas 2:19 (although the reading is in
his disputed work De virginitate). Those reading there "one God is" may well
have read the text in terms of philosophical denials of deity rather than in
terms of the Shema . At times we can watch a need to clarify the text, an
early commentator, so to speak. Jas 2:25 is a case in point where perhaps to
clarify the term aggelous some from the tenth to sixteenth
century who were careful biblical scholars added tou israhl,
while others (including a marginal reading in the Syriac Harklensis) added
ihsou. It would be interesting to know whether these latter were
referring to Joshua, and thus fall into the biblical scholar category, or
more piously to Jesus, or perhaps intended a double meaning.
10. It is clear, however, that a whole host of scribes did not read James in
terms of its Old Testament background, for when an early copyist inserted
"adulterers and" before "adultresses" in Jas 4:4 the majority of the
manuscript tradition followed suit. This early attempt at gender inclusive
language reveals something of a literalist mindset. Other texts that are
truly difficult bothered the copyists rather little. Jas 4:5 has several
attempts to clarify it, but they are found in only one manuscript each.
11. One could continue with such observations, and if one knew how
manuscripts were related to one another or exactly where each came from, one
could perhaps develop these patterns further. Yet what impressed me was the
ease with which I made these previously cited observations.
12. In short, this edition is certainly the tool of choice for the exegete
who is doing a detailed study of the Greek text of James. In my eyes it
passed both of the tests, that of completeness of information and that of
clarity of presentation, as well as presenting other information. Had I had
it when writing my commentary, I would certainly have kept it close at hand
and my work would have been the better for it. Unfortunately, however, many
of the more difficult texts in James are not helped; this work simply makes
it clear that there is no other option than to try to interpret the text as
it stands and face the difficulties it contains, unless one wishes to emend
the text by conjecturing changes which happened during the 200 or so years
before the earliest manuscripts (roughly contemporary with the first clear
citation of James, that of Origen).
13. Now, given my present work, my question is, When are the installments on
2 Peter and on Jude coming out?
Chart of the Passages Examined
Passage Greek Text Used in Commentary Commentary Comment
Reference
1:3 to\ doki/mion u(mw=n th=s 68
pi/stews
ai)tei/tw para\ tou=
1:5 dido/ntos qeou= pa=sin Not in Test of quick
a(plw=s commentary evaluation
1:9 o( a)delfo\s o( tapeino\s Not in Test of quick
e)n tw=| u(/yei au)tou= commentary evaluation
par) w(=| ou)k e)/ni Schlatter's
1:17 parallagh\ h)\ troph=s 91 emendation found in
a)poski/asma ECM
1:19 i)/ste, a)delfoi/ mou 91
a)gaphtoi/
1:19 e)/stw de\ pa=s 91
a)/nqrwpos
a)/spilon e(auto\n
1:27 threi=n a)po\ tou= 103
ko/smou
Cited in the paper;
su\ sth=qi e)kei= h)\ ECM reads su\
2:3 ka/qou u(po\ to\ u(popo/dio/n Aland sth=qi h)\ ka/qou
mou e)kei= u(po\ to\
u(popo/dio/n
mou
2:5 tou\s ptwxou\s tw=| 112
ko/smw|
2:19 ei)=s e)stin o( 125 More readings than in
qeo/s commentary
2:20 a)rgh/ e)stin 126
3:3 ei) de\ 138 Clearer than in
commentary
3:5 kai\ mega/la 140
au)xei=
3:8 a)kata/staton 145
kako/n
3:12 ou)/te a(luko\n gluku\ 148
poih=sai u(/dwr
3:14 ei) de\ 151
mh\ katakauxa=sqe kai\
3:14 yeu/desqe kata\ th=s 151
a)lhqei/as
[P]100 data supports
commentary; ECM reads
4:2 ma/xesqe kai\ polemei=te, 158 ma/xesqe kai\
kai\ ou)k e)/xete
polemei=te, ou)k
e)/xete
[P]100 data supports
4:4 moicali/des 160
commentary
4:5 to\ pneu=ma o(\ 163
katw/|kisen e)n h(mi=n
[P]100 data supports
4:9 metatraph/tw 168
commentary
4:12 o( kri/nwn to\n 170
plhsi/on
4:13 sh/meron h)\ 172
au)/rion
4:14 to\ th=s au)/rion poi/a 172 Phrase is broken up
h( zwh\ u(mw=n in ECM
e)a\n o( ku/rios qelh/sh|
4:15 kai\ zh/somen kai\ 173
poih/somen
5:4 o( a)pesterhme/nos a)f 177
u(mw=n kra/zei
makroqumw=n e)p au)tw=|,
5:7 e(/ws la/bh| pro/i:mon kai\ 183
o)/yimon
5:8 makroqumh/sate kai\ 184
u(mei=s
5:10 th=s kakopaqei/as kai\ 186 More variants in ECM
th=s makroqumi/as
5:11 kai\ to\ te/los kuri/ou 187
ei)/dete
5:19 planhqh=| a)po\ th=s 199
a)lhqei/as kai\
ginwske/tw o(/ti o(
5:20 e)pistre/yas a(martwlo\n e)k 199 Grouped with previous
pla/nhs o(dou= au)tou= verse
sw/sei yuxh\n au)tou= e)k
5:20 qana/tou kai\ kalu/yei plh=qos 200
a(martiw=n
This paper is a revision of a presentation given to the New Testament
Textual Criticism Section of the Society of Biblical Literature at the 1997
annual meeting in San Francisco, Michael W. Holmes, presiding. Presentations
by Barbara Aland (general editor of the Editio Critica Maior), Bart D.
Ehrman, D. C. Parker, William L. Petersen, and Klaus Wachtel (co-editor)
also appear in this issue of TC. See also the critique of the volume by J.
K. Elliott.
© TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998.
Bibliography
Aland, Barbara; Aland, Kurt; Mink, Gerd; and Wachtel, Klaus, eds. (for the
Institute for New Testament Textual Research), 1997. Novum Testamentum
Graecum Editio Critica Maior. Vol. IV: Catholic Letters. Installment 1:
James. Part 1: Text; Part 2: Supplementary Material. Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft.
Davids, Peter H. 1982. The Epistle of James: A Commentary on the Greek Text.
NIGTC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.