Ebook: An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts

Although entitled 'an introduction' this book appears to be aimed more at the postgraduate Biblical Studies student. It includes an overview of different manuscripts, the various classification systems and how to use them, other witnesses, textual criticism, how to use critical editions and concludes with a brief summary of the various manuscript witnesses for Revelation, the Pauline corpus, Acts and the Catholic epistles and the Gospels.

The author's writing style is clear and scholarly with a vast repository of bibliographic notes which should provide the reader with most of the information they need to find more on a particular subject. The author requires the reader to read Greek, Latin and German to make the most of this book (most citations in those languages are untranslated) and there are particularly large sections of Greek in the final section.

This book served to highlight the importance and complexity of the textual critic's work, of the vast array of different manuscripts and the difficulties in classifying them, of the ways in which textual criticism can influence theology and exegesis and the many areas where further work is required, particularly with regard to postdoctoral research. This was an interesting and helpful book but not for the beginner in textual criticism.