Fourth Lecture: Editing the Greek New Testament

Abstract

The chapter describes the process of editing the Greek New Testament. It discusses the critical edition as a narrative and the concept of an Initial Text. It goes on to the components of a true critical edition as including critical text, critical apparatus and full explanation for the text selected, outlines the history of critical editions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and then describes the hand editions available in the past century. It then deals in detail with the Novum Testamentum Graece Editio Critica Maior, describing the electronic transcriptions on which it is now based, the role of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method in making the text, the use of patristic citations and versions and the value of the edition for the New Testament and to other textual scholars.