TEXTUAL CERTAINTY IN THE UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES' GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

Abstract

' This essay builds upon and further extends the work found in K.D. Clarke, Textual Optimism: An Analysis of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament and Its Evaluation of Evidence Letter-Ratings (JSNTSup; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1997); and K.D. Clarke and K. Bales, Construction of Biblical Certainty: Textual Optimism and the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, in D.G.K. Taylor (ed.), Studies in the Early Text of the Gospels and Acts (Birmingham: The University of Birmingham Press, 1999) 86-93. For reviews of the original monograph, see P. Ellingworth in NovT 40 (1998) 382-4; J.N. Rhodes in CBQO60 (1998) 759-60; J.K. Elliott in ExpTim 108 (1997) 341-2; and idem in fTS 49 (1998) 293-7. 2 With regard to my own criticisms, it was greatly encouraging to discuss my prepublished work with Dr. Eugene A. Nida, who not only acted as the impetus for the formation of the United Bible Societies, but has also been intimately involved with work on the Greek New Testament (hereafter referred to in its various editions as the UBSGNT', UBSGNJT2, UBSGNT3, UBSGVTcor , and the UBSG.NT4 except when reference is being made to all editions in general where UBSGNT will be used). In conversation with Dr. Nida (18 September, 1995), and in later correspondence (26 January, 1996), he affirmed the primary tenets of my work concluding that, are many things that have occurred to justify this kind of re-evaluation. In the first place, the team in Munster has done a remarkable job in evaluating not just the evidence from critical texts but also from the manuscripts. They have computerized most of the relevant data and are in a position to judge both qualitatively and quantitatively. Furthermore, their study of the Byzantine tradition has shown that there are significant differences within the Byzantine tradition, and this leads therefore to greater confidence in the major early codices. There is probably negative evidence for this shift, because those who have been working with the material published by the UBS have on the whole been quite satisfied with the results. And the text prepared primarily for translators, as well as the so-called Nestle-Aland text (27th edition), have been generally accepted as the more satisfactory texts for textual scholarship of the New Testament.