Textual Criticism

2nd c. fragment of Thucydides' Historiae Bk 7

2nd c. fragment of Gospel of John

"When we have documents like our New Testament writings copied and recopied thousands of times, the scope for copyists' errors is so enormously increased that it is surprising there are no more than there actually are. Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historical fact or of Christian faith and practice." -F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

I am so thankful that Bruce wrote a book like this. Although he wrote it in the 1940s, he has updated and revised it up until the 80s, with footnotes pointing us to recent studies on the dating of the NT documents. It is absolutely fascinating.

Bruce began his academic career as a classicist, studying the NT in its classical context. Thus, this book was born out of his observation that, in comparison with the classical texts we have now, the NT documents have much more extant manuscript evidence pointing to its authenticity (see Preface to the Fifth Edition).

I found this point absolutely true this semester as I began studying the texts of three Euripidean plays. I was first introduced to textual criticism in seminary, so my first exposure to manuscript evidence was overwhelming. There was a never-ending number of biblical manuscripts (not to mention allusions and quotations from early Christian authors) to sort through in coming to a provisional conclusion on an original wording. Yet, when I began reading Euripides, I glanced at the critical apparatus and was shocked at how few manuscript evidence there was to go on. Rather than a list of variants, it was mostly a list of corrections proposed by modern scholars. Most of the manuscripts, in fact, are medieval.  (e.g. The Bacchae is based on two medieval manuscripts, the L and P, dating to the early 14th century, with eight rather incomplete witnesses from the 2nd cent. BC to the 5th AD, which means the earliest fragment is still three centuries after the play was written.) Yet, there is much less discussion on the authenticity of classical works. To be fair, there do exist many fragments on such classical works dating back to the first few centuries BC and AD, but hardly entire works (as compared to the Codex Sinaiticus, for example).

Knowing these facts gives me more confidence and interest in textual critical work of biblical manuscripts than classical. Obviously, as a student of ancient languages, the older the evidence, the more exciting the research!