The Greek NT (Its Present and Future Editions)

7/30/2019 The Greek NT (Its Present and Future Editions)

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THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT: ITS PRESENTAND FUTURE EDITIONS*

KURT ALANDUNIVERSITT MNSTER

THE ERA of modern NT editions began almost exactly a century ago,

when Tischendorfs "editio octava maior" broke new ground in this

field. Since then decisive changes have taken place, in par ticular as

regards the material, but also as regards the methods of NT textual

criticism. At tempts have twice been made to work the new material

into one large edition. Work on Legg's edition was broken off after thesecond volume and von Soden's edition failed to gain influence. Of the

two, von Soden was the more ambit ious. He not only set up a new text,

but, at the same time, tried to bring in the entire history of the NT

text, including the ramifications of the Koine. Without any doubt, he

accomplished more in this work than his critics often acknowledge.

Nevertheless, the statement already made on publication, that the entire

work would have to be done again, was quite correct. Legg simply

reprinted the Westcott-Hort text and collected together in his critical

apparatus the material which was accessible to him. Certainly anyonewould gladly avail himself of the assistance offered in Legg's two volumes,

but even so, he would never be able to dispense with Tischendorfs

critical apparatus, which, in spite of its being a century old, still forms

the basis of all textual criticism.

In May 1966, The Greek New Testament was published under the re

sponsibility of a group of editors and on behalf of the United Bible

Societies two conditions equally new and unusual. Th e success of

this edition has been extraordinary and it has already been reprinted

several times. Ear ly in 1968, a second edition is to be brought out ,containing a number of changes in text, some of great significance. As

well as this, the assessment of some text variants in the critical apparatus

will be changed and an initial series of corrections of unclear or incorrect

notes will follow. These modifications will be clear to the user only on

closer scrut iny. The things which will immediately catch his eye are the

changes on the title page. A new name, that of Professor Dr. Carlo M.

Martini, S J . , has been added to those of the editorial Committee, and

an additional note "in Cooperation with the Institute for New Testa

ment Textual Research,1 ' is appended to the title. The la tte r is theresult of the already very considerable cooperation of the Inst itut fr


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180 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

forming the critical apparatus and it expresses the fact that responsi

bility for the revision and scientific preparation of the edition's apparatus

has been transferred to Mnster. The addit ion of Professor Mar tini 's

name has significance with regard to our future program. ProfessorMartini is professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the Pontifical

Biblical Insti tute in Rome. In future, The Greek New Testament will be

under the patronage not only of the International Bible Societies, but

also of the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

The same plan is under way for the Nestle-Aland edition, which

likewise will, in future, be distributed by the United Bible Societies and

the Pontifical Biblical Institute, under the responsibility of the same

editorial committee as The Greek New Testament. However, responsibility

for the conception as a whole will, to a great extent, remain with KurtAland. For in the Nestle-Aland edition, which will continue to appear

under this name, the critical apparatus is just as important as the text

and the marginal notes are also of some significance. Naturally, a number

of problems arise, in particular that of the frequently differing text form.

In the course of the coming year, 1968, the editorial committee will

have to discuss all the passages, in which the existing proofs or manu

script of the new Nestle-Aland edition differ from The Greek New Testa

ment. Should agreement on these passages be reached, the text of The

Greek New Testament will be changed or vice versa. After the publicationof the second edition, which already includes a number of anticipated

text alterations, a third edition is contemplated, probably for 1970,

which will alter the text to such an extent that it will be identical with

the 26th edition ofNestle-Aland. Of course, a number of small differences

will remain, for example, in paragraphing, in the orthography, in the

use of capital or small letters, etc. These differences arise from the

differing purposes of the two editions. Nestle-Aland, for example, is

not divided up according to pericopes, but, within the gospels, according

to individual logia and to other results of form criticism, etc. In detailssuch as punctuation it follows more closely the rules of classical philology,

for it is, indeed, intended exclusively as a scientific pocket edition for

use in universities and by NT specialists, whereas The Greek New Testa

ment addresses itself to a much wider circle, beginning with translators,

for whom it is specially designed. In comparison with earlier edit ions,

the new Nestle-Aland will have a considerably higher standard, its aim

being to provide the specialist working on the NT text with all the mate

rial he might need.

Since the average number of variants per page will be 20, while the

number of variants per page in The Greek New Testament is, on the


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ALAND: GREEK NT, PRESENT AND FUTURE EDITIONS 181

Tischendorfs time until the present and which have resulted in the

differences in the various editions over the past hundred years. In

addition, the Nestle-Aland includes not only all exegetically important

variant readings, but also those in which the major manuscripts differ,i. e., their significant variant readings, including the single readings of

the papyri. The user will not only be given all the material necessary

to enable him to make an independent decision about the text, but also

all th at he needs to reconstruct the history of this text . But we will have

to forego an attempt to reconstruct the development of the Koine in all

its detail. The so-called Koine-manuscripts will appear under the siglum

M (i. e., majori ty t ext) . The manuscripts belonging to the majority

text will, naturally, be quoted in the preface (according to our collations

we can now already list several hundred). It will, of course, be mentioned in the critical apparatus if the majority text splits into two or

more groups. But it cannot be the intention of a pocket edition to

at te mpt a complete history of the Koine. It s task is to make available

the material necessary for the establishment of the original text, i. e.,

the form, in which the NT writings first appeared.

The new Nestle-Aland will not only offer more variant readings than

its earlier editions, but will also present them differently and more

precisely. The siglum (i. e., Hesychian or Egyptian text) will dis

appear. It will be replaced by a list of its manuscript witnesses. Apar tfrom the fact that, wherever necessary, manuscript witnesses pro et

contra a reading will be noted, i t will also be possible in the future,

where only the witnesses for a variant reading are quoted, to deduce

e silentio which manuscripts support the reading printed in the text.

For a certain number of manuscripts will be completely collated with

all the variant readings. In the gospels, these include, besides all the

papyri, the uncials X A B C D W O K L P Q R Z r A H ^ the extant

fragments of uncial manuscripts (about 125 uncials in all) and the minus

cules f1, f13, 28, 33, 565, 700, 892, 1010, 1241, and 1424. Of course, all

other Greek manuscripts which are important for a special variant read

ing will be included, but in differing combinations, according to the

circumstances. When the old translat ions are quoted, the Syriac ver

sions will, naturally, be individually named, and the same will apply

for the Old Lat in and Coptic witnesses. Of these, the newly-discovered

major manuscripts will be regularly consulted. By means of a well-

planned system, we have avoided excessive growth of the apparatus

and will be able to keep it within justifiable limits. Provision has also

been made that the apparatus remains clearly arranged and legible.

This edition too will be available in 1970. Through these two editions


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The Nestle-Aland edition cannot be more than a manual edition

offering the scholar all he needs for his day-to-day work, which involves

making decisions about the competing variant readings under discussion

at the present time and surveying those important variant readingscontained in the major NT manuscripts. However, the Nestle-Aland

edition cannot replace a large comprehensive critical edition of the

NT. By way of comparison, the Nestle-Aland is to a comprehensive

edition, what a medium sized Latin dictionary is to the Thesaurus

Linguae Latinae. Of course, the shortened version must contain a

reliable extract from the complete work, and it must provide all the

essentials for everyday work; but it can never replace the comprehensive

edition, and the scholar will always use the latter as a basis for his own

independent work, even though he is glad to have the shortened versionfor daily use and quick reference. And th at which applies here to the

26th edition of Nestle-Aland holds to an even greater extent for the

other pocket editions in use today.1

One hundred years have passed since an edition last appeared, which

summed up what was known about the tradit ion of the NT text. With

out doubt, Tischendorfs accomplishment was immense, but how many

manuscripts did he use for his critical apparatus? Of the more than

80 papyri known today, he used only parts of one single manuscript

(i. e., p11, of which, at that time, only about one-third was accessible).Of the now-known uncials, he used at most 80 (possibly only 64), i. e.,

a maximum of 30%. It cannot be ascertained with any certainty how

many minuscules he used. I t was at most 150, for Westcott and Hort

explained (vol. 2, p. 77), that in their time, this number of minuscules

were known in their entire content. This is about 6% of the 2764 minus

cules known today. Tischendorf consulted some lectionaries, but only

very few (mostly uncial lectionaries). In the case of the translations ,

he knew and utilized the Curetonian Syriac, but not the Sinai tic Syriac,

which was only discovered in 1892. All the editions of the Vetus Latina,used by Tischendorf, are completely out of date , not to mention the

fact that many manuscripts have been discovered since then. In fact,

it so happens that even the editions of the Vetus Latina, which our

generation used until the appearance of Jiilicher's Itala edition and the

edition of the Vetus Latina Institute at the monastery of Beuron,

Germany, were more often than not unreliable. As an example, one

need only mention Johannes Belsheim. Of the Coptic text of the N T

only the initial fragments were known to Tischendorf. Nowadays, as is

well known, the situation is such, that even Horner's edition, the last

volume of which appeared little more than 40 years ago, is completely


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In spite of this, as already said, Tischendorf's edition is and remains

the indispensible basis for the person involved in textual criticism, for

the editions of both von Soden and Legg are unreliable in the information

they give. And besides this, von Soden's edition is difficult t o use because of its complicated system of sigla. So the situation is in no way

basically improved by the use of von Soden or Legg. Already in 1957,

I explained at the Congress of New Tes tament Scholars in Oxford :

But in the critical apparatuses of all editions, including the one of von Soden,no fewer than 1938, or 77% of these Mss. [i. e., total of cursive manuscripts] haveremained unused. It is likely that the majority of them belong to a late stratumimmediately preceding the textus receptus, but apart from the fact that this has ingeneral been taken for granted and not really proved, a closer investigation shows

that 735 of these cursives which have not been used in the editions of the lasthundred years were written earlier than the 12th century.3

During the ten years since then, the number of known minuscules has

increased by more than 250. Accordingly, from a present-day point

of view, the percentage of minuscules not used in the older editions is

higher. As far as the uncials are concerned, none of the existing editions

uses more than 50% of the number now known, and, for the most part,

they fall far below these percentages. Th e only exceptions are the

Nestle-Aland, The Greek New Testament, and the Synopsis Quattuor

Evangeliorum. The Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, for instance, in itsnewly published 4th revised edition, in addition to the uncials already

used, has introduced 68 uncials (with few exceptions complete) into its

critical apparatus. Besides this , in most cases in the earlier editions

(e. g., when Merk and Bover quote the number of uncials used by them

as 121 and 120 respectively), the term "used" can only refer to a very

sporadic consultation of the uncials.

Such is our present situation, and every NT scholar the world over,

who is working on textual criticism, is very much aware that a com

prehensive critical edition of the Greek NT is overdue, indeed excessively

overdue. Von Soden definitely recognized the right moment, bu t he

aimed too high and strove towards his goal with insufficient pre

requisites. When the Chester Beatty papyr i became known, the need

for such an edition was even more urgent. It was therefore under

standable that NT scholars were enthusiastic when, in 1942, a plan

was launched for an " Internationa l Project to Establish a New Critical

Apparatus of the New Testament. '' The Gospel of Luke was to be dealt

with first. It was said th at the volume containing the critical apparatus

would be ready within a few years and that a few years later, a critical

text of the Gospel of Luke based on this apparatus would be published.


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to discuss this specimen, for even when this volume of Luke is available,

it cannot be compared with the comprehensive critical edition of which

we have been speaking. It will contain, with the printing of the Textus

Receptus, only a collection of material , i. e., the first s tep towards acomplete critical edition of the Gospel of Luke. The same will apply

for any subsequent volumes which may be published. Since the Bodmer

papyri have been edited, the absence of a comprehensive critical edition

of the NT given rise to continually increasing criticism of NT textual

research, all the more so, since manuscript material has become available

during the last decade to an extent which would have been unimaginable

a short time before.

Therefore recently, consultations have taken place between the

European centers for text criticism and a number of specialists in theGreek tradition, the old translations, and patristic quotations, about

the possibility of creating such an edition. Until now, the specialists

have all been Europeans, but the circle can be enlarged at any time.

It hardly needs saying that such an enterprise is possible only with

combined effort. In 1968, in conjunction with the annual conference

of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, there will be a seminar,

during which, under the direction of K. Aland, the principles of such a

comprehensive critical edition will be discussed. By then, preparations

will be so far advanced as to make this possible. To avoid even thesemblance of competition with the International Project, work on the

edition will definitely not star t with the gospels, but elsewhere most

probably with the Pauline epistles.

Initially, the work of the Institute for New Testament Textual

Research in Mnster was certainly not directed towards such a com

prehensive critical edition. At its foundation nine years ago, this would

have been absolutely impossible. Today the situation has changed.

The first condition for such an edition is, of course, as complete a knowl

edge as possible of all the manuscript material. The numbers achieved

speak for themselves. For comparison, I place the numbers quoted in

the 4th "List of Manuscripts'' (by von Dobschtz) alongside those

appearing in the 7th "List" (Lists V-VII by K. Aland):

List IV List VII

Papyri : 48 81

Majuscules: 208 267

Minuscules : 2370

3

2764Lectionaries : 1609 2143


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That is an increase of 1020 manuscripts in the years between 1954

(when List V appeared) and 1967. Of course, we have not yet reached

the absolute tota l. But we may assume th at any future increase will

take place slowly, and it is not too much to say as far as the knowledgeof manuscript tradition is concerned, that the start of work on a com

prehensive critical edition is assured. Not only are the manuscripts

known by name, as was earlier the case for the most part, but we have

photo copies or microfilms of about 80% of them at the Institute for

New Testament Textual Research. In this form, we possess at present:

76 papyri

239 uncials

2385 minuscules1778 lectionaries

i. e., a total of 4478 manuscripts, which is more than were known of

at the beginning of our work. And this number is increasing steadily.

The next stage of the work has also long since begun. Any com

prehensive critical edition will have to make use of all papyri and all

uncials, but in the critical apparatus it could not possibly do this with

all 2764 minuscules. This is impossible not for reasons of space and

clear arrangement, but because the amount of work entailed can neither

be performed nor justified, for the majority of the minuscules either

have the pure, so-called Koine text or reflect only the later development

of this text. The striven-for comprehensive critical edition is concerned

with ascertaining the original text of the NT, i. e., the text in which the

NT writings were put into circulation by the author or a collector (e. g.,

the Pauline epistles) and with making available all the material necessary

for the discovery of this text. Therefore years ago we began to sort

all the minuscules critically. One thousand passages in the NT were

selected, where the manuscripts show characterist ic differences. This is

many more test passages than a philologist usually refers to for the

classification of the manuscrip t of a classical author . Any manuscript

which agrees with the Koine text in all these passages or gives only

insignificant variant readings, which are explained by the inner develop

ment of the manuscript, can be disregarded for the comprehensive

critical edition. More than 1000 manuscripts have already been ex

amined in this way.

The Institute has already begun to examine and edit the papyri and

uncials, which until now have remained unpublished or insufficientlyedited, with special attent ion to the papyri. The lectionaries, however,

remain a problem for us too It is out of the question to use here a


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has stood in the way of this, for besides its work within the Greek sphere,

the Ins ti tute has long since also turned to the old versions. Jlicher's

Itala edition will soon be completed. In addition, the Insti tu te years

ago began to collect information about the Coptic manuscripts of theNT, which in recent years have been impressively increased by a series

of very important discoveries and publications, notably the collections

of the Pierpont Morgan Museum and the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana. A

list of these Coptic manuscripts, comparable with the list of Greek

manuscripts, is being prepared, as is a critical edition of the Catholic

Epistles. The manuscripts of both these works are near completion.

Furthermore, a collection of information on the Ethiopian version of

the NT has been started.

The patristic quotations from the NT present a very difficult problem.The Institute has large collections and has already systematically dealt

with quite a number of the church fathers. But there is still importan t

work to be done here, for the material of all the editions, including The

Greek New Testament, originates from Tischendorf and is not based on

original sources, i. e., the modern critical editions of the church fathers,

many of which are indispensable for the early history of the text of

the NT.

The discussions which are to take place in 1968 must show whether

and to what extent the plan for a large, comprehensive edition of the

NT can be realized. This plan was not initiated by the Inst itute for

New Testament Textual Research, but, of course, as soon as it is re

quired, the Institute is willing to undertake such a task, which is not

only of the greatest urgency and importance, but is, in fact, unavoidable.

The accomplishment of this immense undertaking will only be possible

if the efforts of all those concerned, both internationally and inter-

confessionally, are effectively combined.


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The Greek NT (Its Present and Future Editions)

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