Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism, Volume 2, with articles published during 2006-2017, treats many aspects of New Testament textual criticism, emphasizing the criteria for constructing the earliest attainable text, and extracting stories told by “rejected” variants that illuminate issues in the early Christian churches.

The seventeen studies in this volume provide a presentation and assessment of past and current methods applied to the New Testament text. Coauthors Epp and Fee offer an introductory survey of the whole field of New Testament textual criticism, followed by sections of essays on these topics: definitions of key terms; critiques of current theory and method; methods of establishing textual relationships; studies of the papyri with respect to text-critical method; and guidelines for the use of patristic evidence. --From publisher's description.

A renewed interest in textual criticism has created an unfortunate proliferation of myths, mistakes, and misinformation about this technical area of biblical studies. Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry, along with a team of New Testament textual critics, offer up-to-date, accurate information on the history and current state of the New Testament text that will serve apologists and offer a self-corrective to evangelical excesses.

Eldon Jay Epp's second volume of collected essays consists of articles previously published during 2006-2017. All treat aspects of the New Testament textual criticism, but focus on historical and methodological issues relevant to constructing the earliest attainable text of New Testament writings. More specific emphasis falls upon the nature of textual transmission and the text-critical process, and heavily on the criteria employed in establishing that earliest available text. Moreover, textual grouping is examined at length, and prominent is the current approach to textual variants not approved for the constructed text, for they have stories to tell regarding theological, ethical, and real-life issues as the early Christian churches sought to work out their own status, practices, and destiny.

This book comprises a general survey of the study of New Testament manuscripts, and outlines for students of the New Testament the basic tools and skills involved in studying those manuscripts. The present edition is a thoroughly revised and updated version of Leon Vaganay's Initiation á la critique du Nouveau Testament, published in 1933, and each section of that original work has been brought up to date in light of the latest research in the field. In its aim to provide a solid foundation to study of New Testament textual criticism, this comprehensive survey will be of great value to those who are looking for basic information about the subject; while the documentary information it contains about the extant manuscripts, and its original theoretical sections, will ensure that the book has much of value to offer the more advanced student of the New Testament.

This book analyses how the early Greek whole-Bible manuscripts (pandects) change and preserve the text. Dormandy refutes the method based on singular readings and so investigates all the ways in which each pandect differs from the initial text, both changes introduced by its own scribe and by the scribes of earlier manuscripts. He surveys sample chapters in John, Romans, Revelation, Sirach and Judges (including discussing the “new finds” of Sinaiticus). Dormandy’s observations of Codex Ephraemi challenge accepted transcriptions. Dormandy argues that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus may plausibly have been made in response to commissions by Constantine and Constans. Dormandy concludes that generally, across all the Biblical books considered, the pandects preserve the initial text well. Transcriptional and linguistic variations are more common than harmonisations or changes of content. The more precise profiles of each manuscript vary between Biblical books. The pandects thus create bibliographic unity from textual diversity. This shows their significance in the history of the Christian Bible: they reflect in bibliographic form the hermeneutical move to consider all the books of the Christian Bible as one corpus.

This collection of frequently cited articles and chapters published from 1962 to 2004 provides perspective on the history and development of New Testament textual criticism, with descriptions and critique of the major text-critical theories and methods. Specific manuscripts and text-types, such as the Codex Bezae and the D-text are discussed, as well as issues such as anti-Judaic tendencies, the ascension narratives, and the relationship of text and canon. Many of the essays from the last fifteen years emphasize the earliest period and papyrus manuscripts, particularly those found at Oxyrhynchus, and assess their socio-cultural and intellectual contexts, while articles from the last five years advocate or engage the more controversial aspects of current New Testament textual criticism, especially the issue of 'original text'.

Lee Martin McDonald provides a magisterial overview of the development of the biblical canon --- the emergence of the list of individual texts that constitutes the Christian bible. In these two volumes -- in sum more than double the length of his previous works -- McDonald presents his most in-depth overview to date. McDonald shows students and researchers how the list of texts that constitute 'the bible' was once far more fluid than it is today and guides readers through the minefield of different texts, different versions, and the different lists of texts considered 'canonical' that abounded in antiquity. Questions of the origin and transmission of texts are introduced as well as consideration of innovations in the presentation of texts, collections of documents, archaeological finds and Church councils. In the first volume McDonald reexamines issues of canon formation once considered settled, and sets the range of texts that make up the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) in their broader context. Each indidvidual text is discussed, as are the cultural, political and historical situations surrounding them. This second volume considers the New Testament, and the range of so-called 'apocryphal' gospels that were written in early centuries, and used by many Christian groups before the canon was closed. Also included are comprehensive appendices which show various canon lists for both Old and New Testaments and for the bible as a whole.

In this volume Alan Mugridge reviews claims that scribes of New Testament manuscripts altered the text of their copies to further their own beliefs, to stop people using them to support opposing beliefs, or for some other purpose. He discusses the New Testament passages about which these claims are made in detail, noting their context, exegesis, and supporting manuscripts. He concludes that while a small number of such claims are valid, most are doubtful because, unless a scribe’s habits are clear in one manuscript, we cannot know how the changes came about, why they were made, who made them, and when they were made. He argues that the bulk of the erroneous readings in New Testament manuscripts reviewed were made by scribal slips during the copying process, and not in order to further anyone’s personal agenda, adding strength to the reliability of the Greek New Testament text available today, despite the need to refine current editions to be as close as possible to the original text.