Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [Imitation Leather]

This volume provides an insightful commentary on the Greek text of the United Bible Societies' 4th edition Greek New Testament. In producing a copy of the Greek New Testament many variant readings have to be analyzed and decided upon. Metzger has provided in this commentary an answer as to why one reading was chosen over another. In doing so he seeks to highlight the problem(s) involved with each set of alternative readings and also provides an explanation of the Bible Committee's evaluation and resolution of those problems.

A helpful introduction is provided wherein the history and basic rules of textual criticism are canvassed in order to show how the committee made their decisions. Metzger provides a brief introduction to the art and science of textual criticism. He provides an "outline of criteria" which was used by the committee. External evidence evaluates such things as the date of the textual witnesses, the geographical distribution of the manuscripts, the relationship of text families, and the understanding that witnesses should be weighed not counted. Under the internal evidence he highlights that the more difficult and shorter reading is to be preferred and that there needs to be a consideration of the context of each author and what they probably would have written.

The commentary itself follows a verse-by-verse canonical approach and provides a comment on the many textual variants found in the UBS4. About 30% (225 pages) of the commentary is on the book of Acts given the difficulty of the two differing text types in early circulation (Western and Alexandrian). Helpful discussion is also provided on such controversial passages as the ending of Mark's Gospel and 1 John 5:7.

The art and science of textual criticism is an important task for both scholars and preachers in seeking to establish the text of the New Testament. This tool will help aid that task immensely. However it should not be used as a substitute for doing the hard work first. This tool should be used as a check in confirming one's own work. Nevertheless this tool provides the "voice" of many scholars in how they decided one text over another - a gift for the student of the Greek New Testament.

This textual commentary is designed to be used in conjunction with the United Bible Societies' (UBS) Greek New Testament 4th ed. and its greatest utility will be found within that scope of use. Nevertheless, there are uses for others, even non-greek readers; however, the utility will obviously be less as this book was not written with you in mind. The pupose of this commentary is best given through a quote from the book's introduction:

"Most commentaries on the Bible seek to explain the meaning of words, phrases, and ideas of the scriptural text in their nearer and wider context; a textual commentary, however, is concerned with the prior question, What is the original text of the passage? That such a question must be asked - and answered! - before one explains the meaning of the text arises from two circumstances: (a) none of the original documents of the Bible is extant today, and (b) the existing copies differ from one another."

The commentary is basically a verse-by-verse list of the all of the verse's identified by UBS as having variant readings in the Greek texts from which the 4th ed was compiled. Without such a tool we are left to look at the readings which were chosen, perhaps the variants which were provided, and guess why UBS made the decision that was made. Looking at variant readings in both English and Greek texts one has very little indication of what sort of weight which variant carries. So, the commentary is basically a verse-by-verse, variant-by-variant list of variant readings along with the determination made by UBS along with the the following categories regarding the certainty of the reading which has been chosen:

A: The text is certain

B: The text is almost certain

C: The committee had difficulty in deciding which variant reading to place in the text

Each decision is accompanied by a paragraph-form (often many paragraphs) explanation of why the committee's determination was made in the way it was making great use of major texts and transmission lines.

This commentary has proven very useful to me. In my opinion the introduction alone, explaining textual transmission and the issues at hand, is worth the purchase price alone, but once you purchase this commentary and realize its usefulness, it will likely become an oft-referred to member of your library.

The only thing keeping me from offering 5 stars to the book is that the only book with a thorough textual transmission introduction is Acts. This is extremely helpful and deals with issues which are only superficially, ignorantly, or inadequately dealt with in other commentaries. I am very greatful for the work of Metzger and UBS for writing it. However, I think that if an intro were available for the rest of the books, the commentary would be very well rounded. Nevertheless, the Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament accomplishes its stated purposes very well and has proven extremely useful to me.

-Jacob Hantla

If you find learning all of the details associated with manuscripts and text transmission difficult and too time-consuming to master, this work will give you a quick overview of arguments pro and con on the major variant readings of the New Testament. It is a very helpful quick resource. You may not use it everyday, but it will be a great helper when you need it.