Samuel C. Gipp

The preface of this book tells us, "I cannot tell you how much work went into this little book." Maybe author Samuel C. Gipp can't, but I can: not enough.

There are two problems with this book, which really need to be kept separate. For background: We don't have original copies of the New Testament; they have all been destroyed. What we have is copies of copies of copies -- thousands of them. Some of them are relatively early, and independent of each other; far more -- dozens of times as many -- are late and all copied from each other. There are two ways to edit the Greek Bible: one is to look at the early, independent manuscripts, and try to figure out what original could have explained all the variations. The other is to toss all the early manuscripts, ignore the fact that all the late manuscripts are copied from each other, and assume that the numerous late manuscripts that are really just recent copies of a single, corrupt edition that is not the original have more value than the broad diversity of early manuscripts. The former approach (with relatively minor variations) is that used by almost all scholars who have any training in scientific thinking, mathematics, literature, or any sort of logical thought; the latter is the approach of those (usually conservative) pastors -- rarely scholars -- who seem to want to achieve results without having to think.

Gipp is one of the latter camp, and that by itself influences the shape of this book -- e.g. on p. 23 we read that "Nestle's text is basically corrupt and his methods of handling the witnesses are biased.... For absolute reliability, read and accept the God preserved Bible, the King James Authorized Version." In other words, to Gipp, a translation made in the early seventeenth century is more reliable than the first century documents it translates.

I could continue ragging on that particular fact, which should by itself invalidate this work -- but we can actually set it aside, because that defect doesn't by itself render the book useless for its intended purpose, which is to be able to read the "apparatus" (that is, the list of differences between the Greek manuscripts) of the "Nestle" Greek Bible. (Actually a series of editions, the first from 1898 and continuing until today, with many changes -- and many different editors -- over the years.)

What really makes this book a failure is the number of errors it contains. Let's start at the very beginning, with the Preface. The fifth sentence reads "The 26th edition [of the Nestle-Aland Greek Testament] was translated into English as the New International Version of 1973." But the 1973 NIV was not a translation of Nestle 26. The Preface to the New International Version states explicitly, "The Greek text used in translating the New Testament was an eclectic one.... The best current texts [plural!] of the Greek New Testament were used." The NIV translators consulted the 25th edition of Nestle (not the 26th, which was copyrighted 1979), but they didn't translate it; they used it as one reference to create the text which they did translate. And so it continues; three sentences later, we read that "The recent New Revised Standard Version is not the product of a 'Nestle," but is a translation of the 3rd edition of The Greek New Testament of Metzer-Aland fame." But the third edition of the UBS Greek New Testament has (by agreement) the same text as the 26th edition of Nestle. The apparatus (that list of varying readings of manuscripts) is different (GNT cites fewer points of variation but has more manuscripts; Nestle-Aland 26 has more points of variation but fewer manuscripts), but the translated text would be identical.

And on and on it goes. Gipp won't even do modern scholars the honor of spelling their terms right. For example, page 25 lists the Syriac translations: "Pechito" (the German introduction to Nestle spells it "Peschitto"; the English, "Peshito"); "Charkel" (real scholars call it the Harkleian), Palestinian (almost never cited by Nestle), "Philoxenus" (Philoxenian), Sinaitic, Cureton (Curetonian).

Trust me, I could continue. But what's the point? I can only suspect that Gipp is so prejudiced against the work of modern scholarship that he can't bring himself to really study it.

The introduction to the Nestle-Aland volume gives an overview on how to use it. That overview is somewhat sketchy. And it is certainly true that the change from the 25th edition to the 26th was dramatic. (The text was different, and the apparatus of variant readings became much more complete and reliable, although at some cost in clarity. If it weren't for the fact that "Nestle" was popular and the publishers wanted to continue to use the name, it would surely have been called the "Aland" edition.) There was a genuine need for a volume explaining the differences between the early editions (the 13th-25th editions of Nestle are largely the same, even though Kurt Aland rather than Erwin Nestle was editing them from the 1950s) and the recent editions (26th, 27th, 28th, and beyond). But this book simply isn't the right one for the job.… (mehr)