Table Of ContentSTUDIES AND DOCUMENTS
Founded by Kirsopp and Silva Lake
EDITED BY
IRVING ALAN SPARKS
in collaboration with
J. NEVILLE BIRDSALL ELDON JAY EPP
SEBASTIAN P. BROCK GORDON D. FEE
VOLUME 45
STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS, founded by Kirsopp and Silva Lake, is a monograph
series devoted to basic research in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.
It promotes the publication of primary sources and critical studies that advance the
understanding of the history and transmission of the text of the New Testament.
Although chiefly concerned with palaeography, codicology, and textual criticism,
the series seeks to illumine the way in which Western culture has preserved and
appropriated a major element of its literary legacy. While the series concentrates on
the investigation of the direct and indirect traditions of the text, this primary focus
is interpreted broadly to embrace certain cognate subjects, such as the textual criti
cism of the Septuagint and the pseudepigrapha, as well as the history of linguistic
and theological reflection upon biblical materials.
STUDIES IN THE
THEORY AND METHOD
OF NEW TESTAMENT
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
BY
ELDON JAY EPP and GORDON D. FEE
WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Copyright © 1993 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Reprinted 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PuUication Data
Epp, Eldon Jay.
Studies in the theory and method of New Testament
textual criticism / by Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee.
p. cm. — (Studies and documents ; v. 45)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8028-2773-X
1. Bible. N.T. — Criticism, Textual. I. Fee, Gordon D.
II. Title. III. Series: Studies and documents
(London, England) ; 45.
BS2325.E66 1992
225.4'8 —dc20 93-1224
CIP
To our younger colleagues in the
Society of Biblical Literature
New Testament Textual Criticism Section,
who must represent North America
in carrying the discipline
into the twenty-first century.
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xii
I. GENERAL AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 1
1. Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Fee) 3
2. Decision Points in Past, Present, and Future
New Testament Textual Criticism (Epp) 17
II. DEFINITIONS 45
3. Toward the Clarification of the Term "Textual Variant" (Epp) 47
4. On the Types, Classification, and Presentation
of Textual Variation (Fee) 62
III. CRITIQUE OF CURRENT THEORY AND METHOD 81
5. The Twentieth-Century Interlude in New Testament
Textual Criticism (Epp) 83
6. A Continuing Interlude in New Testament
Textual Criticism? (Epp) 109
7. Rigorous or Reasoned Eclecticism — Which? (Fee) 124
8. The Eclectic Method in New Testament Textual Criticism:
Solution or Symptom? (Epp) 141
9. Modern Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem:
On the Problem of Harmonization in the Gospels (Fee) 174
10. The Majority Text and the Original Text of the
New Testament (Fee) 183
IV. ESTABLISHING TEXTUAL RELATIONSHIPS 209
11. The Claremont Profile Method for Grouping
New Testament Minuscule Manuscripts (Epp) 211
12. Codex Sinaiticus in the Gospel of John: A Contribution
to Methodology in Establishing Textual Relationships (Fee) 221
vii
THE THEORY AND METHOD OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM
V. PAPYRI AND TEXT-CRITICAL METHOD 245
13. Ρ75, Ρ66, and Origen: The Myth of Early Textual
Recension in Alexandria (Fee) 247
14. The Significance of the Papyri for Determining the Nature
of the New Testament Text in the Second Century:
A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission (Epp) 2ΊΛ
VI. METHOD AND USE OF PATRISTIC EVIDENCE 299
15. The Text of John in Origen and Cyril of Alexandria:
A Contribution to Methodology in the Recovery and
Analysis of Patristic Citations (Fee) 301
16. The Text of John in The Jerusalem Bible: A Critique
of the Use of Patristic Citations in New Testament
Textual Criticism (Fee). 335
17. The Use of Greek Patristic Citations in New Testament
Textual Criticism: The State of the Question (Fee) 344
Bibliography 360
Index of Manuscripts, Versions, Editions, and Modern Translations 400
Index of Biblical Passages 402
Index of Ancient Authors 407
Index of Modern Authors 408
Index of Subjects 412
viii
PREFACE
The present volume brings together a variety of studies on the textual criticism of
the NT published or read before learned societies over the past twenty-five years,
which reflect the authors' several areas of special interest, especially theory and
method, the significance of the papyri, and the use of patristic citations. Since these
studies for the most part have continuity with one another, and since some of them
originally appeared in publications not immediately accessible to all scholars, it is
hoped that their appearance in a single volume might be useful to the larger scholarly
community.
It is also hoped that the collection might serve a somewhat broader audience,
for example, as a supplementary text in courses in NT textual criticism, both as
reading additional and complementary to the standard manuals and at the same time
as a kind of hands-on experience with some of the more fundamental issues currently
facing this discipline. Hence, some of the studies are more introductory in nature,
while others trace the history of special aspects of the discipline. These, we hope,
will be of interest to specialist and generalist alike.
Although we agree on much — indeed, these various essays tend to com
plement one another — the perceptive reader will also recognize that there are several
areas in which there is some measure of disagreement. At the least, some of our
emphases tend to go in slightly different directions. That too, we trust, will serve as
good pedagogy for those who are being introduced to this field of study.
We need to say just a few introductory words about the authors and these
various articles. Our common interest in NT textual criticism began at the University
of Southern California in the Spring of 1964, where Professor Fee was at that time
enrolled as a student in a seminar on this subject taught by Professor Epp. A seminar
paper on the corrections of P66 resulted in two publications and eventually evolved
into a Ph.D. dissertation. Shortly after graduation in 1966, the same year in which
Professor Epp's revised dissertation on the theological tendencies in Codex Bezae
in Acts appeared as volume 3 in the SNTS Monograph Series, Professor Fee was
invited to join the "work force" of the IGNTP for the "mopping up" of some of the
patristic materials for the Luke volume. That began a long association as junior
members on that project which continues to this day, now as senior members (Pro
fessor Fee currently serves as chair of the North American Committee of the IGNTP,
looking toward the publication of John). There have been other associations in this
field as well: as members of the steering committee of the NT Textual Criticism
ix
