Charlie,
The list of “Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament Textual Criticism” is a careless choice! Of the ten books mentioned, nine are not by scholars as would be recognized in a conservative Bible-believing church (I am not talking King James or TR! – but even modern-version-using churches here at PB). Why would you post this, Charlie, as a resource for those beginning textual studies? Please be more careful – people’s faith in the Bible is at stake.
You’re batting a 100 (and the 10th author I am unsure of also, but can’t find enough info on him or his book).
Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism, By
David Alan Black mentioned in a thread
here. Also a quote on
David Parker in the OP of this thread.
On Bruce Metzger
The Doctrinal Views of Kurt Aland, a detailed examination of Dr. Aland’s textual views.
Eldon J. Epp:
“…every textual critic knows that this similarity of text indicates, rather, that we have made little progress in textual theory since Westcott-Hort; that we simply do not know how to make a definitive determination as to what the best text is; that we do not have a clear picture of the transmission and alternation of the text in the first few centuries; and accordingly, that the Westcott-Hort kind of text has maintained its dominant position largely by default” (Eldon J. Epp, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,”
Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 43, 1974, pp. 390-391).
“We face a crisis over methodology in NT textual criticism. ... Von Soden and B.H. Streeter and a host of others announced and defended their theories of the NT text, but none has stood the tests of criticism or of time. ... [F]ollowing Westcott-Hort but beginning particularly with C.H. Turner (1923ff.), M.-J. Langrange (1935), G.D. Kilpatrick (1943ff.), A.F.J. Klijn (1949), and J.K. Elliot (1972ff.), a new crisis of the criteria became prominent and is very much with us today: a duel between external and internal criteria and the widespread uncertainty as to precisely what kind of compromise ought to or can be worked out between them. The temporary ‘cease-fire’ that most—but certainly not all—textual critics have agreed upon is called a ‘moderate’ or ‘reasoned’ eclecticism ... the literature of the past two or three decades is replete with controversy over the eclectic method, or at least is abundant with evidence of the frustration that accompanies its use...” (Eldon Epp, “Decision Points in New Testament Textual Criticism,”
Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, 1993, pp. 39-41).
“…we no longer think of Westcott-Hort’s ‘Neutral’ text as neutral; we no longer think of their ‘Western’ text as Western or as uniting the textual elements they selected; and, of course, we no longer think so simplistically or so confidently about recovering ‘the New Testament in the Original Greek.’…We remain largely in the dark as to how we might reconstruct the textual history that has left in its wake—in the form of MSS and fragments—numerous pieces of a puzzle that we seem incapable of fitting together. Westcott-Hort, von Soden, and others had sweeping theories (which we have largely rejected) to undergird their critical texts, but we seem now to have no such theories and no plausible sketches of the early history of the text that are widely accepted. What progress, then, have we made? Are we more advanced than our predecessors when, after showing their theories to be unacceptable, we offer no such theories at all to vindicate our accepted text?” (Eldon J. Epp, “A Continuing Interlude in NT Textual Criticism,”
Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, (Eerdman’s, 1993), pp. 114, 115). [from
here]
Bart Ehrman, is known as an apostate from the Faith, an enemy of God (he doesn’t believe He exists) and an enemy of the Scriptures (doesn’t believe they are inspired, legitimate, or of God). Why on earth would you recommend this person’s books?
Info on
Westcott and Hort here.
you're not an idiot!
Your post was essential to save us all from being lead astray. 
