Biographies of Textual Critics
Note: This section includes biographies only of critics who worked after
the invention of printing. Editors such as Alcuin who worked during the
manuscript era will be covered in the appropriate place in the history of
their editions.
Contents:
Kurt Aland *
Johann Albrecht Bengel *
Richard Bentley *
John W. Burgon *
A. C. Clark *
Desiderius Erasmus *
Robert Estienne (Stephanus) *
Arthur L. Farstad *
John Fell *
Margaret Dunlop Gibson: see under Agnes Smith Lewis *
Caspar René Gregory *
Bernard Pyne Grenfell *
Johann Jakob Griesbach *
J. Rendel Harris *
Fenton John Anthony Hort *
A. E. Housman *
Arthur Surridge Hunt: see under Bernard Pyne Grenfell *
Karl Lachmann *
Agnes Smith Lewis *
Eberhard Nestle *
Erwin Nestle *
F. H. A. Scrivener *
Johann Salomo Semler *
Stephanus: see Robert Estienne *
Constantine von Tischendorf *
Samuel Prideaux Tregelles *
Hermann Freiherr von Soden *
Brooke Foss Westcott *
Johann Jakob Wettstein *
Francisco Ximénes de Cisneros *
1915-1994. Born in Berlin, and died in Münster/Westphalia.
Perhaps the preeminent critic of the Twentieth Century; certainly one
would be hard-pressed to name a critic with a greater list of
achievements. It is harder to see whether Aland actually affected
the practice of textual criticism.
Aland's publications are too numerous to list; we can only mention
the works most accessible to students. Aland managed the apparatus of
the Nestle-Aland editions starting
with the twenty-first edition, and created the new and much more
comprehensive format used for the twenty-sixth edition. He also
produced the Synopsis Quattuor
Evangeliorum, which is now the most comprehensive Gospel synopsis
in existence. He maintained the list of manuscripts after the death of
Von Dobschütz and Eltester, and eventually released the
Kurzgefasste Liste der Griechischen Handschriften des Neuen
Testaments. With his second wife Barbara, he wrote one of the
standard introductions to New Testament textual criticism. He
established the "Thousand Readings in a Thousand Minuscules"
project which eventually resulted in the volumes of Text und
Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments.
Perhaps even more notable, Aland founded the Institute for New
Testament Textual Research in Münster. This is the only
college in the world devoted solely to NT textual studies. (Though
one might wish it cast a slightly wider net, examining other
textual traditions as well.)
Finally, Aland was one of the five editors responsible for the
United Bible Societies text,
the most widely-used New Testament text of the present period.
For all this, it is surprising to note how little influence
Aland had on textual theory. Eldon Epp wrote two articles on
"the Twentieth Century Interlude in Textual Criticism,"
and while Aland answered by pointing out a great deal of activity,
very much of it work he himself had inspired or guided, he was
unable to answer Epp's point that there had been no real methodological
progress. Despite Aland, our textual theory is remains a matter of
groping -- of "Reasoned Eclecticism" (in which every textual
critic does what is right in his own eyes) and arguments about the
"Cæsareasn" text and in which everyone uses the UBS
text though no one entirely accepts it.
Aland described his own theory as the "local-genealogical
method." As described, this would seem to be an application of
the rule "that reading is best which best explains the others":
Aland creates a stemma of the readings in a particular variant, trying
to determine which one is the source of all the others. In practice,
however, Aland clearly preferred a strongly Alexandrian text. This means
that his description must be modified: He constructed a genealogy
under the influence of the knowledge of text-types and the history
of the text. Now this, in theory, is probably the most correct
method possible. But it only works if the history of the text is
accurately known. Aland did not study this matter in any detail --
he acknowledged only the Alexandrian and Byzantine texts, and had
a Hort-like dislike of the Byzantine text. With these restrictions
on his method, it's hardly surprising that few textual critics
have adopted it.
1687-1752. Born in Winnenden, Württemberg, Germany, and later Abbot of
Alpirsach in that principality. His 1734
edition has been called the first Protestant attempt "to treat the
exegesis of the New Testament critically" -- a reference primarily to
his Gnomon (1742), but also to his New Testament. What the latter actually was was
a minimally revised edition of the Textus Receptus
which had critically chosen readings in the margin. In practice, therefore,
Bengel's importance rests not on his text, nor on his collations, which
Scrivener notes are rather poor, but on the introduction to
his text, his marginalia, and the articles which explained them. Beginning in 1725, Bengel
discussed textual families (distinguishing the Asiatic text, which is our
Byzantine text, and the African text, which is everything else). He also
outlined critical principles, including the highly significant "prefer
the harder reading." These modern principles caused Bengel to propose
more changes to the Textus Receptus than any other edition before
Lachmann's. (Bengel was the first to note how
probable variants were, ranging from
a for a certain
reading on down to e.)
This, unfortunately, led to charges
the the editor was perverting the scriptures (not for the last time!).
1662-1742. Classical and New Testament critic, and a master of many
fields (portions of his correspondence with Sir Isaac Newton are
preserved). Appointed Master
of Trinity College (Cambridge) in 1699/1700 (and previously keeper of
the Royal Libraries), he had already been interested
in textual criticism (both sacred and secular) for some years. In the
secular field, he edited Horace and Terence, discovered that Homer
had used the digamma, exposed the Epistles of Phaleris as forgeries, and generally
improved the tools available to practitioners in the field. In 1720
he published a prospectus for a New Testament edition, including the final chapter
of the Apocalypse as a sample, which included an outline of critical principles.
In this he argued that a text based on early manuscripts would differ from
the Textus Receptus in two thousand instances, and
similarly from the Clementine Vulgate in two thousand instances. In fact Bentley
did little with the manuscripts available to him; his critical apparatus
was disorganized and the notes and collations he left are no better.
(His personal life was much the same; he was constantly involved in
scholarly and personal controversies; he was an intriguer and seemingly
misappropriated university funds. He also was lampooned in Pope's Dunciad, --
happily for Bentley, in book IV, which was not published until after
Bentley's death.)
Still, he recognized that the Textus Receptus
would need significant alteration to agree with the best manuscripts;
he is thus a forerunner of Lachmann.
Bentley's critical rules, too, were radical; some still have
significance today. Sadly, Bentley never completed his edition; he
involved himself in many projects, and perhaps did not originally
realize the amount of work needed to prepare an edition; in any case,
his New Testament finally languished, and the money raised to pay
for it had to be returned to the subscribers after his death.
1813-1888. British conservative critic and Dean of Chichester.
An intemperate defender of the Byzantine text and the
Textus Receptus, remembered primarily
for such polemic works as The Revision Revised and
The Last Twelve Verses of Mark. Although most of the
manuals speak only of the
the uncompromising tone and reactionary zeal of his writings,
Burgon was in fact an enterprising and careful student
of manuscripts; his work in this area deserves to be remembered.
Classical and New Testament scholar. LIke many textual
"freethinkers," Clark came to NT criticism from
work on classical texts -- in this case, the orations of
Cicero, on which he became the world's greatest authority.
When he turned to the New Testament, he turned to the
text of Acts, and tried diligently to stand criticism
on his head. He noted, correctly, individual manuscripts
tend to lose rather than gain text. He generalized this
to mean that the canons of
criticism lectio brevior praeferenda is
false. This position is defensible, and to some extent
the answers to Clark talked past his points. But when
Clark attempted to reconstruct the text of Acts based
on these principles, he perhaps went too far, developing
a general preference for the "Western" text
regardless of other criteria. Few of Clark's results
have been accepted, even though there are probably
useful cautions in his writings.
1469?-1536. Humanist; editor of the first published Greek New Testament.
The son of a
priest, Erasmus had a clerical education and became a monk, but later
was granted a release from his vows. Very much a humourist, works
such as In Praise of Folly poked fun at the problems in the
church. Thus Erasmus was not a Protestant, and did not rebel
against the Catholic Church as Luther did.
Erasmus is, of course, the editor of the Textus
Receptus, as well as the author of assorted religious and
secular writings. His critical skills are often held in contempt --
and it is certainly true that the Textus
Receptus is a poor monument indeed, with a text mostly
Byzantine but with enough peculiar readings to make it a bad representative
of the type. The early editions also contained a number of typographical
errors that was simply astonishing. Still, Erasmus did about as well
as could have been expected in his time; all the materials known to
him (except the Vulgate and 1eap) were Byzantine. Erasmus did exercise a
certain amount of critical judgement, and -- odd as it sounds --
where he departs from the Byzantine text, it is more often than
not in the direction of the early manuscripts.
1503-1559. French (later Genevan) publisher. Stephanus was not
a textual critic as such, but his several editions of the Greek
New Testament offered noteworthy innovations. His most important
work was his third edition (1550). Textually it is just another
Textus Receptus, but in the margin it includes
the readings of over a dozen manuscripts plus the Complutensian
Polyglot (symbolized by Greek numbers; the manuscripts are believed
to have included the uncials Dea, Le and the
minuscules 4e, 5, 6, 7e, 8 (probably),
9 (possibly), 38 (possibly), 82, 120, 398, 2298; also certain seemingly lost manuscripts, e.g.
Tischendorf's 8a/10p, 3r. The
citations were neither complete nor particularly accurate, but
they were at least specific; the manuscripts are cited individually).
His fourth edition of 1551,
published after he went to Geneva and became a Protestant, is
also noteworthy, as it pioneered our modern system of verses.
Stephanus's importance was not confined to publishing a Greek Bible.
He published many scholarly works, including a Vulgate edition and
multiple editions of the Hebrew Bible. He also produced the noteworthy
Thesaurus linhuae latinae (dirst of several editions in 1531),
plus Latin/French dictionaries.
For much of his life, Stephanus had the patronage of François I
of France; his migration to Geneva (1550) was a side effect of that
monarch's death in 1547. François I, incidentally, collected
all of Stephanus's Greek works; from this would eventually grow the
first copyright library.
Printing and scholarship ran in Stephanus family; Robert's brother
Charles (1504-1564) produced an edition of Cicero in 1555, and Robert's
business (separate from Charles's) was continued by the former's sons
Henri (1528-1598) and François (1537-1582), though the sons'
productions were not as noteworthy
as the father's. Still, Henri produced an important Greek dictionary
and various works of classical authors.
A second Robert, who remained Catholic, continued
Charles's firm, though that company was nearly bankrupt by then.
1935-1998. American conservative critic and Majority Text advocate.
Editor, with Zane C. Hodges, of The Greek New Testament
According to the Majority Text. One-time president of
the Majority Text Society. Active in the translation of the
New King James Version.
1625-1686. Classical and New Testament critic. Dean of Christ Church,
Oxford, Bishop of Oxford, and one of the most important figures in the
history of the Oxford University Press. Fell acquired better type and
equipment for the press, internalized the financing (bearing some of
the responsibility himself), and set up a regular schedule for the
publication of classical authors. Fell's contributions to New Testament
criticism are not as great, but still notable; he edited an edition
of Cyprian, and also published a New Testament in 1675. This volume
did not have a noteworthy text (differing only very slightly from
the Elzevir 1633 edition of the Textus Receptus),
but it has, for the time, an unusually full apparatus (though most
of the materials cited were available elsewhere). It also had an
introduction discussing the practice of textual criticism.
Somewhat later, Fell encouraged the work of John Mill, though
Fell's death meant that Mill had to find other support for the
publication of his work. Thus it is truly sad that Fell should be
best remembered for Thomas Browne's doggerel adaption of Martial
which begins "I do not love you, Doctor Fell."
1846-1915
.
American/German student of manuscripts. His first great accomplishment
was his preparation of the prolegomena to
Tischendorf's
eighth edition
(1884-1894).
In 1908 he published his great catalog of manuscripts, Die
griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, providing
for the first time a comprehensive and (usually) orderly arrangement
of the materials known to critics. Like his predecessor Tischendorf,
Gregory sought out and made available large numbers of manuscripts,
though he did not edit an edition.
As a critic Gregory was not particularly original; he generally
accepted the theories of Westcott and Hort. Although of American
ancestry, he adopted Germany as his homeland, and volunteered on
the German side in World War I. He was accepted despite his age,
and killed in battle in 1915.
1870-1926. As an Oxford student, he had been planning to study economics
when the publication of the newly-found copy of Aristotle's Constitution
of Athens turned him to papyriology. He was chosen in 1895 to work
with David George Hogarth on an exploration of the Fayum. Hogarth soon
left to pursue excavations in Mesopotamia instead, and Grenfell was joined
by a young friend, Arthur Surridge Hunt (died 1934). The two worked together for most
of the next thirty years, with most of the interruptions being forced
(e.g. Hunt served in the First World War, and Grenfell was often ill
in his later years). They were not really Bible scholars, being interested
in everything they turned up, but their many discoveries, including
the famous Oxyrhynchus Papyri, had a great deal of effect on Biblical
criticism.
1745-1812. German critic, who exercised great influence in
many Biblical disciplines. He studied at Tübingen, Halle (where
he studied under J. Semler), and Leipzig,
becoming a professor at Jena in 1775. He is considered responsible
for synoptic studies, first using the term "synoptic"
in his Commentarius Criticus in 1811.
But if Griesbach's influence on synoptic studies was great, his
influence on textual criticism is perhaps even more fundamental.
Although it was Semler who introduced
Griesbach to the theory of text-types, Griesbach is largely
responsible for the modern view of types. It was Griesbach who
popularized the names Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Western. He also
paid particular attention to matters not previously studied in
depth -- e.g. patristic quotations and the Armenian version.
Griesbach published a list of fifteen critical canons, which
he exercised with much greater skill than most of those who followed
him (e.g. while he accepted the rule that we should prefer the
shorter reading, he hedged it around with many useful warnings --
not just those about scribal errors, author's style, and nonsense
readings, but also warning of the dangers of omission of non-essential
words such as prepositions). It is probably fair to say that while most
modern critics accept most of Griesbach's rules, they do not apply
them with nearly as much skill. (The standard example of Griesbach's
skill is that he deduced the Vaticanus text of the Lord's Prayer in
Luke 11:2-4 working only from the handful of minuscules and uncials
known to him.)
Griesbach published several editions of the New Testament text
(1775-1777, 1796-1806, 1803-1807). Textually, these did not differ
greatly from the Textus Receptus, because
Griesbach made it a policy only to print readings already printed
by some other editor -- but his extensive margin noted many other
good readings, and (more to the point) he used a system to note
where these readings were as good as or better than those in
the text. This was a fundamental forerunner of the {A}, {B}, {C},
{D} notations found in the
United Bible Societies Editions.
It is safe to say that all more recent critical editions have been
influenced by the work of Griesbach.
1852-1941. British critic and paleographer. Born in Plymouth,
England, he was a life-long Quaker. A graduate of Cambridge, he
taught at several universities before becoming curator of manuscripts
at the John Rylands library (1918-1925). He never produced an
edition, but authored some useful general works (e.g. New
Testament Autographs, 1882) and many journal articles;
he also collated such important manuscripts as 892.
1828-1892. British critic and professor at Cambridge. Arguably the
greatest textual critic of his age. Best known for the
New Testament edition which he
edited with Brooke Foss Westcott.
What made this edition so important, however, was not its
text (though it has been the model for all editions since)
but its Introduction [and] Appendix, which was entirely the
work of Hort. In it, Hort outlined his theory of text-types (which
was adapted from Griesbach and his
predecessors). In the process, Hort is considered to have destroyed
all claims that the Byzantine Majority text is early. This is perhaps
the most important effect of Hort's work; nearly every Greek text
edited since his time has been "Hortian." (For discussion
of his arguments, see the article on the
Byzantine Priority position.)
Hort was also a member of the committee which prepared the English
Revised Version, and most of that edition's departures from the Byzantine
Text were made on the advice of Hort. (The committee's policy was
reportedly to hear the arguments of Hort and Scrivener
and then vote on which reading to adopt.)
1859-1936. British poet and critic, best known to the
public for his poetry. (Only two books of his poetry -- A Shropshire
Lad, 1896, and Last Poems, 1922 -- appeared in his lifetime,
but among recent poets they are second only to Kipling in their
folk/popular sense and second to none in their straightforward
lyricism; this is probably the source of his popularity.)
Housman was, however, a textual critic of note, publishing an
edition of Marcus Manilius (1903-1930) and various essays which
are at once highly influential and, for the most part, readable.
It is perhaps characteristic of Housman (believed by many to
have been a repressed homosexual and certainly a recluse) that
he chose to work on Manilius, an obscure author (of a five-volume
poetic work, "Astronomica") whose works held
little personal appeal to him.
Housman never engaged in New Testament criticism; his beliefs
would probably have caused him to avoid it even had he been invited
to do so. His essays on criticism are, however, widely quoted, both
for their common sense and their (sometimes sarcastic) cleverness.
Despite his brilliance, one must resist the temptation to hold
him in too high an esteem; his warnings against over-reliance on
particular critical principles are valid, but his warnings, e.g.,
against the cult of the "best manuscript" should not
cause us to esteem all manuscripts equally. In addition, he was
perfectly willing to resort to personal insult in scholarly argument (e.g. he
wrote of Elias Stroeber, who published an edition of Manilius, that "[his]
mind, though that is no name to call it by, was one which turned as unswervingly
to the false... as the needle to the pole," and wrote of his edition
that it "saw the light in... Strasbourg, a city still famous for
its geese.") It is also worth
remembering that Housman's work on Manilius involved a degree of
conjectural emendation which
most New Testament critics would consider unacceptable.
1793-1851. German philologist and critic. Trained in classical studies,
Lachmann enunciated the principle that agreement in error implies
identity of origin. Lachmann used this principle to create a stemma for
the manuscripts of Lucretius; his resulting edition is considered a landmark
of classical textual criticism.
From Lucretius, Lachmann turned his attention to the New Testament,
publishing the first edition of the NT to be completely free of the
influence of the Textus Receptus
(1831; second edition 1842-1850). This was, obviously, a great milestone
in the history of the New Testament text, and arguably the most important
single event in New Testament textual criticism. It should be noted,
however, that Lachmann's edition was far from perfect. He undertook
to publish "the" text of the fourth century -- an entity
which demonstrably never existed, and in any case it is not the
original text. Nor did Lachmann use his critical methods on the
New Testament manuscripts; he simply took a handful of early witnesses
and adopted the reading of the majority. The resultant text was
certainly better than the Textus Receptus,
but it was neither consistent nor particularly close to modern
editions.
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible sums up Lachmann's
six textual criteria as follows:
- Nothing is better attested than that in which all authorities agree.
- The agreement has less weight if part of the authorities are silent or
in any way defective.
- The evidence for a reading, when it is that of witnesses of different
regions, is greater than that of witnesses of some particular place,
differing either from negligence or from set purpose.
- The testimonies are to be regarded as doubtfully balanced when witnesses
from widely separated regions stand opposed to others equally wide apart.
- Readings are uncertain which occur habitually in different forms in
different regions.
- Readings are of weak authority which are not universally attested in
the same region.
It will be observed that these are canons of external evidence, to a
large extent anticipating Streeter's theory of local texts. They go far
to explain the peculiarities of Lachmann's edition.
In addition to his works on classical and biblical texts, Lachmann
did a great deal of work on early German writings. In some instances,
his edition remains the standard critical text. (This fact seems not
to get much attention in the annals of textual criticism.)
fl. 1900. Scottish twin sisters who lost their mother before they were
a year old, both women were widowed soon after marriage, and spent the
rest of their lives hunting manuscripts and other scholarly prizes.
Their most important find was surely the Sinai Old Syriac palimpsest, which
they discovered in 1892. But they also brought back to England a number
of Hebrew documents from the Cairo Geniza -- among them the first fragment
of the Hebrew version of Ben Sirach, which was identified by Solomon
Schechter (later famous for his work on the Damascus Document, which also
first surfaces in the Geniza).
1851-1913. German scholar, father of Erwin Nestle.
He published an influential handbook of criticism, as well as a number
of scholarly articles. But he is primarily remembered for his
edition of the New Testament text -- this despite the fact that he
can hardly be said to have "edited" an edition. His work
was entirely mechanical (comparing the editions of Westcott and Hort,
Tischendorf, and a third, originally that of Weymouth, later that of
Weiss); today, it could have been edited by a computer. (For details,
see the article on the The Nestle
Text.) But this accomplishment, trivial as it seems on its face,
was to have important results: As Gregory
observed, the British and Foreign Bible Society was somehow convinced
to adopt the Nestle text in place of the Textus
Receptus. This would have a fundamental effect on translations
into many modern languages, and also make make texts based on ancient
manuscripts more respectable.
1883-1972. German scholar, son of Eberhard Nestle.
Noteworthy primarily for taking and updating his father's "Nestle
Edition." Erwin Nestle deserves the credit for supplying the Nestle
text with a full critical apparatus (beginning with the thirteenth edition);
although the witnesses cited have been increased in the more recent
Nestle-Aland editions, the variants noted are still almost without exception
those listed by Erwin Nestle.
1813-1891. British writer and manuscript editor. A contemporary of
scholars such as Westcott and Hort, Scrivener did not share their
views. Usually portrayed as a supported of the Majority Text, Scrivener's
opinions (as revealed by his great work A Plain Introduction to the Criticism
of the New Testament, fourth edition revised by Edward Miller, 1894)
are in fact much more nuanced. As opposed to scholars such as Burgon
who always preferred the Majority Text, Scrivener revered the older manuscripts
and generally would not accept a reading which did not have early support. Still,
all things being equal, he preferred the Majority reading. As a member of
the committee which prepared the English Revised Version, Scrivener was the
chief spokesman for the Byzantine text, and the normal policy was for readings
to be decided by the committee after Scrivener and Hort stated the case for
each.
Scrivener never compiled a text, but he was, after Tischendorf, perhaps
the greatest publisher of manuscripts of any age. Since Tischendorf did not
see fit to update Scholz's manuscript catalog, Scrivener numbered new
manuscripts as he became aware of them. This system conflicted with the
"old Gregory" numbering, and has been abandoned since the publication
of the "new Gregory" system -- but is still occasionally met with
in publication such as Hoskier's collation of 700 (Scrivener's 604) and
the same author's apparatus of the Apocalypse.
1725-1791. German critic and rationalist. Semler did not publish
an edition (though he produced an edition of Wettstein's Prolegomena,
with some additional material, in 1764), and he did not set forth new principles.
His work was more theoretical, as he was a student of text-types. Starting
with the "African" and "Asian" groups of Bengel,
Semler offered three text-types, "Eastern" (the Byzantine
text, which he associated -- as have many since -- with Lucian),
"Western" (as found primarily in the Latin versions), and
"Alexandrian" (as found in Origen and the Coptic and Ethiopic
versions). Thus Semler is the original source of the Griesbach/Hort
theory of "Western," "Alexandrian," and "Byzantine"
types. It was Semler who brought the word "recensions" into
the context of New Testament criticism (unfortunately bringing a
new, non-classical meaning to the word; in classical criticism,
a recension is the result of deliberate critical work).
1815-1874. In full, Lobegott Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf.
A full biography is simply impossible in the space I'm willing to grant
(and I don't have the materials anyway). Although called a German,
nearly all his active work was done before Germany was united; he
spent his entire career at the University of Leipzig, though of course
he spent much of his professional life travelling to places such as Mount
Sinai. He was born in the town of Lengenfeld in what was then Saxony, the
son of a physician. A top-ranked student at the Plauten Gymnasium, he
was early exposed to Greek and Latin (though the way they taught it caused
Tishchendorf to pronounce Greek with a sort of Hochdeutsch accent which
lated caused him some trouble with Easterners whose pronunciation differed
significantly). His fascination -- inspired
by an article by Lachmann, though the two had very bad relations once
Tischendorf stared publishing -- was with manuscripts; they were the reason for
his globetrotting expeditions, and most of his time at home was devoted
to publishing his finds. Immediately upon graduating from Leipzig University,
while teaching at a Leipzig scholl under the direction of his future
father-in-law, he started work on his first New Testament edition
His work was successful enough to earn him an appointment at Leipzig
University. He also became engaged at this time -- but that didn't stop him
from making his first major expedition; in 1840, he set out for Paris. This
first expedition lasted five years, and had as its chief result his edition
of Codex Ephraemi -- his first great achievement. It was some three years
later that he set out for the east, eventually visiting many monasteries
in Egypt. Near the end of the trip, he ended up at Mount Sinai, where he
made his most famous discovery, the
Codex Sinaiticus. We shold not forget, though, that he found dozens of
other manuscripts, publishing most of the uncials. He also provided
the best information on Codex Vaticanus available to that time.
(It should be noted that his relations with the Papacy were fine; Pope
Gregory XVI even made him a knight of the order of the North Star. He was
denied access only to B, and that seems to have been entirely the
fault of Cardinal Mai.)
Tischendorf published
editions of many different ancient works, such at the LXX
(four editions, 1850-1869) and the
Vulgate, but these frankly were of little interest. (One, indeed,
was adjusted to the Vulgate; even Gregory, who admired Tischendorf
and continued his work, though Tischendorf should not have put his
name on it.) His major work consisted
of his eight editions of the New Testament (the first published in 1840) --
though in fact the first
seven of these were not really critical editions, any more than were his
LXX and vulgate texts; rather, they were collections of manuscript data.
And Gregory describes the fourth as the first with a significant apparatus
and text. The seventh (1859) had a worse text though a fuller apparatus.
Thus it was not until his eighth edition (1865-1872) that he finally put his
lifetime of experience to work. It is sad to note that it was not really
a particularly insightful edition, being based on no theory of the text
and with biases toward certain manuscripts. (For details, see
the relevant entry in the article on
Critical Editions.) By the time it
was completed (or, rather, completed except for the prologue, which was
vitally necessary and which he did not manage to produce), Tischendorf
was rather a sick man; he suffered a stroke
in 1873 and died at the end of 1874, leaving almost no useful papers
behind, leaving it to Gregory to create
one as best he could.
1813-1875. British scholar and editor. Almost entirely
self-taught, Tregelles was the British Tischendorf.
He did not discover as many manuscripts, and he published only one edition,
but he too spent much of his life gathering data; he and Tischendorf
not infrequently compared collations. At the end of his life,
Tregelles prepared his single edition of the text, based exclusively
on the oldest manuscripts. The resultant text is generally similar
to Tischendorf's, but -- due to its more limited critical apparatus --
does not receive much attention today. This is rather unfortunate;
having worked over his text to some extent, I would have to say that
he was a most sensitive and intelligent critic; one wishes he could
have worked with all the matericals now known. But he had no real
access to Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus was Tischendorf's find, and
manuscripts such as 1739 and the Koridethi Codex and the papyri
were still unknown; Tregelles had few materials at his disposal.
In this sense it might honestly
be said that Tregelles's greatest contribution lay in encouraging
the work of Westcott and Hort.
1852-1914.
1825-1901. One of the great scholars of nineteenth century England. He
studied both mathematics and classics at Trinity College, Cambridge (though,
curiously, his mathematical training does not seem to have influenced his
textual studies at all, or at least he did not manage to convey them to
his colleague Fenton John Anthony Hort, who
uses statistics very poorly in his introduction to the
Westcott and Hort edition).
Wstcott became a fellow of Trinity in 1849, was ordained in 1851,
and became an assistant master at Harrow in 1852. He reportedly
was not a good classroom teacher (and this is reflected to some
extent in his voluminous writings, which -- though intelligent
and insightful -- are not particularly enjoyable reading). In 1870 he became
Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and set out to reform
the teaching methods and qualifications for a theology degree. Canon of
Westminster from 1883, he became Bishop of Durham in 1890, and in that
role was instrumental in dealing with the labour problems of the Durham
coal miners.
Despite his extraordinary accomplishments, however, Westcott is
remembered in textual circles for at most two things: his part in
the preparation of the English Revised Version, and (first and
foremost) his collaboration with Hort
to produce their New Testament. The theory behind this edition,
it is generally agreed, was Hort's, and it was Hort who explained
it in the Introduction, but Westcott was not a passive collaborator,
as is shown by the various readings where the two scholars disagreed.
What Westcott might have accomplished as a textual scholar without
his multi-decade collaboration with Hort can hardly be determined
at this time.
1693-1754.
1437-1517. Spanish Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo. The driving
force behind the Complutensian Polyglot, though he was not directly
involved in editing the work and did not live to see it published
(the work was complete at the time of his death, but Papal authorization
was not forthcoming for another three years). He was a great patron of
learning (he founded the university of Alcala), and was confessor to
Queen Isabella and advisor to King Ferdinand; he was briefly regent
after the latter's death. But he also persecuted heretics, and his
determination and that of the Inquisition effectively snuffed out
the revival of learning he has encouraged. He also caused ruined the
settlement between the Christians and Moors of conquered Granada.
The phrase "wise fool" might have been invented for him.