Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
Explore the pivotal role of documentary evidence in New Testament Textual Criticism. Understand how discoveries like Papyrus 𝔓75 and Codex Vaticanus have reshaped our understanding of the textual transmission and authenticity of early Christian writings. Dive into the debates and methodologies that define the field, highlighting the contributions of scholars like Westcott and Hort in assessing the Alexandrian and Western text-types.
Textual criticism of the New Testament is the identification of textual variants. or different versions of the New Testament, whose goals include identification of transcription errors, analysis of versions, and attempts to reconstruct the original text.
The chief characteristic of Western readings is fondness for paraphrase. Words, clauses, and even whole sentences are freely changed, omitted, or inserted. Sometimes the motive appears to have been harmonization, while at other times it was the enrichment of the narrative by the inclusion of traditional or apocryphal material. (Bruce M. Metzger)
