Brooke Foss WestcottCritiques
Auteur de The New Testament in the Original Greek
Critiques
The Canon of the New Testament par Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D.,
New Testament textual criticism is the term used for comparing ancient copies of the New Testament and using them to determine the original text which stood behind all those corrupted copies. (And, yes, they're corrupt; there are thousands of them, and they don't agree.)
Textual criticism has existed since the beginning of printing, and even earlier, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that it became serious and scholars started to look at the earliest manuscripts. Finally, at the end of the nineteenth century, Westcott and Hort sat down and created a theory to explain what they found in the manuscripts -- and used that theory to edit the New Testament.
This is the book that explains their theory, which classified manuscripts as "Neutral," "Alexandrian," "Western," and "Syrian." And although most moderns don't quite accept this theory (they call the "Syrian" text "Byzantine," and combine the "Neutral" and "Alexandrian" texts), the texts they edit are still very much like Westcott and Hort.
A lot about this book is difficult. New Testament scholars now use different symbols for the manuscripts, which must be translated. Hort's examples usually are not real world; they're mostly hypothetical. And the style is rather stiff. But if you don't understand Westcott and Hort, you aren't a modern New Testament textual critic. This book changed everything.
That, of course, assumes it was valuable when it was new. In the case of this book, the answer to that is a sort of a split decision. Brooke Fosse Westcott was a brilliant man -- his role in creating the Westcott & Hort New Testament shows that. But he was also a very busy man (an Anglican bishop and scholar), and there are signs that he produced most of his writings relatively quickly.
That didn't affect his scholarship -- the information in this book is good, reliable, and still useful. But it did affect his style. Westcott's writing is, frankly, stilted -- too wordy and too "Bible English"-y. This book isn't as bad as some of his writings, but it still isn't very pleasant.
So you have to decide what you want. Do you want good, if slightly dated, information? Then this book is for you. Do you want a good read? Then it's not for you -- and there are, after all, plenty of other places to get information on a topic of such widespread interest!
Am just getting around to adding the books on my religious themed shelves at the moment. Many of them were gifts. Don't get the wrong impression of where my head is at.
The majority of the book assumes the evidence for the resurrection; the final appendix provides a more detailed analysis of some of the evidence and why it should be accepted. Instead of focusing on the evidence for the resurrection, the author focuses on what the resurrection means. He shows how the resurrection becomes the pivot-point of history, how it fundamentally reshapes our understanding of our humanity, short- and long-term. He spends time discussing the church as a reflection of the Risen Lord despite all of the divisions within it. The first appendix seeks to demonstrate how the Resurrection is the real answer for which Comte and his positivist philosophy was seeking.
The book is an excellent resource and notable as a witness for defending the resurrection and discussing the implications of the resurrection. The comparisons and contrasts with Greek philosophy are instructive. In it one can see the directions which will be taken by N.T. Wright and others in their more recent discussions of the resurrection and its importance.
Some have shown concern regarding the book in terms of its eschatology; the author does speak of the importance of the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem for understanding the New Testament (a point often missed in his time, as unto this day), yet goes on to affirm the final resurrection of believers on the day of Judgment. To suggest that the author is the precursor to any sort of "70 CE" doctrine which posits a mere spiritual resurrection is to misunderstand the book as a whole.
Of greater concern would be the author's discussion of the history of the church; as an Anglican, he stands between historic Catholicism and Protestantism, and seeks to understand the history of "the church" in terms of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, anticipating many of the arguments and declarations which will mark the ecumenical movement of the 20th century and beyond. The author thankfully recognizes the tragedy of all the divisions within Christianity but would find the "solution" more in ecumenism than any appeal to restoration.
Overall worthy of consideration in terms of the resurrection and its meaning for Christians.
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