Ernest Cadman Colwell (1901–1974)

I studied this on my own in high school. In college, talking with the advanced Greek teacher about some point, I picked up his Greek NT and began reading a passage. He stopped me, saying I was going too fast. Later I received permission to teach the book for one semester to some students. They came out of the class being able to use Greek better than the students who'd had three years (six semesters). They didn't know every parsing and declension, but they could follow the basic gist. So I recommend this to those who want a good introduction for general (Biblical) Greek usage. And it's also a good introduction for those who will go on to study Greek in more detail. Newer editions might be better.… (plus d'informations)

There were many useful books written about New Testament textual criticism in the twentieth century. There was only one irreplaceable book. And it's this one.

Eldon Epp called the twentieth century an "interlude" in textual criticism, because -- while there were many discoveries and critical editions published -- there were no major theoretical advances. This point has been strongly disputed, but it is essentially true. To take an obvious example, early in the century, B. H. Streeter proposed the "Cæsarean" text. And, in all the years since, no one has been able to prove whether it existed or not -- because no one has produced a mathematically rigorous definition of a text-type! Various scholars say it does or doesn't exist, but their definitions of text-types all boil down to "I know one when I see one."

E. C. Colwell was the lone voice crying in this wilderness, calling out for definitions and rigor. His own work was not particularly rigorous -- it is clear that he didn't have the mathematical and statistical training he needed to accomplish his ends. But he laid out the program. It is a program still largely unfulfilled. But he pointed the way. And most of the articles he wrote for that purpose are collected in this volume.

If ever textual criticism is to get out of its interlude -- and I do not know if it will, because mathematics is still not accepted by most textual critics -- it will be by following the lead of this book.… (plus d'informations)