Book Review: Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, eds. The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts: A Corrected, Enlarged Edition of The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts. Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2001. 607 pp. $44.99 list.

Abstract

"The title of this book recalls the sad tale of its ill-fated earlier incarnation. The initial volume had been published and released by Baker Book House in 1999 following a number of lengthy postponements. Yet that eagerly-anticipated publication was swiftly recalled by Baker due to various severe criticisms, most of which concerned the fact of too many errors within the published transcriptions of the ancient manuscripts--this being a virtual "kiss of death" for a publication of this nature. Baker therefore removed that entire press run from the market, apparently with no intent to publish a corrected edition or even an errata sheet. The editors (Comfort and Barrett, hereafter C/B) therefore began an extensive correction and improvement process regarding both the texts and format of those manuscripts which had appeared in the former edition. In the process they expanded the volume by adding in many newly discovered papyrus fragments. "(pg 1)