Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior:An Evaluation

Abstract

"I'd like to begin by saying how honored I am to be a part of this event. Everyone here knows the extensive and enduring contributions that Professor Barbara Aland and her late husband, Professor Kurt Aland, have made to the field of textual criticism--in their publications, both individually and together, and in their work through the Institute for Textual Research in Münster. We are highly privileged to have her here with us today, along with her colleague, Klaus Wachtel, who has himself made major contributions to the ongoing work of the Institute. The work of these two scholars, together with their other colleague Gerd Mink, has now culminated in the publication of the first of four installments in the first of five projected volumes of the Novum Testamentum Graece Editio Critica Maior. 2. As indicated in the preface to the work, the project was conceived in the mid-60s, as announced in 1969 in an article by Kurt Aland in New Testament Studies. Now after three decades of work establishing methods, devising computer programs, revising concepts, employing collators--and, generally, engaging in unspeakable quantities of detailed and painstaking analysis--the Institute has provided for us the first-fruits of their labor, the 102-page fascicle on James, with its 39-page supplement. 3. As I understand it, and as I'm sure Prof. Aland and her colleagues will be glad to affirm, we will not be waiting another thirty years for fascicle two. Indeed, the lion's share of the work has been completed on the Catholic epistles and a good start has been made on the complicated tradition of the book of Acts."(pg 1)