Text and Authority

Since 1975, pastors and teachers have had a single, unchanged Greek text to serve as the basis for their work. The 3rd corrected edition of the United Bible Societies text, published in that year, was matched by the 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland text in 1979. Since then, the textual apparatuses of both editions have been updated, but the texts have remained unchanged. This has given a false sense of security to users of the Greek New Testament, as if the work of textual criticism has been completed and we have attained the original text. New Testament textual criticism has again reached a breaking point. New manuscript discoveries, further and refined study of the patristic material, more precise study of the early translations, and quantum leaps forward in methodology have all led to a breaking point: A new edition of the standard text of the Greek New Testament is in the process of being produced -- and is indeed partly already available. The text that those in this room have been using for most of, if not all, of our professional lives is being changed. This will impact not only the texts that we preach and teach and comment upon, but may well impact our ways of understanding and describing the nature and authority of the biblical text. For if the text is being changed, what does that say about its origins, about its inspiration, about the certitude that we invest in these texts? - p. 1.