I wanted to read David Parkers Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament to better understand the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. I teach textual criticism and insist that my Greek students be able to read and explain the textual footnotes in UBS4. After I finished Parkers 3rd chapter, where he explains the CBGM, or the Munster Method, I still dont understand all the fuss. As Parker himself admits, the Munster Method is simply the application of a new tool (computer databases) to make an old method - Lachmanns stemmas - work properly. The end results, which show up in the final critical text (or Initial Text as Parker prefers), is not going to be that different from what is found in NA27/UBS4. This can be seen in the relatively small number of changes in the NA28 against the NA27 (in the Catholic Epistles). Even the celebrated change to Ιησούς from Κύριος in Jude 5 already had been preferred by many textual critics on the basis of good textual evidence and the principle of lectio difficilior. I honestly think that the Munster Method is not going to be all that its sponsors are excited about. I still think that the guideline of the external evidence of the older/Alexandrian reading supported by internal evidence that the shorter and harder reading is preferred remains a general guide. Metzger always said that these t.c. guidelines are not to be woodenly applied. The Munster Method is an effort to replace subjective decision making with objective data - but I object because doing textual criticism still involves a lot of art. It is not just a scientific method that is determined by the application of “ones and zeroes.” Knowing I will be accused of obscurantism or of being an old guy who doesnt want to change (Ive actually changed a lot in the last decade), I am slow to throw out my copy of Metzger and welcome with open arms Munster and Birmingham as my new guides. My advice is to read Parker and Mink because they are insightful scholars, but dont quickly conclude that they herald the new Age of Enlightenment in textual criticism.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 02:52:16 +0000
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