135 Years Ago Today

Today marks the 135th anniversary of the publication of Westcott and Hort’s momentous edition The New Testament in the Original Greek. The date was May 12, 1881 (see FB discussion here). Later in the same year they would publish their introduction and appendix justifying and explaining their text critical method.

Though certainly dependent on the work of many pioneers before them, it was especially the clarity and power of the argument in their introduction that established Westcott and Hort’s work as not only the high water mark of 19th century NT textual criticism, but, in many ways, the tipping point for the textus receptus. In 1904 the British and Foreign Bible Society would stop publishing the textus receptus and, even before Westcott and Hort went to press, their edited text was being used by the translators of the Revised Version, itself published just days later. Since then, most English translations of the New Testament have followed an eclectic Greek text.

Today, our critical editions typically vary less from the text of Westcott and Hort than they do from the textus receptus. To some, this might suggest that we have made little progress. From another perspective it is a testament to Westcott and Hort’s skill. As Gordon Fee has said, “If all of this means that we still appear to be crossing the Atlantic in an 1881 ship, it may be that they built them better in those days.”*

In all, their work on their Greek New Testament took 28 years. Initially they were much more optimistic about the time such an edition would take. On April 19, 1853 Hort wrote to tell Westcott that the publisher, Macmillan, had agreed to print their edition. Here’s part of that letter:

I promised to let you know Macmillan’s answer about the Greek Testament. It has been slow in coming, but is quite favorable. He fully approves of the plan, but leaves all to our own discretion, saying that they will be delighted to “do their part, that is to say, to take all risk and publish, and push.” Besides describing our plan, I told him of my own schemes of examining and restoring (if possible) the texts of the several versions (beside the Peshito, in which we both hoped to effect something), so soon as I should have learned the languages sufficiently: and likewise my intention to go through such of the earlier Fathers as have been examined but cursorily: and likewise to see whether anything can be gleaned from the Latin or cursive Greek MSS at Cambridge. I told him at the same time that these were schemes which might very probably not be realized; and indeed several times urged that there must be no definite agreement, as we might wish to desist for various reasons; I referred in particular to the change in the Greek Professorship which (if Thompson were elected) might cause a good text to be published by authority, and to swamp our edition. He says that no text is published by the Pitt Press [= Cambridge University Press] under the Greek Professor’s authority; but that the Pitt Press merely reprints Lloyd, and Scholefield published a text of his own. He adds that, if I carry out my scheme, our book will be worth publishing, whatever any one else may do. He likewise want to know whether a MS of Photius on St Paul’s Epistles, which Hardwick quotes in a note to his Church History, would be of any use to you. If I were at Cambridge, I would examine it myself, and probably shall do so when I get there. But meanwhile I must tell him that the chances are very small—certainly not enough to make it worth your while to get a Grace of the Senate. He reports that Lightfoot is very much pleased with the proposal to him, and will evidently do the Lexicon and Grammar, though he has not formally undertaken them: he insists on the utmost silence till the books are ready: and Macmillan promises us the same in the strongest terms.

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*Gordon Fee, “The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria,” in Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 273.