The First Edition of the New Testament

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating book
Review: In this fascinating book, Professor David Trobisch of the University of Heidelberg details his examination of the early Bible manuscripts, and his conclusion that during the second century A.D., that a group of editors produced a Bible that became the archetype for all subsequent Bibles, though the original "Canonical Edition" has been forgotten. This overturns decades of belief that the New Testament was compiled haphazardly over a long period of time, in different locations, and had to be harmonized at a later date.

Through examinations of the earliest of Bible manuscripts, the author takes you on a fascinating tour of what this Canonical Edition contained, how it was organized, and how it was supposed to be read. I must say that that I found this book to be absolutely fascinating. The author makes a good argument supporting his conclusion, and gives the reader a good idea of what this original Bible must have looked like. My one and only complaint against this book is that the author does not examine who these editors were.

But, that said, this is a great book, a fascinating book that I highly recommend. I also highly recommend David Trobisch's subsequent book, Paul's Letter Collection.

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable scholarship with profound implications
Review: This is a startling book, and well worth a detailed read. If Trobisch is right in his conclusions about an early edition of the New and Old Testament, we have much to investigate in this new light. I was persuaded by his carefully reasoned and extremely well documented arguments. And I find the material intensely exciting. What more can Trobisch point out to us, using only the text of scripture itself as he has done here? I can't wait to see response from the academic community to this excellent and compelling work. Anne Rice, New Orleans, La.

Rating:
Summary: Eye-opening and persuasive!
Review: You don't need to know New Testament Greek to follow Trobisch's arguments. Although an astute reader and clever interpreter of textual evidence, Trobisch spares us the usual myopia and nit picking textual critics like to heap upon their readers. He avoids discussions of authorial authenticity that so easily put many people on the defensive. Instead, he helps the reader appreciate larger redactional issues of how the different components of the New Testament relate to one another. By making comparisons to familiar modern publishing practices, Trobisch makes his arguments easily accessible to the modern reader (for example, he shows how the decisions publishers and editors make and the conventions they establish can affect the final form of the text as much, perhaps, as those of the authors.) There's much here I'll want to re-examine when I've done more reading in this area, but on my first read-through I found Trobisch's thesis exciting and refreshing. This book has certainly changed the way I'll be reading the New Testament from now on.

Trobisch's aim was "to describe the history of the Canonial Edition by analyzing the oldest existing copies and tracing the edition back to the time and place of first publication. With this method, Greek manuscripts became more important witnesses than the lists of canonical writings, quotes from biblical literature, and debates about the authenticity of certain writings, translations, and so on." (p. 37) By doing this, Trobisch is able to draw some interesting conclusions: (1) that the editors of the New Testament took great care in naming the different sections of the Bible, and in doing so validated, rather than minimized, the place of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible, (2) that the sequence of the four Gospels as we have it today is a tradition of long-standing, and one that makes good sense even though it means separating Luke from Acts (his explanation of the role of John 21 in this regard is truly fascinating, p. 96ff), (3) that the "first edition" of the New Testament would have positioned the General Letters after Acts and before the Letters of Paul (the logic being, in part, that the first half of Acts introduces the reader to Peter, John and James, and it is only in the second part that Acts starts to focus on the missionary efforts of Paul), (4) that the editors used an elegant system of internal cross referencing to validate both the authority of the leaders in Jerusalem and of Paul (this seeming harmony serving as a unified barrier against Marcionite error), and (5)that the editors managed to straddle the potentially devisive issue of the date upon which Easter should be celebrated by including both the Synoptic and Johannine traditions. Just to name a few! And don't skip the fascinating discussion of the codex ("bound book") v. the scroll in the establishment of the Canonical Edition of the Bible (p. 69-77).

I must admit the flow of Trobisch's argument was so engrossing that I never really examined the endnotes. But they're there and they're detailed. The bibliography is substantial, too (but be warned, it includes a high percentage of German works).

This book is truly worth the investment (both in money and in the time you'll spend digging into it). Treat yourself!