This book is an edited version of the author’s full notes for the Hayward Lectures, given in 2008 at Acadia Divinity School, Nova Scotia. Porter addresses three areas in three large chapters, as indicated in the subtitle of the book.

In chapter one (‘The text of the New Testament’), Porter assesses recent calls to replace the traditional focus of NT textual criticism—recovering the original text—and considers matters such as a history of how the text was copied. He also provides a useful coverage of the history of the printed text of the Greek NT. In this chapter Porter discusses the ‘unwarranted sensationalism’ of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2007), as well as his misleading conclusions derived from supposed theological motivation as a motive for the variants that occur in the manuscripts (see The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture [Oxford: OUP, 1993]). It is to be hoped that Porter soon tackles the issues raised and conclusions drawn by Ehrman in his recent book on pseudonymity in early Christianity including the NT (Forged: Writing in the Name of God [New York: HarperOne, 2011]. Although not spelled out in detail, Porter also calls for the focus of editions of the Greek NT to be on individual manuscripts, not the eclectic search for the original reading at every point, although how this would be achieved (and what the aim of this would be) is not entirely clear to me.

The second chapter reviews how the NT was passed on, from earliest times to the publication of ‘the major codexes’ and beyond, including the formation of the NT canon. Porter adds his own proposals regarding how all the various kinds of manuscripts which testify to the text of the Greek NT might be better classified and play their proper role in the task of tracing its transmission.

The third chapter deals with the translation of the NT, a subject not often linked so closely with the other two. Porter shows how the early versions and later translations have a part to play in relation to the previous two topics, as well as offering a description and assessment of the theories and practices involved in translating the NT. All of this is set in the framework of current (especially English) translations of the NT. In the conclusion to the book Porter summarises the ground covered and reiterates some of his proposals in relation to the three topics discussed in the main chapters.

As hinted above, there are a few questions left for the reader. Perhaps the critique of Ehrman’s Orthodox Corruption of Scripture could have included the issue of whether the copyist of a manuscript was responsible for a variant or encountered it in his exemplar and just reproduced it. If this is unknown (as it mostly is), how can the supposed motivation of the copyist be related to a debate current when it was written, if we don’t know when it was introduced? The variant might have originated much earlier.

The notion of an edition of the Greek NT based on actual manuscripts sounds like a return to facts, rather than our concocted editions based on all known manuscripts but having no actual reality in antiquity, so far as we know. However, it is not clear to me what would be involved, nor does the idea commend itself. All ancient texts have varieties of manuscript attestation, and Porter rightly agrees that our aim should be to recover the ‘original’ as closely as possible. Perhaps it is my lack of understanding, but I don’t see how an edition comprised of actual manuscripts is a better option than one based on all known manuscripts. However, Porter may be able to expand on this in future publications.

One feature of the discussions of some areas in Porter’s book, and in much of the literature referred to, is how authors often strongly advocate points of view, despite admitting that the available evidence is slight and the issues quite complex. I wonder if more light might be shed on such topics if we sat a little loose to conclusions that are based on scanty evidence, and acknowledged that while one point of view might be the most likely one, it would be unwise to be too confident about the conclusions drawn because we know so little about the whole area. Such methodological questions might be dealt with in relation to such complex issues as those treated in this book, and in relation to issues like the Synoptic Problem.

As we would expect, Porter’s description and analysis is accompanied by fairly full references. His descriptive sections are clear, and the proposals regarding all three areas are stimulating. I found the book to be a good guide through the maze of sometimes-complex areas including text critical methodologies, and Porter’s expertise in papyrology and linguistics (at least) is evident in his grasp of the issues, description of others’ views, and assessment of a whole range of suggestions in various areas. I would heartily recommend this book to specialists and non-specialists alike, as they ponder the issues surrounding “how we got [and get!] the New Testament.”

---