Review of Collins, Apocalypticism as a Worldview

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John J. Collins, Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2026)

The goal of this work is to provide an overview of the apocalyptic worldview of ancient Judaism gleaned from early Jewish apocalypses such as Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. To accomplish this end, Collins divides his work into six chapters with an introduction, an epilogue, an acknowledgment, a bibliography, and three appendices.  

In the introduction (“Critical Issues in the Contemporary Debate,” 1–5), Collins introduces the volume, setting out his above-mentioned purpose and the ancient sources he uses to achieve it. Chapter 1 (“Genres, Constellations, and Worldviews,” 6–28) relates the history of the study of apocalyptic literature as an academic discipline; discusses the definition of an “apocalypse,” which Collins defines as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated  by an otherworldly being  to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (12);[1] and introduces the concept of worldview, which relates to epistemological assumptions about the world, including space, time, and human existence and has implications for “human values and conduct” (25). 

In chapter 2 (“Changing Views of History,” 29–51), Collins explores a distinctive feature of the apocalyptic literature, which undergirds the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: long reviews of history, often the rise and fall historical empires, that tend to be presented as prophecy already fulfilled with an unfulfilled pending act of God in the near future, which will bring about some kind of restoration. This end, however, is not final and one of the notable elements of apocalyptic eschatology is the desire for “another kind of life” not “subject to death and decay” that is “beyond human experience” (51).   

Chapter 3 (“Mythic Frameworks,” 52–74) examines the myths and symbols, often of superhuman evil in the world, in the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview that are drawn from other cultures around Second Temple Jews. For apocalypticists, the world is under the control of malign non-human forces and these myths and symbols help to communicate that. 

In chapter 4 (“The Open Heaven,” 75–98), Collins discusses one of the main concerns of the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: the current cosmic context in which humans live and the desire for God’s people to be transformed in the near future and to live in his presence everlastingly. Much of this cosmic context remains hidden from humans and consists of a cosmic war with angels and demons, good and evil. 

Chapter 5 (“The Pursuit of the Millennium,” 99–116) looks at two concerns of the present world in the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: the fact that the locus of many apocalyptic visions is some kind of distress and that the ultimate hope for this world is its transformation.

In chapter 6 (“Apocalyptic Literature Transmitted by Christians,” 117–32), Collins reviews apocalyptic literature that Slavonic, Syrian, and Ethiopic Christians transmitted but probably did not compose, 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, for example, which revolutionized our understanding of ancient Judaism and its theological diversity. 

The epilogue (Epilogue: “The Legacy of Apocalypticism,” 133–37) explores the legacy of apocalypticism in the modern West in two areas: in fundamentalism and in secularism. Collins observes that “fundamentalist Christians continue to expect that the prophecies of Daniel and especially of Revelation will be fulfilled in the near future” (133). In the process, he discusses postmillennialism, which was prominent in the 18th century, and premillennialism, which arose in the late 19th and early 20th century, in the United States. On the other hand, secular apocalypticism, which goes back to the 18th century, is the belief that there is the end of the world is imminent and cataclysmic, but it rejects a belief in angels and demons. 

The final portions of Apocalypticism contains an “Acknowledgements” (139–40), a “Bibliography” (141–68), and three indices: “Index of Authors” (169–74), “Index of Subjects” (175–76), and “Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources” (177–82). 

This work is pure John J. Collins and thus it is excellent. Apocalypticism is clear, concise, and well informed (especially among non-English speaking scholarship). For this reason, this volume is and probably will remain definitive. One particular strength, which is also found in all of Collins’s voluminous scholarship, is that he takes nothing-for-granted in his discussions. Rather, he always begins with the basics of any argument or thesis and from those basics, he makes his well-reasoned and thoughtful arguments. Consequently, I encourage everyone to pick up their copy from Eerdmans!  

I am grateful to Eerdmans for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it. 

[1] Collins derives this definition from his work, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979): 9.

Collins and Nate The Rule of the Association and Related Texts Review

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John J. Collins and James Nati, The Rule of the Association and Relates Texts, The Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)

The goal of this volume is to provide a line-by-line commentary on the Rule of the Association and other similar texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls to non-specialists, which includes an introduction to each work, the original Hebrew text with a fresh English translation of the texts in question, and a discussion of textual notes. In Rule, Collins has written the commentary on 1QS (“The Rule of the Association”), 1QSa (“The Rule of the Congregation”), and 1QSb (“The Scroll of Blessings”) with input from Nati and Nati has written the commentary on 1Q29a, 4QSa (4Q255), 4QSb (4Q256), 4QSc (4Q257), 4QSd (4Q258), 4QSe (4Q259 & 4Q319), 4QSf(4Q260), 4QSg (4Q261), 4QSh (4Q262), 4QSi (4Q263), 4QSj (4Q264), 5Q11, and 11Q29Sb with input from Collins.

For the most part, Collins and Nati structure their commentary as follows: an introduction of the text in question, a discussion of the manuscript on which the text has been written, a bibliography, and important historical and theological facets related to the work. For example, Collins’s commentary on the Rule of the Association, which is the longest in the volume, discusses: the development of the Rule of the Association; the sectarian nature of the association reflected in it; the history of the association; the identity of the group who produced the Rule of the Association, probably the Essenes; the dualism reflected in the Rule of the Association; its new covenantal context; the different degrees of holiness of the members of the association; the higher revelation on which the association based its interpretation of Scripture (the Christian Old Testament); and the nature of the Rule of the Association.  

The collaboration between a well-seasoned and experienced scholar like Collins with a more junior scholar like Nati has produced a well-written, well-researched excellent volume that achieves all its stated goals, bravo Collins, Nati, and Oxford! Moreover, in my opinion, it is a testament to the type of commentary that publishers should produce in the future, those written in collaboration between older and younger scholars, not in isolation. Like most commentaries, this is not a book that most would sit down and read cover-to-cover. Rather, it is a reference work that one, especially non-specialists in the Dead Sea Scrolls, would consult when studying the Rule texts themselves. If you can afford it, I highly recommend making this book part of your library, which you can do so by buying directly from Oxford! 

I am grateful for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it.

Gorman Paul and John in Harmony

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Michael J. Gorman, Paul and John in Harmony: A Theological and Historical Exploration (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2026)

The goal of this book, which began as a series of lectures at the Lanier Theological Library, is to explore theological aspects of Christology and discipleship in St. John’s Gospel and 1 John that are in harmony with the undisputed Pauline letters (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon) and to begin the historical task of reevaluating the relationship between St. John and St. Paul.

Gorman has structured this book in six chapters, a brief epilogue, a bibliography, and three indices: one of subjects, another of modern authors, and one of Scripture.  

In the first chapter (“Why This? Why Now?,” 1–16), Gorman lays out the objective for this book and places his volume within the scholarly conversation, especially concerning the relationship of St. John to St. Paul. 

Chapter 2 (“Paul, John, and Jesus: Christology, and Its Implications for Discipleship” 17–60) explores the significant and similar linguistic, structural, and theological of Philippians 2:6–11 and John 13:1–20: both contain “a two-dimensional story of Christology/soteriology . . . and of participatory discipleship, or spirituality . . .”; both are stories “about God, about incarnation, and about divine self-revelation”; both are stories “of Christ’s divine vulnerability, humility, downward mobility, and self-enslavement followed by exaltation”; both are stories “of self-giving love”; and both are paradoxical in that they feature “Christ’s free choice and obedience.” 

In chapter three (Paul, John, and Participation in Christ: Spirituality, and Its Roots in Christology I: Overview,” 61–86), Gorman examines the similar locative and residential rhetoric in St. John’s Gospel and the Pauline letters, namely that Christians reside in Jesus and in God. Thus, he looks at the Greek verbs menō, “to remain,” and oikeō, “dwell,” and the prepositions en, “in,” and meta, “with,” in St. John’s Gospel and 1 John as well as the prepositions en, “in,” and syn, “with,” the latter of which is often found attached to certain verbs in St. Paul’s letters. 

Chapter 4 (“Paul, John, and Participation in Christ: Spirituality, and Its Roots in Christology II: Four Common Aspects of Their Locative Language,” 87–128) takes the observations from the previous chapter and considers the locative and residential rhetoric of St. John and St. Paul more in depth. He argues that the use of such rhetoric by both authors is mutual, identity-defining, Trinitarian, active, and transformative. In particular, the mutual and intimate indwelling that St. John and St. Paul discuss “permits believers to share in” the divine identity of God and to be transformed into the image of the Messiah, which is to become more like God (126). Since God the Father and Son are “on the move, this Godlike Christlikeness is inherently and inevitably missional in character, enabled by the Spirit of the Son and the Father” (126). Nevertheless, there are differences in St. John’s and St. Paul’s locative and residential rhetoric. The former does not talk about the body of the Messiah as St. Paul does, St. John does not speak of being “in the Messiah,” and St. Paul rarely notes that Christians are “in Jesus.” The reason for these differences is that St. John’s Gospel “reflects a time when Jesus was doing his earthly ministry,” while St. Paul was focused on the risen Messiah and Lord (126).  

In chapter 5 (“Prequels and Sequels,” 129–56), Gorman investigates the “prequels” and “sequels” to the Gospel of St. John and the letters of Paul noting that both corpora highlight that the Father sends the Son and the Spirit, that one must believe in Jesus, be in him, and dwell in him, and that both underscore God’s life-giving salvific activity. All these observations serve as the foundation for Gorman’s last chapter and suggestion about the relationship between St. John’s Gospel and St. Paul.  

Chapter 6 (“Similarities and Sources,” 157–80) reviews the genetic question about which New Testament author influenced whom, observing the three ways that scholars have answered this question: (1) each author wrote independent of each other and drew on common sources; (2) St. Paul influenced St. John’s writings, either through his own writings or the tradition associated with him (which is the commonest view) or St. John and his writings influenced St. Paul; and (3) St. Paul’s traditions and writings and Johannine tradition and writings influenced each other. Gorman offers a new proposal: St. John influenced St. Paul. The main reason is that “it makes more sense to think of Paul as translating Johannine narratives and metaphors into new idioms for new situations . . . than it does to think of the author of John taking Pauline words, phrases, metaphors, and narratives and placing them on the lips of Jesus and in his own hands as the Gospel narrator” (167). He provides two ways in which this happened: (1) the soft version: either St. Paul knew of Johannine traditions or an early version of St. John’s Gospel or (2) the hard version: St. Paul knew of St. John’s Gospel “more or less as we have it” (168). Gorman points out that the soft version is not as controversial because even Raymond Brown concluded that some Johannine traditions date between AD 40 and 60. The hard version, however, is contrary to almost all historical-critical scholarship on St. John’s Gospel, that its final form dates to the mid AD 90s. 

Nevertheless, Gorman gives eight reasons to support his proposal. The first is that provided St. Paul knew of John 13–17, with what other parts of John was he familiar? He suggests that it is likely the apostle knew the Gospel was a whole, save for John 21. The second is that an early date for St. John’s Gospel is not out of the realm of possibility because hard evidence for a post AD-70 date is lacking. The third reason is that there is no reason why St. John’s Christology postdates St. Paul’s. The fourth is that St. John’s Gospel may have been composed in the AD 40s. The fifth reason is that if St. John knew and used St. Mark’s Gospel and possibly also St. Matthew’s, then all three Synoptic Gospels possibly date before AD 50. The sixth is that this dating of the Gospels explains several aspects of Pauline theology such as the similarities between St. Paul and St. John, St. Paul’s similarity to St. Mark’s understanding of the cross and discipleship, and St. Paul’s citations of St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s Gospels [what citations he does not provide]. The seventh reason is that St. Paul’s use of St. John’s Gospel resembles how the author of 1 John uses St. John’s Gospel, too. And, the eighth reason is that St. Paul probably gained access to St. John’s Gospel as it circulated among early Christians. 

Finally, in the last chapter (“A Brief Epilogue,” 181–82), Gorman provides a short summary of Paul and John in Harmony. 

This work is quintessential Gorman: well-written, easy to read, descriptive, precise, filled with summaries of his arguments, and thought provoking. I have noted the similarities between Philippians 2:6–11 and John 13 for years in my own study and preaching and Gorman has convinced me that there is a relationship between St. Paul and St. John’s Gospel. What is more, for the past few years, especially since I read Jonathan Bernier’s Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament (2022) (which I review here); J. A. T. Robinson,Redating the New Testament (1976), and Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus (2016), I now question the entire scholarly edifice on which the reconstruction of early Christianity is based, especially the dates of the New Testament works (I am in the data collection process of a new introduction to the New Testament that re-examines the dates of the twenty-seven canonical works). Therefore, I welcome Gorman’s new proposal that the best explanation for the similarities between St. Paul and St. John that the former knew and read the latter’s Gospel (save for John 21): Bravo! 

In sum, this is an excellent and important read and I encourage you to get your copy of Paul and John in Harmony today directly from Baker Academic! 

I am grateful for the gratis copy of this book, which in no way influenced by review of it. 

Review of C. S. Lewis Letters on Living the Faith

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C. S. Lewis, Letters on Living the Faith, ed. David C. Downing (New York: HarperOne, 2026)

The unstated goal of this work that David C. Downing has edited is to provide the reader with a sampling of advice via responses to theological questions that C. S. Lewis’s letter-correspondents put to him from the years 1941 to 1963. In the process, Downing structures the volume as follows: an introduction on Lewis as a mentor via letters (“C. S. Lewis as A Mentor by Mail,” ix–xiii), Lewis’s responses grouped into twelve topics (see below), and two small chapters, one about Lewis (“About C. S. Lewis,” 235) and another about Downing (“About the Editor at Large,” 237–38). 

In the introduction, Downing notes that the number of Lewis’s surviving private letters span three volumes and 3,500 pages and include letters to friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers who admired Lewis and asked him for advice. He has culled through them and grouped this advice around the following twelve topics:

  • “On Prayer” (1–12)
  • “Meditations on Love” (13–24)
  • “Letters to Spiritual Seekers” (25–60)
  • “On Christian Formation” (61–78)
  • “Putting Faith into Practice” (79–120)
  • “Questions About Christian Theology and Morality” (121–58)
  • “Questions about the Bible” (159–74)
  • “Psychology and Spirituality” (175–84)
  • “Letters to Roman Catholics and About Catholic Doctrines” (185–200)
  • “Confessions About His Own Struggles” (201–12)
  • “Questions about Narnia” (213–18)
  • “On Sorrow and Death, Consolation and Courage” (219–34) 

To give the reader an idea of each section, I will quote from one (sometimes more than one) or part of one of Lewis’s bits of advice for each topic. In response to the advantages of liturgical prayer, Lewis said, “The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty: we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it—it might be phony or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible” (7)

In a letter to Lewis’s brother about loving one’s enemies, he noted that “I pray every night for the people I am most tempted to hate or despise (the present list is Stalin, Hitler Mussolini . . .)” (15). 

To a woman who had recently become a Christian, which pushes back against the heightened emotionalism of some strains of Christianity, Lewis adviced that she does not “count on any remarkable sensations, either at this or your first (or fifty-first) Communion. God gives these or not as He pleases. Their presence does not prove that things are especially well, nor their absence that things are wrong. The intention, the obedience, is what matters” (32–33). 

To one correspondent, Lewis observed the following paradox that is at the heart of the Christian faith: “the whole point is that you can keep forever only what you give up” (64). 

In response to the state of the world in December 1946 and the proliferation of news stories about it, which still applies to our world today, especially to social media, Lewis said, “It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know)” (86). 

Lewis evidently abominated the commercial aspects of Christmas, confessing “Christmas cards in general and the whole vast commercial drive called ‘Xmas’ are one of my pet abominations: I wish they could die away and leave the Christian feast unentangled. Not of course that even secular festivities are, on their own level, an evil: but the labored and organized jollity of this—the spurious childlikeness—the half-hearted and sometimes rather profane attempts to keep up some superficial connection with the Nativity—are disgusting” (86–87). 

There seems to be nothing on which Lewis would not comment, for he noted in one letter the following about masturbation: “For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides” (110). 

Lewis noted the following about seeing the nature through the lens of the supernatural: “You don’t see Nature till you believe in the Supernatural: don’t get the full, hot, salty tang of her except by contrast with the pure water from beyond the world” (129). 

Concerning the Inspiration of Scripture, Lewis wrote: “I myself think of [Inspiration] as analogous to the Incarnation—that, as in Christ a human soul-and-body are taken up and made the vehicle of Deity, so in Scripture, a mass of human legend, history, moral teaching etc. are taken up and made the vehicle of God’s Word” (167). 

Concerning the constancy of faith despite one’s feelings, Lewis observed, “It is a great joy to be able to ‘feel’ God’s love as a reality, and one must give thanks for it and use it. But you must be prepared for the feeling dying away again, for feelings are by nature impermanent. The great thing is to continue to believe when the feeling is absent: and these periods do quite as much for one as those when the feeling is present” (183–84). 

In response to a question why Lewis was not a Roman Catholic, he said: “The whole setup of modern Romanism [with its dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary, papalism, and Transubstantiation] seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claim: though this does not mean rejecting particular things they say” (188).

Lewis was transparent about the difficulty in believing in an afterlife, noting that it was also difficult not to believe in it: “Yes, people do find it hard to keep on feeling as if you believed in the next life: but then it is just as hard to keep on feeling as if you believed you were going to be nothing after death. I know this because in the old days before I was a Christian I used to try” (210).

To a mother who was concerned that her child loved Aslan more than Jesus, Lewis advised her to have her son pray the following prayer: “Dear God, if the things I’ve been thinking and feeling about those books are things You don’t like and are bad for me, please take way those feelings and thoughts. But if they are not bad, then please stop me from worrying about them” (216). 

In response to his being awakened from a coma close to the time of his death in 1963, Lewis said, “I was unexpectedly revived from a long coma . . . but it would have been a luxuriously easy passage and one almost . . . regrets having the door shut in one’s face. Ought we to honor Lazarus rather than Stephen as the protomartyr?” (233–340. 

This work is compact, unique, enjoyable, and reads as if it were almost like you were sitting down with Lewis and asking him the questions that you always wanted him to answer. It was a delight to read and I encourage you to pick up your copy from HarperOne today! 

I am grateful for my gratis copy of this work from HarperOne, which in no way influenced my reading of it.

Review of Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

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The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible, eds. Sidnie White Crawford and Tommy Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025)

The goal of this volume is to give an overview of textual criticism of the Bible, both in the Hebrew, Old Testament and Greek, New Testament. In the process, the editors, Sidnie White Crawford and Tommy Wasserman, have divided this work into three parts. The first (“Part I Overarching Issues”) contains six chapters devoted to aspects of overarching issues related to the Jewish and Christian canons, various presuppositions, methods, and goals of textual criticism, the relationship between textual criticism and literary criticism, and advances in textual criticism from newer fields of study. The second part (“Part II The Hebrew Bible and the Deuterocanon”) consists of fifteen contributions that explore textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, especially in light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The third (“Part III The New Testament) contains seventeen essays that investigate the field of New Testament textual criticism. 

Part I consists of chapters 1–6, the first two of which (“The Formation of the Jewish Canon,” 19–32 by James C. VanderKam and “The Formation of the Christian Canon,” 33–54 by John D. Meade) examine the canonization of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, and the New Testament. In the third contribution (“Philosophies of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 55–69), Ronald Hendel explores the philosophical presuppositions of textual critics of the Hebrew Bible. The fourth essay (“Beyond ‘Textual’ and ‘Literary’ Criticism: A New Paradigm for the Study of Textual History,” 70–87 by Molly M. Zahn) argues against the past categorization of textual criticism as a “lower” form of criticism against literary criticism, which was deemed the “higher” form of it, concluding that one should consider all textual variants as part of a text’s composition history. In chapter 5 (“Philosophies of Textual Criticisms for the New Testament,” 88–107), Michael W. Holmes discusses the various approaches to the editing of ancient works with an eye to the New Testament. Part I’s sixth and final contribution (“Book History, New/Material Philology, and Paratextual Criticism,” 108–27 by David Davage and Liv Ingeborg Lied) focuses on why scholars must engage with manuscripts and early printed books.  

Part II is made up of chapters 7–21, which focus on the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament. In chapter 7 (“The History of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century,” 131–46), Eugene Ulrich and Sidnie White Crawford provide a history of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament textual criticism. Chapter 8 (“The Earliest Texts of the Hebrew Bible,” 147–68 by Emanuel Tov) explores whether one can recover the earliest texts of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament books. In the ninth essay (“The Masoretic Text and Its Value for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 169–90), Armin Lange investigates the Masoretic Text’s history from antiquity to today. Chapter 10 (“The Significance of the Septuagint in the Textual Study of the Hebrew Bible,” 191–212 by Anneli Aejmelaeus) discusses the oldest extant witness to the text of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek Septuagint. In the eleventh essay (“The Samaritan Pentateuch and Its Value for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 213–23), Hila Dayfani introduces the Samaritan Pentateuch. Chapter 12 (“The Syriac Peshitta and Its Value for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 224–35 by Bradley J. Marsh Jr.) explores the Syriac Peshitta, which dates to the second to early third centuries AD. In the thirteenth contribution (“The Latin Versions and Their Value for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 236–49), Andrés Piquer Otero and Pablo A. Torijano introduce the Latin versions of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, the Vetus Latina and St. Jerome’s Vulgate. Chapter 14 (“The Targumim and Their Value for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 250–73 by Leeor Gottlieb) presents the Targumim or the Jewish Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament. 

Chapters 15–17 (“Editing the Hebrew Bible: Biblica Hebraica Quinta,” 274–84 by Innocent Himbaza, “Editing the Hebrew Bible: The Hebrew University Bible Project,” 285–300 by Michael Segal, and “Editing the Hebrew Bible: The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition,” 301–8 by Ronald Hendel) introduce three text-critical projects related to the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: Biblica Hebraica Quinta, The Hebrew University Bible Project, and The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition. In the eighteenth essay (“Teaching Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” 309–23), John Screnock lays out an approach to teaching textual criticism in the classroom. Chapter 19 (“The Theory and Practice of Textual Criticism of the Septuagint,” 324–39 by Tuukka Kauhanen) demonstrates how to conduct textual criticism of the Septuagint. In the twentieth contribution (“The Practice of Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism in the Twenty-First Century,” 340–54) Drew Longacre discusses modern technological resources for textual criticism. Part II’s final essay (“Issues in the Textual Criticism of the Deuterocanon,” 355–70 by Benjamin G. Wright III) explores textual criticism of the so-called Deuterocanonical works, which are part of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Slavonic Bibles. 

Part III consists of chapters 22–38, which are devoted to textual criticism of the New Testament. In chapter 22 (“The Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism in the Twenty-First Century,” 373–94) H. A. G. Houghton discusses the current state of the field of New Testament textual criticism. Chapter 23 (“The History of New Testament Textual Criticism,” 395–418 by Jan Krans and An-Ting Yi) outlines the history of the discipline from the production of the New Testament manuscripts to the nineteenth century. In the twenty-fourth contribution (“The Dating of Early Christian Manuscripts: Paleography and Material Culture,” 419–45) Pasquale Orsini analyzes and dates important early Christian manuscripts. Chapter 25 (“Text-Types and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method,” 446–62 by Peter J. Gurry) surveys text-types, the problem with those types that Bruce Metzger developed and popularized, and advocates a new method for categorizing texts, the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. In the twenty-sixth essay (“The Greek New Testament Manuscripts and Other Witnesses,” 463–86 by Elijah Hixon) surveys early important Greek manuscripts. Chapter 27–31 (“The Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic Versions of the New Testament,” 487–502 by Andreas Juckel, “The Latin Versions of the New Testament,” 503–16 by Georg Gäbel, “The Coptic Versions of the New Testament,” 517–32 by Christian Askeland, “The Ethiopic Version of the New Testament,” 533–41 by Curt Niccum, and “The Gothic Version of the New Testament,” 542–50 by Carla Falluomini) explore the ancient Syrian, Aramaic, Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Gothic versions of the New Testament. 

In chapter 32 (“Patristic Evidence in New Testament Textual Criticism,” 551–70) Holger Strutwolf discusses the use of patristic quotations of the New Testament books in textual criticism. Chapter 33 (“Criteria for the Assessment of Readings in New Testament Textual Criticism,” 571–99 by Tommy Wasserman) examines criteria for the selection of readings in textual criticism of the New Testament works. In the thirty-fourth contribution (“The New Testament Text, Paratexts, and Reception History,” 600–23), Jennifer Wright Knust demonstrates that the text of the New Testament has been supplemented by extra-textual features such as the breaking up of the text into chapters, verses, etc. throughout its history. Chapter 35 (“New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis,” 624–36 by Elizabeth E. Shively) observes that textual criticism has long been the precursor of exegesis for the purpose of finding the original text. She argues that this should not be the case, and that one must intertwine textual criticism and exegesis. In the thirty-sixth contribution (“New Testament Textual Criticism and Digital Humanities,” 637–56), Claire Clivaz analyzes the relationship between textual criticism and the digital humanities. Chapter 37 (“Critical Editions of the Greek New Testament from the Twentieth to Twenty-First Century,” 657–87 by Annette Hüffmeier and Gregory S. Paulson) explores the various critical editions of the Greek New Testament. And in Part III’s final chapter (“New Testament Textual Criticism in Teaching and Practice,” 688–706), Amy S. Anderson reflects on the best methods and practices for teaching New Testament textual criticism and paleography in the classroom. 

This work is thorough, exhaustive, and a great overview of presuppositions, methods, and practices of textual criticism of the Jewish Bible, Christian Old Testament, and the Christian New Testament. Crawford and Wasserman, as well as the long list of contributors, have done an exceptional job and should be commended! I encourage you to pick up your copy today from Oxford University Press today! 

I am grateful to Oxford University Press for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it.