Codex Bezae a Study of the So-Called Western Text, of the New Testament (Classic Reprint)

New Testament, and in particular of the four Gospels, will demand the service of many minds, that have under gone very diverse forms of training. There must be a wide acquaintance with languages, if we are to understand the bearing of the Versions upon the restoration of the text, and give their evidence the right weight; there must be a keen Semitic feeling which is able to distinguish the Syriasm imported by a translator from that which belongs to the primitive apostolic idiom, or to restore the latter against editorial refinement; there must be a close study of the palaeography of the scripts which are involved in the problem; and this study must further be balanced by an acquaintance with the laws of phonetic change, so that we may not refer rare forms, when we meet with them, to mere accident or to the negligence of scribes. And in the grouping of the evidence and the estimation of the relative value of the possible solutions of the problem, a quick imagination must be side by side with a subtle reasoning power on the judgment-seat. It is too much to expect that all of these forms of fitness for critical work should be found in one person or in one school: each of the great New Testament scholars has his weak side; every successive school persists in neglecting some part or other of the evidence: and yet in spite of the slow steps by which the Textual Criticism of the New Testament is advancing, we are satisfied that it will not be long before resolute and patient labour will pluck the heart out of some of the mysteries which characterize the subject: the fields being white to the harvest, we may con gratulate ourselves that the reapers are also ripening. c. B.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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