Assistant Professor of New Testament
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
Nelson Hsieh (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2022) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Associate Director of the H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies. Nelson was formerly the Research Associate in New Testament at Tyndale House Cambridge from 2022 – 2025. Nelson’s research on paragraphing at Tyndale House will serve as the basis for revising the paragraphing in the second edition of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (forthcoming with Crossway). Nelson’s dissertation (under revision for Brill) compared the texts and textual apparatuses of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament and the Nestle-Aland tradition. Nelson’s dissertation research forms the basis of his CSNTM conference paper on how much the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) moves Nestle-Aland 27 towards the Byzantine Majority Text.
Friday, May 29 | 2:20-2:55 | Main Room
Two Ships Sailing Toward Byzantium: How Much do the ECM and THGNT Sail Towards the Byzantine Text?
The editors of the UBS3/4 and NA26/27 editions had a strong bias against the Byzantine text that stemmed from Westcott & Hort’s antipathy towards the Textus Receptus and what they called the ‘Syrian’ text. This anti-Byzantine bias is seen in Bruce Metzger who says: “readings that are supported by only Koine or Byzantine witnesses (Hort’s Syrian group) may be set aside as almost certainly secondary. The reason that one is justified in discarding the Koine is that it is a later text type, formed on the basis of earlier types” (Text of the New Testament, 4th ed., 306).
However, the first, second, and third editions of Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament gave a different rationale for discarding the Byzantine text: “The reason that justifies one in discarding the Koine type of text is that it is based on the recension prepared near the close of the third century by Lucian of Antioch, or some of his associates, who deliberately combined elements from earlier types of text” (p. 212 in all three editions). The so-called Lucianic recension was a prime reason that the UBS3/4 and NA26/27 editors strongly rejected the Byzantine text-type.
The editors of the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) have rejected the notion of a Lucianic recension in favor of Klaus Wachtel’s theory that the Byzantine text was a gradual development. Wachtel further critiques the earlier editors: “The text of NA26/UBS3 was the result of twentieth century textual criticism, which brought about an anti-Byzantine bias as a bi-product of Westcott/Hort’s great achievement of overcoming the Textus Receptus. The anti-Byzantine bias was enforced by the concomitant overrating of the so-called Alexandrian witnesses” (ECM Mark, vol. III, 1).
In contrast, the ECM editors are more open to adopting Byzantine readings: “In places where we suspect the anti-Byzantine bias was at work … we are able to improve the work of our predecessors by seriously assessing the quality of the majority reading” (ECM Mark, vol. III, 1).
The Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) published in 2017 also adopts a softer stance towards the Byzantine text. Jongkind and the THGNT editors reject the Byzantine priority approach but are not against the Byzantine text as a whole. Their rejection of the Byzantine priority approach “serves as an argument why variants need to be approached on a case-by-case basis, the eclectic method, rather than preferring a particular text wholesale. Within the eclectic method, the Byzantine text deserves a voice, but not a deciding one” (from feedback on my dissertation, emphasis added).
Thus, both the THGNT and ECM claim to adopt a softer approach towards the Byzantine text and a willingness to give the Byzantine text a fair hearing. But – how much does this theoretical softening towards the Byzantine text work itself out in practice?
My paper will answer this question both quantitatively (how many times do the THGNT and ECM move towards the Byzantine text, when compared to NA27?) and qualitatively (how significant are these changes?). What I will show is that – quantitatively, both the THGNT and ECM do move towards the Byzantine text in hundreds of instances. But when judged qualitatively, the THGNT adopts more significant Byzantine readings than the ECM does.