The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum: The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1946

In this wide-ranging work, a scholar of Greco-Roman literature brings his acumen to the textual history of the New Testament epistles.

For it is not enough to excavate valuable, nay invaluable, papyri and, with a bow to their master-editor, to put them, text and facsimile, on the shelves. Nor must we expect to achieve the purpose of textual criticism by merely counting and listing, or alternatively, by blindly adopting, the readings of this new, and oldest, witness. The critic must set to work afresh. He has to utilize the materials which Providence vouchsafes him.

—from the Preface

CONTENTS

First Lecture

1 The Situation and Task of Textual Criticism Today

2 'The Oldest Manuscript'

Second Lecture

1 The Main Groups of the Evidence in Their Relation to P46

2 Various Types of Variant Readings

Third Lecture

1 Testing the Oldest Evidence

2 Conclusion

Addenda et Corrigenda