Introduction to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament by Eberhard Nestle
"Introduction to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament" by Eberhard Nestle is a scholarly handbook written in the early 20th century. It explains how the Greek New Testament text has been transmitted and assessed, surveying the history of printed editions alongside the evidence of manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic quotations. The work aims to equip students and general readers with clear methods and an impartial, philological approach to evaluating readings.
The opening of the work presents an editor’s preface outlining Nestle’s linguistic expertise, broad contributions to biblical scholarship, and deliberate avoidance of theological bias, and notes that the English version is a corrected and expanded translation of a later German edition. A contents list and addenda signal the scope: the history of the printed text, the materials used for criticism, and the theory and practice of evaluating variants. Chapter I then sketches the development from the first printed Greek New Testament and the great Polyglots, through Erasmus, the verse-division of Robert Estienne, Beza, and the Elzevir “Textus Receptus,” to the major critical milestones of Mill, Bengel, Wettstein, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort, with notices of later editors and practical editions (including comparative and Catholic efforts). At the start of Chapter II, Nestle lays out the evidential base—no autographs survive, so scholars rely on Greek manuscripts, early translations, and patristic citations—and introduces the scale of the evidence and the basic distinction between uncial and cursive manuscripts. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
| How to read | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.html.images | 1.2 MB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.epub3.images | 3.8 MB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.epub.images | 3.8 MB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.epub.noimages | 519 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.kf8.images | 4.3 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.kindle.images | 4.1 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76224.txt.utf-8 | 848 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/76224/pg76224-h.zip | 13.1 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Nestle, Eberhard, 1851-1913 |
|---|---|
| Editor | Menzies, Allan, 1845-1916 |
| Translator | Edie, William, 1865-1936 |
| LoC No. | 01014597 |
| Title | Introduction to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament |
| Original Publication | London: Williams and Norgate, 1901. |
| Series Title | Theological translation library, v. 13 |
| Credits | deaurider, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 72.0 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | BS: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: The Bible, Old and New Testament |
| Subject | Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, Textual |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76224 |
| Release Date | Jun 4, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 733 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |