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METZGER, B.M., The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964. XI,268,XVIp. Original blue cloth. Spine gilt titled. Spine a little bit bumped. Edges a bit yellowed. Fore edge a bit rust stained. Signature on free endpaper. ‘Professor Metzger has already put his colleagues in his debt by a series of bibliographical publications, one devoted to the textual criticism of the New Testament. This is a field in which considerable advance has been made in the past thirty years and where an up-to-date handbook and guide to the beginner and to the non-specialist is lacking. In the work under review, the author seeks to expound ‘the science and art’ of this discipline (…). He has divided his treatment into three main sections, respectively dealing with the materials for textual criticism, the history of the New Testament textual criticism, and the application of criticism to the text of the New Testament, He appends a check-list of the Greek papyri of the New Testament, which notes of location and publication. The book (…) is intended to be for the beginner, but Metzger’s colleagues, even those who would claim to be specialists in his field, will find much to enrich their own learning in the bibliographical detail with which certain sections of the book are adorned. (…) Even regarded as an introduction to the subject it has some disappointing features. (…) Nowhere does Metzger give any sketch of the history of the text in ancient days: we gather from scattered remarks that he holds a modified view of the theory of local texts based on acts of recension, but he never gives us the historical background against which such a doctrine may be established and defended. (…) Everyone can gain much (..) from Metzger’s book: but it meets only one of two problems which are encountered in introducing students to this field.’ (J. NEVILLE BIRDSALL in The Classical Review (New Series), 1967, p.388). € 30.00 (Antiquarian)