NA27 or UBS 4?
Frank W. Hughes
fwhughes at sunbeach.net
Mon Jun 5 06:19:58 EDT 2000
>From Kurt & Barbara Aland's The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, and Leiden: Brill, 1987) 219:
". . . the GNT is intended for translators, while the Nestle-Aland
edition is for students, professors, and expositors of the New
Testament, and a wide variety of other specialists. But then, this
distinction is by no means precise. the GNT edition is appropriate for
the use of students and others who are content to read the 'Standard
text' without taking an interest in the details of its transmission and
its textual history as found in the apparatus of Nestle-Aland. GNT is
frequently considered the more convenient edition for those who find the
sytem in Nestle-Aland somewhat complicated -- not just its apparatus,
but the parallel references in its outer margin as well. The decision
must depend on the interests of the individual."
Personally it is precisely the references in the outer margin of the
Nestle-Aland edition that I wouldn't want to do without, and that I want
my students to use. I think if you use the above book by Aland & Aland
you will understand why Nestle-Aland 27 is a superior edition. I find
The Greek New Testament much too restrictive in its choice of variant
readings.
I will say that the Greek font used in GNT in its first three editions
was a beautiful font. The font used in the fourth edition of GNT is so
bad it is beneath polite discussion. When I saw it at the ABS booth at
an SBL meeting I complained about the font and wouldn't buy that
edition.
The only Greek text I use now is the large-print edition of NA 27 or the
Latin-Greek edition of NA27. I do follow the NT lessons in our chapel
every day during the school year with the NA26. For that purpose any
edition with a clear text will do. The student who is lector reads the
lesson from the RSV or NRSV, and I follow the lesson in the NA edition.
I either follow the OT lesson in Rahlfs's LXX or in Biblia Hebraica. I
highly recommend this practice.
Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
Barbados
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