Eberhard Nestle (1851–1913)

The Novum Testamentum Graece is the basis for nearly every modern Bible translation. Used by scholars, pastors, students and translators, the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece is the standard and globally preeminent critical edition of the Greek New Testament. The 28th edition includes fundamental revisions for better clarity and usability. The text of Catholic Epistles now incorporates the text-critical insights of the Editio Critical Maior (ECM) of the Greek New Testament—the most recent scholarly research in establishing the Greek text. In addition, newly discovered Papyri 117–127 are listed for the first time, opening up interesting perspectives, particularly on the Acts of the Apostles. This product contains the critical apparatus of the text.… (más)

While the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece is designed for scholarly research, the Greek New Testament, 4th Revised Edition is designed for translators and students. Like NA27, this is the leading edition of the original text of the New Testament. It contains the same Greek text as NA27, differing only in some details of punctuation and paragraphing. The format of UBS4 is in several respects more user-friendly for students and translators than NA27. It has a more spacious appearance and a larger font. English sub-headings assist in navigating the text for those who may be less familiar with Greek. Old Testament quotations appear in easily recognizable bold font. Synoptic parallels are clearly listed under English headings. Hendrickson Publishers distributing for German Bible Society… (más)

The editors who commissioned this book really could have used bigger pockets.

This is the smaller edition of the Latin Vulgate New Testament compiled by Wordsworth and White, and is designed for portability. Portable it certainly is, being smaller and thinner than most paperbacks. But that somewhat affects its usefulness. The idea of this book is to offer a critical edition (that is, one based on the best texts of the earliest manuscripts), with a partial critical apparatus (information on the readings of those manuscripts). On the first count, it succeeds; most of the text is that of the greater Wordsworth-White edition (although there are a few books which differ, because the larger edition had not been completed when this small edition was published).

Sadly, the book falls short in its apparatus. Only nine manuscripts are cited -- good manuscripts, mostly, but still, that represents only one Vulgate manuscript in a thousand! And they are not fully collated; most of the variants cited show only the readings of the Catholic Church's official Clementine edition and the earlier Sixtine edition. In all of Romans, to take a random example, there are only nineteen places where the apparatus cites the manuscripts. By comparison, the Stuttgart Vulgate -- which itself has far too small an apparatus -- has more than 300. The apparatus is simply too small -- and, given how tiny the book is, it certainly would have been possible to expand it.

This is the only fully portable critical Vulgate New Testament. As such, it has value. But it's really sad that it doesn't have more.… (más)