The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

by Crawford, Sidnie White; Wasserman, Tommy

• ISBN13: 9780197581315
• ISBN10: 0197581315
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197581339
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-11-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Oxford Handbook of the Textual Criticism of the Bible provides an overview of the disciplines of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as practiced in the twenty-first century. This volume first explores overarching issues like the formation of the Jewish and Christian canons; philosophical presuppositions in the methods and goals of textual criticism; the complex relationship between literary criticism and textual criticism; and how related fields of Book History, New/Material Philology, and paratextual criticism pose challenges and enrich traditional biblical textual criticism. Subsequently addressed is the textual criticism of the books of the Hebrew Bible, a field which has undergone a paradigm shift since the discovery of the Judean Desert scrolls. Each chapter discusses this shift in various ways, representing different philosophies of and approaches to the ways in which textual criticism can be practiced in a "post-Judean Desert texts" world. Finally, the text discusses the textual criticism of the New Testament and provides chapters concerned with the Greek manuscripts and the indirect evidence of the text in early versions and citations, as well as past and current methods for evaluating this evidence including the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM).

Author Biography

Sidnie White Crawford is Professor of Hebrew Bible emerita at the University of Nebraska and a Visiting Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. An internationally recognized scholar in the Dead Sea Scrolls and textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, she is the author of The Text of the Pentateuch: Textual Criticism and the Dead Sea Scrolls (2022) and Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran (2019). She is the Chair of the Old Testament Editorial Board for Hermeneia, and Editor-in-Chief for The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition. Crawford served as a general editor (Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanon) for the 30-year review of the New Revised Standard Version.

Tommy Wasserman is Professor of Biblical Studies at Ansgar University College, Kristiansand. He has published numerous books and articles in New Testament textual criticism. He is the editor of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (SBL Press) and of New Testament Tools Studies and Documents (Brill). He is secretary of the International Greek New Testament Project that oversees the publication of critical editions of the Greek NT and serves on the board of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.