Scribes & Scripture - A Nice Addition to a New Testament Textual Critic's Bookshelf

Scribes & Scripture (full title Scribes and Scripture - The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible), by Peter J. Gurry and John D. Meade, is a 2022 release from Crossway.  It has three parts – (1) text, (2) canon, and (3) translation.  Competently written, this book is what John Barton’s A History of the Bible should have been.  There is not much new data in Scribes & Scripture – much of the same ground was plowed in books focused on one of the three parts, such as Paul Wegner’s The Journey from Texts to Translation.  

          Focusing on elements in the book that pertain to New Testament textual criticism, most of the authors’ review of the history of the text of the New Testament is unobjectionable, accurate, and tidy.  There are a few inaccuracies, such as the claim that “the majuscules stop around the end of the ninth century” (p. 85)   I was a bit disappointed reading pages 94-100, where four textual variants are examined (Mark 1:2, Luke 23:34, Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53-8:11).   The authors arrive at incorrect conclusions in three out of four cases and their discussion of the remaining variation-unit (Lk. 23:34) is inconclusive.  Rather than echoing Metzger’s preference for the “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2, the less specific reading (“in the prophets”) should be adopted. 

          Regarding Mark 16:9-20 the author says (p. 97) “Whether or not we should treat it as Scripture is a difficult question.”  Considering that Mark 16:9-20 is treated as Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Lutheran Church, and was included in the Vulgate, the Peshitta, the King James Version and all Reformation era Bibles, I have to wonder who the “we” is in that sentence.   

          In the discussion about John 7:53-8:11 the authors wrote that “Almost 270 continuous-text Greek manuscripts out of about1,500 do not have it” (p. 97).  It would have been better to say that 270 continuous-text Greek manuscripts do not have the passage while 1,500 do.

          The third section contains no mention of the translation work of Giannozzo Manetti; although Annet den Haan has drawn attention to this Renaissance scholar’s Latin translation of a Greek text of the New Testament apparently her work hasn’t yet trickled down to American evangelical scholars.   

          Scribes and Scripture does what its authors set out to do:  to explain how American evangelicals got their Bible.  With minor reservations, I recommend it.