Billington, Mark and Peter Streitenberger, eds., Digging for the Truth: Collected Essays Regarding the Byzantine Text of the Greek New Testament – A Festschrift in Honor of Maurice A. Robinson

Maurice Robinson is a familiar name for those engaged in New Testament Textual Criticism.His publications have spanned over three decades.His positive contribution in academics makes him a worthy candidate for this Festschrift from his colleagues and former students.As the title of the book suggests, the twelve articles are centered around the position Robinson has become most famous, Byzantine text form priority. [2] Each article explores a different topic, but all conclude to varying degrees that the Byzantine text form should be treated as a reliable witness to the biblical autographs.In fact, the majority of authors hold to the position that the Byzantine is "identical to-or at least very close to-the original text" (p.2).Many modern text critics will have problems with this thesis.For many, even speaking of establishing the original text as the goal of textual criticism is largely abandoned.The pursuit now is typically for the earliest recoverable text.Nonetheless, the book is a worthy read.The essays can be summarized as follows.[3] Chapter 1: (A Modest Explanation for the Layman of Ideas Related to Determining the Text of the Greek New Testament.pp.2-20) Timothy Friberg offers readers a very helpful introduction to textual criticism as it relates to the premises of Byzantine priority.It faithfully summarizes the position of Byzantine theorists with Friberg acknowledging he received input from thirty scholars holding the position (p.17).His focus is to explain how Byzantine theorists evaluate internal evidence.Their method of internal evaluation is important to defend since most criticism of the Byzantine position is against the seemingly sole emphasis on external criteria.He also addresses four commonly held objections to the position.The article is so well executed and informative, it would work very well as a standalone introduction for students.It even includes a glossary.[4] Chapter 2: (Scribal Habits and the New Testament Text.pp.21-39) Andrew Wilson writes one of the best articles in the collection.He delivers a scathing critique against the majority of the field of textual criticism for a commitment to transcriptional canons that he contends are decisively proven wrong.Building on Maurice Robinson's Ph.D. thesis from 1982, Wilson attacks the traditional canon of lectio brevior, the preference for the shorter reading.He gathers textual data from Robinson, James Royse, Peter Head, and even his personal study of singular readings, to establish that early scribes more frequently omitted than added to the text.Hence, the longer reading is more likely closer to the original.The article is aggressive.He charges scholars are committed to the traditional canons because of their ill-placed preference to the Alexandrian text-type rather than a commitment to the evidence.It is an article that should be engaged further.[5] Chapter 3: (A Translator Takes a Linguistic Look at Mark's Gospel.pp.40-48) John R. Himes offers a very short piece.He purports to use Discourse Analysis as a means to defending the long ending of Mark.But the fact that he claims to be doing "DA of the ευθυς" word shows this reviewer Himes does not know what full Discourse Analysis is (p.42).Though he claims to present a Linguistic

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