H. P. S. Bakker, Towards a Critical Edition of the Old Slavic New Testament. A Transparent and Heuristic Approach

This study represents a significant advance in the knowledge of the textual history of the Old Slavic Gospels and Apostolos.Presented with a winning shrewdness and humour, it shows the author's development as he applies traditional methodologies and then analysis of the particular tradition with which he deals.He describes this as the 'Lachmannian circle': the process in which 'I continuously re-examine my original conceptions' in the process of examining individual witnesses and readings, and 'formulating "working models"' (p.53).The methodological matters which Bakker covers extend beyond those surrounding the creation of an original/working text to the formation of an apparatus criticus, the use of computers, the nature of the Old Slavic translation(s) and the morphological and syntactical issues of the language.This book is worth reading, for the author's aim is, as he puts it, to be 'transparent' , both in his theory and in his working practices (including use of the computer).He sets out to show not only how his interpretation of the evidence has been formulated and revised, but also how he has made it into evidence.We can see where he begins before he examines the material, and we can follow him through collation, analysis and grouping of the witnesses to the latest point he has reached, his preliminary conclusions.It is a journey that looks over two countrysides: on the one hand are Slavic scholars who do not understand textual criticism; on the other, New Testament textual critics who have little or no expert knowledge of matters Slavonic.To the former group he explains textual criticism.To the latter, his reconstruction of the textual history, and of its relationship to Greek texts, will be of particular interest.It is with the latter that the remainder of this review will be concerned.But it is first necessary briefly to describe the contents of the dissertation.2. The four sections are titled 'Preliminaries' , 'Framework' , ' Application' and 'Conclusions' .The first two have already been published as "The Set-Up of a Critical Edition of the Old Slavic New Testament, " Anzeiger fr slavische Philologie 23 (1995): 55-108.We learn that this work is part of the beginnings of the ' Amsterdam Project' , in which the author is collaborating with Johannes van der Tak in preparing a critical edition of the Old Slavic NT.The discovery of two hitherto unknown mss of the Apostolos was the