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PREFATORY REMARKS | ||
PAR. | PAGES | |
1—4. | 1—3 | |
1. | Purpose of this edition. Four heads of the Introduction | 1 |
2. | Textual criticism not needed for most words in most texts; | 1 |
3. | and always negative in nature, consisting only in detection and removal of errors | 3 |
4. | Reservation of emendation, as but slightly needed in the N.T. owing to comparative abundance and excellence of documents | 3 |
PART I | ||
THE NEED OF CRITICISM FOR THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT | 4—18 | |
5. | Need of criticism for the text of the N.T. explained by the circumstances of its transmission, first by writing, and then by printing | 4 |
A. 6—14. | Transmission by writing | 4—11 |
6. | Loss of autographs | 4 |
7. | Cumulative corruption through transcription | 5 |
8. | Variability of corruption under different conditions: relation of date to purity | 5 |
9. | Special modifications of average results of transcription; as | 6 |
10. | (a) by transition from 'clerical' errors into mental changes (intended
improvements of language) |
6 |
11. | as in the earlier, and only the earlier, centuries of the N. T.; | 7 |
12. | (b) by 'mixture' of independent texts, which prevailed in the N. T. in Cent. (iii) iv, | 8 |
13. | such mixture having only fortuitous results; | 8 |
14. | and (c) by destruction and neglect of the older MSS | 9 |