Taking Inventory on the ‘Age of the Minuscules’: Later Manuscripts and the Byzantine Tradition within the Field of Textual Criticism

Abstract

In recent decades New Testament scholarship has been flooded with an embarrassment of riches in terms of collations/images of cursive manuscripts and new tools to assess what they contain. However, many scholars—even practicing textual critics—remain somewhat at a loss on what to do with so much data. Thus, old methods, ‘Alexandrian’-vs.-Byzantine polarities, and reliance on Metzger’s Textual Commentary, remain as entrenched as ever in many circles. This article aims to take inventory on where we are in this minuscule age, focusing on four areas of most interest to NT scholars: (1) shifts in method for how to group and weigh later manuscripts; (2) ongoing debates over the Byzantine text and the increased appreciation for it in recent years; (3) findings from recent scholarly work on specific minuscule manuscripts and families; and (4) the place of minuscules in broader discussions within textual criticism and the work on the ECM.