Professor Eberhard Nestle of Maulbronn is one of the distinguished company of philologists who have in recent years directed their attention to the study of the New Testament. He is by no means a stranger in this country. Readers of the Expositor and the Expository Times are familiar with his name, and are accustomed to receive from him original and independent discussions of New Testament textual problems. He is consulted by scholars both in this country and on the Continent on questions of Aramaic and Syriac scholarship, and has contributed, in the way of criticism and careful proof reading, to many important publications of English scholars, such as Professor Swete’s edition of the Septuagint,^[1] the publications of Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson (The Sinaitic Palimpsest, etc.), and the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles recently published by Professor Rendel Harris.

The readers of this volume may be glad to know a little more of its author. A native of Württemberg, he was educated at the Gymnasium of Stuttgart and then at the Theological Seminary of Blaubeuren, the latter being one of the four old cloister schools of Württemberg, in which, far from the distractions of large towns, a thorough philological training is provided for the future clergy of that kingdom. It was as “Praeceptor” of one of these schools that Albrecht Bengel, that great textual critic and unaffectedly pious man, spent the best part of his life, and in his Marginalien und Materialien Dr. Nestle gives an interesting account of Bengel as a scholar, and describes the studies of the school over which he presided. Our author studied divinity and oriental languages at the Universities of Tübingen and Leipzig, and considers it one of the happy dispensations of his life that he was permitted to live in England for two years, working in the British Museum and preaching to German congregations in London. He was then Repetent or Tutor at the Theological Seminary of Tübingen, and, after a short period of work as a preacher, was called to the Gymnasium of Ulm to teach Greek, German, Hebrew, and Religion. For two years he filled the vacant professorship of Semitic languages at the University of Tübingen, but, not being appointed to the chair, he returned to Ulm. From there he moved to the Seminary at Maulbronn, which offered better opportunities for combined philological and theological studies.

Dr. Nestle’s principal works are:—Die israelitischen Eigennamen nach ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung (Proper Names in Israel: their significance for the history of religion), the Prize Essay of the Leiden Tyler Society, 1876. An earlier Prize Essay at Tübingen on the Septuagint and Massorah of Ezekiel was also successful, but was not published.

Psalterium Tetraglottum (Graece, Syriace, Chaldaice, Latine), 1879. Sixth and Seventh Editions of Tischendorf’s Septuagint (with new collation of Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus) 1880, 1887.

Septuagintastudien, i.-iii., 1886, 1896, 1898.

Syriac Grammar (Latin, 1881; German, 1888; English, 1889).

Novi Testamenti Graeci Supplementum, 1896 (Collation of Codex Bezae: Apocryphal Gospels).

Philologica Sacra, 1896.

Minor publications collected in Marginalien und Materialien, 1893.

Edition of the Greek New Testament for the Stuttgart Bible Society, 1898, of which a third edition is now in preparation.

Numerous contributions to theological and literary Journals (Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, Studien und Kritiken, Theologische Literaturzeitung, Literarisches Centralblatt) and to Herzog-Hauck, Encyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie.

The Introduction now brought before the English public in Mr. Edie’s translation is thus the work of one who is, and has long been, actively engaged in the studies belonging to several parts of the great subject of the text of the New Testament, and who possesses an exact and practised knowledge of the words of the sacred books of Christianity. The present manual accordingly shows the instruments of criticism in actual operation in the hands of a master. It was meant originally for the Göschen-Sammlung, a collection of small manuals for the general public, and arose out of the wish of the author to tell his pupils with whom he read the Greek Testament, as well as others, more about the history of the New Testament text than was at the time generally accessible. The handbook was brought out by the theological publishers Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, literary references being then added to fit it for use by students of theology. It met with a warm welcome from such readers, and the second edition was largely recast so as to meet still further the purposes of students. The long experience of Professor Nestle as a teacher of younger pupils has no doubt enabled him to present the subject so clearly that his book may find favour in the eyes of the general reader, and commend itself to all who care for the New Testament.

The absence of theological bias will not be thought by any wise judge a disadvantage in a work of this character. It will be observed that Professor Nestle does not regard the texts recently formed by great scholars as constituting, either singly or jointly, a Textus Receptus in view of which textual enquiry may now desist from its labours, but that he believes that much is still to be learned about the text both of the Gospels and of the other books of the New Testament.

This translation, as the title-page indicates, has been made from the second, enlarged, edition, and the author has kindly furnished various corrections and additions, bringing the book in its English form up to date. Some additional references to English books and periodicals have been inserted by the translator.

A. M.