I have been reading the NT in Westcott and Hort’s original edition (on PDF). It is such a pleasure. They print the verse and chapter numbers on the side, like the OCT, so as not to deface the text for reading, like modern Bibles do. The textual notes in the separate volume are detailed and interesting.
Liking the edition so much, I took a look at Hort’s collected letters. And I thought that this was worth transcribing.
I am doing some little steady work. Every night after prayers I lug down a big pile of books,–Buder’s > Concordance> , Olshausen, De Wette, Tischendorf’s text, Bagster’s > Critical Greek Testament> , and a German dictionary,–and work at St. Paul chronologically. I have been two nights at 2 Thess. ii. and have at last got some light, which has much pleased me and encouraged me; I find it altogether a most interesting and all-ways profitable study. I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous > Textus Receptus> . Westcott recommended me to get Bagster’s > Critical> , which has Scholz’s text, and is most convenient in small quarto, with parallel Greek and English, and a wide margin on purpose for notes. This pleased me much; so many little alterations on good MS. authority made things clear not in a vulgar, notional way, but by giving a deeper and fuller meaning. But after all Scholz is very capricious and sparing in introducing good readings; and Tischendorf I find a great acquisition, above all, because he gives the various readings at the bottom of his page, and his Prolegomena are invaluable. Think of that vile > Textus Receptus > leaning entirely on late MSS. ; it is a blessing there are such early ones. . . .
The following is pre-publication advice for Rev. C. Kingsley’s Dialogue ‘Phaethon’:
Surely ‘Euthyphron’ is a bad name for your > ingenui vultus puer> . He was a μάντις in some sense or other, a pious one, who thought to show off his piety by prosecuting his father for murder. Either ‘Charmides’ or ‘Glaucon’ would suit you exactly, if you didn’t mind their beauty. Glaucon at the beginning of the second book of the > Republic > does very much as your Euthyphro, but his name is not so attractive as the others, and I do not know whether his age and that of Alcibiades agreed. On the other hand, Charmides, a dear boy, was certainly his contemporary. But if beauty is a disqualification, I despair of finding you a substitute for Euthyphro. Ugly boys were rarities in Athens, I fancy. So apparently you must put up with a pretty one, and drop the disparaging words.
I quote this for the line “ugly boys were rarities in Athens, I fancy.”
Fascinating stuff. I also have Westcott’s commentary on the Gospel of John, excellent 19th century scholarship on the same level as Lightfoot or Swete (not unexpectedly!). I have had some unfortunate interactions with King James Only/TR types who demonize W&H (quite literally, actually), and at one point was collecting as much information about them as possible to disprove their allegations. Quite easy to do, not that it convinces such folks.
Westcott’s Greek text commentaries on Hebrews and Johannine Epistles are useful as well. 19th-century commentaries take some getting used to. Victorian British NT scholars are cultural aliens. Not as bad as 19th century German NT scholars. I have made heavy use of Henry Alford and H.A.W. Meyer, both available on the Bible HUB and other similar sites. The British scholarship of that era was heavily dependent on German scholarship so you end up dealing with German ideas whether you like or not.[1] I took a graduate level Romans course 50 years ago from a German, Ralph Klein, ThD. Didn’t understand a thing he was talking about.
RE: King James Only/TR types
25 years ago I befriended a young, dynamic, very outspoken, KJV-TR pastor named Kevin in Astoria Oregon. We didn’t talk about textual criticism. I don’t argue with people about what Greek text they want to read. I generally read all of them. Electronic Bibles make this painless.
[1] After 50 years of reading NT reference works constantly citing German sources I’ve developed something like an allergic reaction to German Biblical scholarship.
What impresses me about them is the encyclopedic knowledge of the primary sources that they had, and they gained such knowledge through comprehensive reading and study long before even the vacuum tube, let alone the internet. Of course there have been advances in scholarship since their time that have to be taken into account, but they are still a valuable resource.