The Text of Galatians and Its History

by Stephen C. Carlson

Book cover: The Text of Galatians and Its History

Extent: 308 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Biblical Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe

Series volume number: 385

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(March 2015)

ISBN: 9783161533235

6.06 x 9.06 inches

Price: $143.00

In stock

Stephen C. Carlson investigates the text of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians and analyses how that text changed over the course of its transmission in manuscript copies over several centuries. For this study, he collated ninety-two textual witnesses of Galatians and arranged them into a genealogical family tree called a stemma codicum, with assistance from a computer-implemented method used in computational biology known as cladistics . Using this global stemma, he establishes a critical text for the epistle and assesses the nature of the textual variations that occurred throughout the text’s history of transmission in over 250 significant variant readings, paying particular attention to possible theological motivations. This is the first study to produce a global stemma of any kind for a New Testament book, an accomplishment that was previously thought to be unfeasible.


Stephen C. Carlson investigates the text of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians and analyses how that text changed over the course of its transmission in manuscript copies over several centuries. For this study, he collated ninety-two textual witnesses of Galatians and arranged them into a genealogical family tree called a stemma codicum, with assistance from a computer-implemented method used in computational biology known as cladistics. Using this global stemma, he establishes a critical text for the epistle and assesses the nature of the textual variations that occurred throughout the text’s history of transmission in over 250 significant variant readings, paying particular attention to possible theological motivations. This is the first study to produce a global stemma of any kind for a New Testament book, an accomplishment that was previously thought to be unfeasible.

  • By (author) Stephen C Carlson

"...I recommend this volume to anyone interested in either Galatians or New Testament textual criticism." --Akio Ito, Tokyo Christian University, Review of Biblical Literature 6.28.17
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