Book Highlight: New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century

With the start of the fall semester fast approaching, it’s the perfect time to highlight Dr. Charles Quarles’s recent book, New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century: A Practical Guide (released March 2025). Dr. Quarles serves as the Director for the Caskey Center for Biblical Text and Translation, as well as Research Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at SEBTS.

If you would like to learn more about the book – its intended audience and how it can support your studies – check out Dr. Quarles’s recent “Beyond the Book” interview at SEBTS!

Here is the publisher’s description of New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century: 

While there are many introductions to twentieth-century New Testament textual criticism, scholars and students need a twenty-first-century introduction to the praxis of New Testament textual criticism that refines and replaces some elements of the traditional approach in keeping with recent advancements in the discipline. Methodologies known to be deficient are still being taught, and even New Testament commentators apply outdated and problematic methods in their evaluation of textual variants. This new introduction guides readers in the practice of a more refined, reasoned eclecticism to identify the original reading of the New Testament text. Readers will learn to identify variant readings and the witnesses in support of them from the apparatuses in the major editions of the Greek New Testament.

New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century includes several examples and exercises that guide students in applying critical-thinking skills to specific variant units. The goal throughout is to move from abstract discussion to concrete examples to offer students the “picture worth a thousand words.” Most importantly, the book demonstrates how new tools and findings generally discussed only in scholarly literature are changing the text of the most respected editions of the Greek New Testament and can aid researchers in their study of manuscripts.

Pick up your copy today at Amazon, Hendrickson Publishers, or anywhere good books are sold!