The church has been waiting patiently for the results of the last “new” approach to textual criticism for nearly a decade, and now it seems that she will have to wait even longer. 

A “new” approach to textual criticism was popularly announced in 2017 with a book by Tommy Wasserman and Peter J. Gurry entitled, A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method[CBGM].

The term “new” is certainly relative because the CBGM had already been in use for over fifteen years and has already influenced readings in the Nestle-Aland 28th edition.

Nevertheless, the method was “new” enough because it no longer relied on the “old” canons of textual criticism developed by Messrs. Westcott, Hort, Aland, etc.  The CBGM is a computer-assisted model that enables critics to observe and assess relationships between variant readings on a scale previously not possible.

It was estimated that the fruits of this new method would perhaps be available for public evaluation in the early 2030’s when the Editio Critica Maior was anticipated to be completed and published.

In a recent YouTube video, Dr. Peter Montoro, previously featured on the Textual Confidence Collective, announced that he has been hired by Tyndale House and part of his job description is to “develop a new way of doing textual criticism that is based on large data sets and a comprehensive analysis of the textual tradition. The aim is to provide a complete overview of textual variation.”

This is, obviously, a very ambitious goal, but even more ambitious is Dr. Montoro’s aim to complete this project so that “everyone from every perspective becomes dependent on it [sic], ‘cause there’s no substitute for it…” and that “no one can do credible scholarship without.” [15:18]

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