© 2000 by Association for Literary & Linguistic Computing
The text of the New Testament and computers: The International Greek New Testament Project
Department of Theology, University of Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK E-mail: D.C.Parker@bham.ac.uk
The materials for editing the New Testament consist of over 5,600 Greek manuscripts, ancient translations and citations by church fathers. Computers are of use in the study and editing of them in eight ways (i) in collating witnesses, especially to improve accuracy; (ii) in being able to alter a base text without having to revise a complicated apparatus criticus; (iii) in analysis of manuscript relationships; (iv) in the selection of the most significant witnesses; (v) in producing an edition; (vi) in the area of collaboration; (vii) they do away with the need to redo good work; (viii) they make possible a wide range of presentations, including change of presentation at will, use of multiple typefaces cheaply, presenting multiple states of the text, and placing information in levels, connected to one another by hyperlinks. Even though the goal of any major critical edition should continue to be a paper edition, it will be worth scholars' while to develop computer-based resources.