New Testament Apocrypha
By W. Schneemelcher & R. Wilson Mcl. (editors)

Preface to the English Edition

by Prof. R. McL. Wilson

For many years the standard work in English in this field, indeed for practical purposes the only work, was The Apocryphal New Testament edited by M.R. James and first published in 1924. By the late fifties, however, for all its unquestioned merits, it could be said to suffer from two defects: it was then more than thirty years old, and consequently took no account of the discoveries made in that period; and it provided but little in the way of guidance to the literature devoted to these apocryphal writings. Both these deficiencies were made good in the third edition of its German counterpart, the Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, originally edited by Edgar Hennecke and directed in its latest form by Wilhelm Schneemelcher. An English edition (vol I, 1963; vol II, 1965) met with a cordial reception, and went into a second impression some ten years later.

'Hennecke-Schneemelcher' is now, however, some thirty years old, and much has happened in these three decades. For one thing, the Nag Hammadi library is now accessible, and can be evaluated; for another, there has been a considerable accession to the literature in this whole area. A new edition is therefore very welcome, and it is appropriate that the English version should also be revised and updated (some German works have gone through six or seven editions, but their English versions have remained unchanged from the first!).

The policy adopted is that which governed the previous English edition: to present an English version, checked and corrected to make it in every way possible an adequate tool for the use of the English-speaking reader. Some parts are completely new, and these have been translated from scratch. At other points much of the earlier edition has been retained, and here use has been made of the contributions of my colleagues in that earlier volume, Dr George Ogg and Prof. A.J.B. Higgins, both now deceased, and Dr R.E. Taylor. The whole has, however, been rigorously checked and revised against the new German edition, and the translation editor must assume the full responsibility. Dr Einar Thomassen has kindly undertaken the translation of three sections: VIII 1, the Book of Thomas; VIII 4, the Apocryphon of James; and VIII 5, the Dialogue of the Saviour.

One point should be made, to avoid possible misunderstanding (such as afflicted one reviewer of the earlier first volume!"): the several introductions are straight translations from the German, except for the 'residue' of the section contributed by H.C. Puech, for which a copy of the original French was also made available. The texts, however, presented something of a problem, which was envisaged from the outset in the earlier edition: merely to translate the German here would have produced something at some remove from the originals, whereas completely new translations could scarcely have been put under the names of the German contributors. The solution adopted then as now was to check the tramslations against the originals in Latin, Greek or Coptic, to ensure that they were English versions of the original and not merely versions at third hand. Some things go more easily into English than into German!

It is hoped that the second volume will follow at not too great an interval after the first.

See also: Preface to the Sixth German Edition