The Titles of the Gospels in the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

The 27th Nestle-Aland hand edition of the New Testament is without doubt an extraordinary achievement, as are its many predecessors. As has sometimes been remarked, however, it does have certain flaws, and it is the purpose of the present article to identify and attempt to rectify one of these flaws. It is unfair, however, to single out Nestle-Aland, as the problem under discussion here is shared with other NT hand editions, such as the UBS and SBL texts.1 The issue to be addressed in this article is that of the presentation of the titles of the four gospels in the main text of the Novum Testamentum Graece as well as in its apparatus criticus. See also the Additional Note on NA28.