One nice thing about the New Testament canon: It isn't going to change, so even a relatively old book can be valuable.

That, of course, assumes it was valuable when it was new. In the case of this book, the answer to that is a sort of a split decision. Brooke Fosse Westcott was a brilliant man -- his role in creating the Westcott & Hort New Testament shows that. But he was also a very busy man (an Anglican bishop and scholar), and there are signs that he produced most of his writings relatively quickly.

That didn't affect his scholarship -- the information in this book is good, reliable, and still useful. But it did affect his style. Westcott's writing is, frankly, stilted -- too wordy and too "Bible English"-y. This book isn't as bad as some of his writings, but it still isn't very pleasant.

So you have to decide what you want. Do you want good, if slightly dated, information? Then this book is for you. Do you want a good read? Then it's not for you -- and there are, after all, plenty of other places to get information on a topic of such widespread interest! ( )