New Testament scholar and Princeton Theological Seminary professor emeritus, Bruce Metzger, died on Tuesday. His book The New Testament: Its Background, Growth and Content was the first academic text I read on any of the Bible in my undergraduate studies. Most people will read the first two sentences of this post and ask, who? I would argue that for Christians and anyone who has read the New Testament in the last sixty years, that Metzger was one of the most important and influential figures. Christians reading the Bible put a lot of their faith in his hands without knowing it. Metzger not only helped edit part of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible and served as the general editor of the New Revised Standard Version, he was a major editor with the United Bible Societies, which produces the critical Greek texts of the New Testament upon which most contemporary translations of the NT are based. The United Bible Societies sifts through all the various fragments of NT books, and compiles them into a single work that translators use to create the Bibles you and I read. Metzger was one of the most important figures in the United Bible Societies for decades. He will be missed and we will no doubt continue to feel his influence for decades to come.

(HT: Gathering In Light)