The Purpose Of This Site/Blog

For the past eight months or so I have been working on the creation of a new apparatus that compares as many Editions of the Greek texts commonly known as the New Testament as I can find. At the time of this post I am working my way through the Gospel of John and am nearing the end of chapter 6. I have completed a first pass of Matthew, Mark, Luke, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 1, 2, and 3, John.

The Basis Text

The basis of this project is the final edition of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles' Edition of the Greek New Testament published in 1870 which consists of the combined volume of Matthew to Acts, the Epistles, and Romans to Philemon and Volume 6 containing 2 Thess 3:4 to the end of Revelation. This text  was chosen because it is a well respected edition and has escaped much of the controversy attached to such editions as that of Westcott and Hort and Nestle-Aland (apart from being an Alexandrian text).

Comparison Texts

To create the apparatus I have been researching and gathering numerous editions ranging from Stephanus' 1550 Edition to the 2017 Tyndale House Greek New Testament. To start with I am working with the following editions (in brackets are the codes I am currently using to denote them in my apparatus):

Textus Receptus (TR)

• 1550 Stephanus (StA = Accordance Edition)
• 1550 Stephanus (StL = Logos Edition)
• 1598 Beza (Bez)
  
• 1624 Elzevir (Elz)
  
• 1898 Scrivener (Scr)
  

Byzantine/Majority Text (Byz)

• 1985 The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text 2E (HF)
  
• 2014 The Greek New Testament According to Family 35 (F35)
• 2018 Byzantine/Majority Textform GNT (RP)

Alexandrian (Alx)

• 1880 Westcott & Hort's The Greek New Testament (WH)
• 1869-1894 Tischendorf's Novum Testamentum Graece Editio Octavio Maior (Tisc)
  
• 1904 Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece with 1912 corrections (N04)
• 2009 Tregelles New Testament transcript v1 and 2 (TNT1 and TNT2)
  
• 2010 SBL Greek New Testament (SBL)
  
• 2012 Nestle Aland Novum Testamentum Graece 28th Edition (NA28)
• 2017 The Greek New Testament produced at Tyndale House (THGNT)

The eagle eyed will note that I have two entries for Stephanus' Edition. While there is only one actual Stephanus edition published in 1550 the modules included in the Bible study apps Accordance and Logos have minor differences, usually the moveable nu and sigma. While these are minor and do not affect translation at all, they are frequent enough to warrant dividing them up almost as separate Editions along with similar variants in other editions.

Future Plans

Eventually I hope to add numerous other Greek NT Editions including those of Erasmus, Griesbach, Scholz (TR), the 1904 Patriarchal Greek NT (Byz), Von Soden and Open GNT (Alx) and a new family, the 'Caesarian' text-type proposed by Von Soden, Kirsopp Lake and others which includes Family 1 of the Gospels and Family13. These will be added in the second pass through of the text.

Other Purposes For the Blog

 As I progress through this project I am collecting resources and useful links that relate to the work. These will be added to 'Links' and 'Downloads' pages where I can do so (e.g. public domain or my own works).

As time goes on I hope to add posts on topics such as the modern Greek editions, ancient Greek NT manuscripts, Hebrew texts, ancient translations (e.g. Septuagint, Latin, Coptic etc) and perhaps some biographies of those who worked on Editions.

I will NOT be posting on any topics that do not relate directly to the Greek NT, its transmission, ancient manuscripts, early translations, modern Editions, textual criticism or a very narrow range of related topics.

What I do hope and pray is that learning more about God's inspired word (2 Tim 3:16, 17) in the original languages builds confidence in God and his word and blesses those who see my humble work.