Review of Thomas Nelson's The Majority Text Greek New Testament

 

I recently received a copy of this interlinear just a couple of months after pre-ordering it from Book Depository (not a sponsored link).

Firstly, the cons. There are a few, not many, but there are some so I'll get them out of the way.

1. It's an interlinear - this isn't a huge problem if you just want to read the Bible and see how translators view the Greek underlying their work without intent to seriously study Greek. If you are learning Greek this can be an impediment to your learning and make your efforts harder. See this video by Dr Darryl Burling of Master Biblical Languages for some reasons not to use an interlinear if you are learning Greek.
   
2. It's a paperback - I have nothing in particular against paperbacks, but they do have their place. For example a novel or the like where you read it once and then place it on the shelf and rarely use it again for some time. In the case of a Bible, a book that most users refer to regularly paperback bindings will wear out quickly and you can't have it rebound easily. There's no hardback version yet.
   
3. It's not a new edition - The current version is a reprint of the 2007 edition with the original 1982 New King James Version, 1985 Hodges-Farstad Greek New Testament, and 1994 word studies and textual notes.
4. The apparatus is somewhat outdated - the text, when it refers to the NU is referring to the Nestle Aland 26 and UBS4 (essentially the NA27 Greek text)
5. It doesn't lay flat - the gutters (internal margins closest to the spine) are narrow so the text curves into the gutter between pages.
   
6. The paper is not the best.

The deep gutters

 

In themselves none of these are deal breakers. For example, this is one of the cheapest way to get a Hodges-Farstad GNT at the moment since it's currently out of print. Used copies go for as much as US$220 (~AU$350) on Amazon down to about US$100 on Ebay (~AU$120 including import taxes, shipping etc). Other than this, the cheapest way is to buy a Logos or Accordance module for around $32 or have a personal copy privately printed.

What are the pros?

I'm no expert when it comes to paper used in books but it seems to be about 70 gsm or maybe thinner. Despite the relative thinness of the paper, there is bleed through of the text on the reverse of each page, but it's not distracting and is quite faint. The paper is similar to high quality mass market paperbacks, light, smooth, and a pale creamy white colour. The text is crisp and comfortable to read. None of the text is crowded, but is fairly well spaced. The text is small but even with my 50-something eyes, it's still clear to me with or without my glasses.

Apparatus and Study Notes

There's a rudimentary apparatus which, as mentioned above, gives variant readings in the NA26/UBS4 text (NU), Majority (M or Byzantine), and TR. This is handy as it gives a quick overview of differences in the three major families. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated to refer to the current NA28/UBS5 editions.
There's study notes that have fairly in-depth discussions of 342 select Greek words. There's a word-study section in the rear has an index for the word study words. This is arranged in four columns with the Greek word, a transliteration, a gloss of the word, and a scripture reference to where this word is found.

The interlinear contains the Greek text, a literal translation and occasional idiomatic translations. Some of the English text is marked by numbers to give a proper English word order. Greek is a highly inflected which means word order is less important than the form of words. English has little inflection (e.g. -ing and -ed suffixes) and a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order which means the literal translation can seem weird to English speakers and is a reason why a perfectly literal translation would be a bad idea. Numbering the English words makes it simpler for those who don't understand Greek to see how the English should read.

The blue underlined word shows an example of their idiomatic translation of Εἰ (literally 'if') to 'otherwise'. The red underline indicates an instance where they've given a word order for the literal translation.

The edition is a fairly hefty and substantial volume weighing in at about 1.32 kg (2.91 pounds). Its dimensions are 6 x 2.25 x 9 inches and 936 pages. My preference would have been perhaps a 7x10 inch or US Letter/A4 block which would make it a somewhat thinner but it's not unwieldy or difficult to use even holding it in your hands. I would much prefer having the original GNT without an interlinear, even with something like a NKJV column, but absent that option I think this is just fine.

My Recommendation

Do I recommend this Edition? With a few minor caveats, yes. I'm not a TR or Majority Text primacist (nor an Alexandrian Text supremacist for that matter), but I do love God's word and would love to own as many editions as were created if it were possible and this is a good addition to my library. I feel the pros outweigh the cons and I would recommend it. If you want it to learn Greek, I'd advise against it, but if you want a Majority Text GNT to refer to this is a good option. Others such as the Robinson Pierpont MT is still in print for good prices and I would recommend getting both and not either, but that's just me.

Just be advised, the cover will attract finger prints and it's not good for daily reading. Those aside, if you want a print copy of the Hodges-Farstad GNT and don't want to go to the effort of a privately printed copy or spending hundreds of dollars on a second-hand copy, this is definitely worth adding to your library.