My Greek NT reference

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, references, greek new testament, translations, commentaries

A number of years ago I contacted a Bible scholar to ask if there is a reference book that explains the variations between the numerous Greek texts of the New Testament. I was particularly interested to find out if any of the variations—and there are thousands of them among the 5,000 or so Greek manuscripts—had any bearing on the primary elements of the Gospel: The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His justification and sanctification of the children of God, and His sonship in the Triune God, in particular. The scholar assured me that Bible truth is not threatened by manuscript variations, and suggested a wonderful resource that I was able to purchase through a used bookstore, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger. Published in 1971, it is still in print, but buying a used copy saved me about half the price of a new one.

I used the book on and off for several years, and just before the end of 2021 I decided to use it along with my reading of the Bible, and gradually work through the entire volume of 775 pages. Each year I read through the Bible, using a different plan each time. Sometimes I use different translations (most recently the English Standard Version, ESV, in 2018 and the World English Bible, WEB, in 2020). Most frequently I read the Recovery Version, RcV. I also vary the schedule and criteria for daily selections. For example for a couple of years I would read a certain number of verses daily (plus or minus 15-20% depending on chapter divisions), and in 2022 I used a copy without footnotes and minimal apparatus, and read a set number of pages daily (with some variation), 3 OT pages and 1 NT page daily. I'm doing a similar scheme this year, but reading the New Testament first, followed by the Old Testament. Throughout 2022, after each day's reading, I read the notes in Textual Commentary relevant to the NT portion for the day. Thus over the year I completed the whole book.

This is what a bipage of the book looks like:

At this size it is a bit hard to read. You may click on the image to see it full size (150 dpi).

The longest item on these pages refers to Acts 3:14, "But you denied the holy and righteous One and asked that a man who was a murderer be granted to you". This is from the opening words of Peter's speaking on the day of Pentecost. The word being discussed, which is transliterated 'ern'esasthe, means "denied". It seems that some copyists of early times disliked repeating this word, which had appeared in the prior sentence (3:13), and so substituted ebarunate, which means "oppressed", a rather inappropriate word. The translation committee studied not just the Greek but Hebrew and Syriac versions to winkle out the best explanation for the variation. What looks like an ink smear at the bottom of page 310 and the top of 311 is Syriac text, which is vaguely related to Arabic. Note that later on in the article several Hebrew words are also shown. This book is not for the faint of heart; we may not be able to read the snippets of Hebrew and other languages, and perhaps not even Greek, with any felicity, but we should at least be able to see them in the text without panicking, and trust that the Committee knew what they were doing!

Codex Bezae is a famous manuscript, primarily of the Gospels and Acts, an edited 5th Century text compiled from multiple earlier manuscripts. It has Greek on one page and Latin on the facing page, which makes it valuable to understand what the copyist and translators of the era may have been thinking. Abbreviations such as D and H and Aleph-star (see the 3rd line of the article) refer to manuscripts that would be known to a scholar. The text also frequently refers to groups of manuscripts of different copyist traditions, such as majuscules and minuscules (there are many of each) that were copied using different letter styles. The volume contains about 2,000 such articles of various lengths, covering all the important variations in manuscript texts.

Here is another example I found interesting:

This refers to Revelation 5:10, "And have made them a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign on the earth." The word in question, basileusousin, means "they will reign". Greek word endings are numerous and cause difficulty to copyists. The numeric codes refer to Bible manuscripts, and Aleph is a different manuscript from Aleph-star. One more example brings out a couple of important points:

A few manuscripts of Romans 8:1 include one of the most famous glosses in the New Testament. A gloss is a bit of text that a copyist introduced into the body text from a marginal note found in an earlier manuscript. Romans 8:4 reads, "That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit." Some very early manuscripts have the second phrase of this verse copied as a marginal note next to 8:1. In the Textus Receptus, which is the basis of the King James Version of the New Testament, these words were put into the body text. This is a serious error, because it makes the release of condemnation based on the sacrifice of Christ into a result of our performance. The words are appropriate in 8:4, not in 8:1, which properly reads, "There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Period. No qualification based on our "walk".

The article also mentions two text types, Alexandrian and Western. About half of all early manuscripts are either Alexandrian or Western. The other half are either Caesarean or Byzantine. These four text-types were current in various regions. The introduction to the book discusses them in an introductory way. Other reference books discuss them more fully. Most later manuscripts are of the Byzantine type, and until about a generation ago, a "near-majority text" such as the Textus Receptus was based primarily on Byzantine manuscripts. The problem is, Byzantine Greek arose as the Greek language changed in the eastern Roman empire in the 4th Century. Byzantine manuscripts containing more than a few scraps of the New Testament date from the 8th Century and later. Significant differences between Byzantine and other text-types indicate that Bible manuscripts were translated into Byzantine Greek, probably before the 5th Century. For modern English speakers, reading Middle English of 600 years ago is a chore. There is a similar difference between Byzantine Greek and First Century Greek (often called Koiné)

My reference library includes four Greek texts of the New Testament, including one that is a full Majority Text, treating words as if they were voters in an election. It is almost entirely Byzantine in character. The United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, Third Edition was published in 1975, based on the scholarship of the Committee mentioned frequently in this volume, which was published in 1971 as a companion volume. Dr. Metzger is the most prominent of the scholars of the Committee.

As a reference, it is unsurpassed. Reading the New Testament with the companionship of this volume impressed me with the wisdom of God in the inspiration and preservation of His book to us.