| Bible Research > Textual Criticism > Greek-English > Introduction |
The Greek-English edition of the New Testament begun here is a development of my earlier English Guide to the Various Readings of The Greek New Testament (1994). The annotations of the present work recast the information presented in the English Guide and expand upon it in various ways. The notes no longer have reference to the King James Version, but are now appended to a critical Greek text. The notes also now give the variations in both Greek and English, they provide information on the readings of manuscripts and ancient versions, they give explanations for the origin of the variations, and they offer reasons for preferring one reading over another.
As in the English Guide, the notes deal mostly with variations that are: (1) translatable, ignoring the many variations which cannot be represented in English; and (2) worthy of some attention as perhaps being the original reading of the text, ignoring those readings which are obviously erroneous or eccentric. The work thus aims to be useful to the student who wants to rapidly survey all the text-critical information which would ordinarily be of interest in biblical translation and exegesis.
For the Greek text I have used as a starting-point the text of the UBS 3rd edition, revising it in a few places (see the list below). The parallel English translation is my minor revision of the American Standard Version of 1901.
For information on the readings of the manuscripts I have relied on several scholarly sources, chiefly the major critical editions of S.P. Tregelles and Constantine Tischendorf, and the apparatus of the Nestle-Aland edition (1993). For my explanations of the scribal habits which may have given rise to the various readings I am indebted to the text-critical notes in the Critical and Exegetical Handbook series edited by H.A.W. Meyer (1875), and to Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (1975).
This is a work in progress. My plan is to add to it gradually until it is complete, and the chapters already posted are subject to revision. I welcome any comments on this project from competent students of the text. Please send your comments by using the contact form.
Michael Marlowe
June 2003
Matthew
| Bible Research > Textual Criticism > Greek-English > Introduction |