English Bibles by Publication Date

 English Bibles by Publication Date

•  Tyndale Bible (Published: 1522 – 1536) — The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English made from 1522 to 1536.

•  King James Version Apocrypha (Published: 1611) — The King James Version (KJV), also the Authorized Version, is an English Bible translation, which was commissioned for the Church of England in 1604 and published in 1611 by sponsorship of King James VI and I.

•  Young’s Literal Translation (Published: 1862) — Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) is an English Bible translation published in 1862 by Robert Young, compiler of Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible and Concise Critical Comments on the New Testament.

•  Darby Bible (Published: 1867 – 1890) — The Darby Bible refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby and first published in 1867.

•  Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version (Published: 1873) — The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible was an edition of the King James Version published in 1873 and was edited by F.H.A. Scrivener, a noted scholar of the text of the Bible.

•  King James Version, 1900 (Published: 1900) — The King James Version 1900 (KJV 1900), also the Pure Cambridge Edition, is the stable edition of the King James Version used in most modern print editions. The original King James text of 1611 has had numerous variants giving rise to the need for a stable text.

•  American Standard Version (Published: 1900 – 1901) — The American Standard Version (ASV), officially Revised Version, Standard American Edition, is an English Bible translation that was completed between 1900 and 1901.

•  Tanakh, 1917 (Published: 1917) — The Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Tanakh (JPS) was the first Bible translation published by the Jewish Publication Society of America and the first translation of the Tanakh into English by a committee.

•  New American Standard Bible, 1995 (Published: 1960 – 1971) — The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is a translation of the Bible published by the Lockman Foundation between 1960 and 1971. The NASB is a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV).

•  New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Published: 1961) — The Wuest Expanded Translation (1961) is a literal New Testament translation by Professor Kenneth S. Wuest that strictly follows Greek word order.

•  Amplified Bible (Published: 1965) — The Amplified Bible (AMP) is an English Bible translation produced by Zondervan and The Lockman Foundation in 1965. It revises the American Standard Version of 1901 and is designed to amplify, or clarify, the biblical text by using additional features, such as multiple translation values.

•  Revised Standard Version, 2d Catholic Ed. (Published: 1966) — The Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) is an English Bible translation first published in 1966, which includes the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament in the traditional Vulgate order.

•  Good News Translation (Published: 1966 – 1976) — The Good News Bible (GNB), also called the Good News Translation (GNT), is an English Bible translation by the American Bible Society. It was first published as the New Testament under the name Good News for Modern Man in 1966 and was completed in 1976.

•  New American Bible (Published: 1970) — The New American Bible (NAB) is an English Bible translation for Roman Catholics first published in 1970. It is the Catholic translation approved for use at mass.

•  Living Bible (Published: 1971) — The Living Bible (TLB) is a personal paraphrase of the Bible in English by Kenneth N. Taylor first published in 1971. It is not considered a translation.

•  New International Version, 1984 (Published: 1973) — The New International Version (NIV) is an English Bible translation published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). It was translated into broadly understood modern English using the earliest and highest quality source manuscripts.

•  New American Standard Bible, 1977 (Published: 1977) — The New American Standard Bible 1977 (NASB 1977) is an update of the New American Standard Bible (NASB) originally published by the Lockman Foundation between 1960 and 1971.

•  New King James Version (Published: 1982) — The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible published in 1982 by Thomas Nelson. It attempts to remain true to the text of the King James Bible while providing better readability.

•  New Century Version (Published: 1983 – 1987) — The New Century Version (NCV) is a revision of the International Children’s Bible (ICB), an English translation aimed at young readers and those with low reading skills or limited vocabulary.

•  New Jerusalem Bible (Published: 1985) — The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is an English Bible translation published in 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd and Les Editions du Cerf. It is approved for use for study and devotion by Roman Catholics.

•  New Revised Standard Version (Published: 1989) — The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English Bible translation published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches to serve the needs of a broad range of Christians.

•  New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Ed. (Published: 1989) — The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is a Bible translation closely based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) but including the deuterocanonical books and adapted for Catholic usage.

•  Contemporary English Version (Published: 1991 – 1995) — The Contemporary English Version (CEV), also known as the Bible for Today’s Family, is an English Bible translation published by the American Bible Society between 1991 and 1995.

•  The Message (Published: 1993 – 2002) — The Message is a translation of the Bible by Eugene H. Peterson published in segments from 1993 to 2002. It falls on the dynamic end of the dynamic and formal equivalence spectrum.

•  GOD’S WORD Translation (Published: 1995) — The God’s Word Translation (GW) is an English Bible translation published by the God’s Word to the Nations Society in 1995.

•  NET Bible (Published: 1996) — The New English Translation (NET Bible) is a free online English Bible translation sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation and published in 1996 by Biblical Studies Press. It includes thousands of translator notes as an aid to study.

•  New International Reader’s Version (Published: 1996) — The New International Reader’s Version (NIrV) is an easy reader version of The New International Version (NIV) published in 1996.

•  New Living Translation (Published: 1996) — The New Living Translation (NLT) is an English Bible translation published in 1996. The NLT originally aimed to revise The Living Bible (TLB), but became a translation in its own right by relying on original language texts of the Bible where The Living Bible did not.

•  Complete Jewish Bible (Published: 1998) — The Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) is an English Bible translation by David H. Stern published in 1998 by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. It consists of Stern’s revised translation of the Old Testament and his original Jewish New Testament translation.

•  International Standard Version (Published: 1998 – 2011) — The International Standard Version (ISV) is an English Bible translation completed in 2011.The texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a textual apparatus for understanding the Old Testament.

•  Holman Christian Standard Bible (Published: 1999 – 2004) — The Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) is an English Bible translation from Holman Bible Publishers. The New Testament was published in 1999, followed by the full Bible in March 2004.

•  English Standard Version (Published: 2001) — The English Standard Version (ESV) is a Bible translation published in 2001 by Crossway based on the work of more than 100 evangelical scholars and pastors.

•  Lexham English Bible (Published: 2010 – 2011) — The Lexham English Bible (LEB) is a Bible released by Logos Bible Software in 2011 and intended to be used alongside original language texts of the Bible.

•  New American Bible, Rev. Ed. (Published: 2011) — The New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 2011. It was the first major update to the New American Bible (NAB) of 1970.

•  New International Version, 2011 (Published: 2011) — The New International Version 2011 (NIV 2011) is an update of the New International Version (NIV) published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society).

•  Lexham English Septuagint (Published: 2012 – 2013) — The Lexham English Septuagint (LES) is a translation of the Greek version of the Old Testament writings used from around the 2nd century BCE onwards. The translation was published by Lexham Press between 2012 and 2013.^[1]

 

---

^[1] Thompson, Jeremy. 2022. Lists from Church History. Faithlife Biblical and Theological Lists. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

Of The Making Of Translations There Is No End

 Of The Making Of Translations There Is No End

As difficult as translation is, however, godly scholars through the ages have labored diligently to bring the Word of God to His people in languages they can read and understand. Even before the time of Jesus, devout Jews in Alexandria had translated the Old Testament into Greek for the growing number of people who no longer spoke, or read, Hebrew. The Roman scholar Jerome rendered the Greek and Hebrew into the Latin of the common people in the fourth century a.d. Wycliffe and Tyndale performed the same service for the English-speaking world. The German translation of Martin Luther has held the same place of honor among German speakers as the Authorized, or King James Version has among English speakers.

Through the work of translators on the committees that gave us the New American Standard Bible, the New King James Version, Today’s English Version (Good News Bible), and the New International Version, believers today have access to God’s revelation in language they can understand and trust. Beyond our English-speaking world, numerous Bible Societies, teams of Bible translators, and men and women from a multitude of mission boards strive to reduce non-written languages to written forms so that residents of the Third World can also read the words of God.

In many ways, the process of Bible translation testifies to one of God’s great, on-going miracles. He not only inspired Scripture, but He continues to oversee the faithful transmission of His Word. An infallible original would be of little value if the copy we read is riddled with error. Our Bibles are so faithfully preserved that we can read our English translations with nearly the same confidence and reverence as the first century church read its personal letters from the apostles. No important doctrine or teaching of Scripture is subject to question because of the problems with translation that I’ve mentioned earlier. The ideas that God taught His prophets and apostles are accessible to us today, even though we are sometimes unable to fine-tune our interpretation the way we’d like.

Problems in interpretation usually arise out of isolated passages dealing with obscure issues. When it comes to knowing how to be saved, how to live the Christian life, or what God requires of us, we need have no doubts about the reliability of our Bibles.

Think of it! God’s self-revelation took place over thousands of years, to people who spoke at least three different languages, and lived lives as foreign to us as the lives of an Afghan nomad or a Vietnamese rice farmer. Yet we and others from all over the world can read that revelation, learn from it, grow by it, and meet the God whose book it is!^[1]

 

---

^[1] O’Brien, David E. 1990. Today’s Handbook for Solving Bible Difficulties. Minneapolis, MN: David E. O’Brien.

The Best Bible Translated From 5800 Manuscripts ?!!

 

TWO ATTITUDES, THREE QUESTIONS

 TWO ATTITUDES, THREE QUESTIONS^[1]

To begin with, there are two attitudes that we should try to avoid: absolute certainty and total despair. On the one side are King James Only advocates; they are absolutely certain that the KJV, in every place, exactly represents the original text. To be frank, the quest for certainty often overshadows the quest for truth in conservative theological circles and is a temptation that we need to resist. It is fundamentally the temptation of modernism. To our shame, evangelicals have too often been more concerned to protect our presuppositions than to pursue truth at all costs.

On the other side are a few radical scholars who are so skeptical that no piece of data, no hard fact, is safe in their hands. It all turns to putty because all views are created equal. If everything is equally possible, then no view is more probable than any other view. In Starbucks and on the street, in college classrooms and on the airwaves, you can hear the line “We really don’t know what the NT originally said since we no longer possess the originals and since there could have been tremendous tampering with the text before our existing copies were produced.”

But are any biblical scholars this skeptical? Robert Funk, the head of the Jesus Seminar, seemed to be. In The Five Gospels he said,

Even careful copyists make mistakes, as every proofreader knows. So we will never be able to claim certain knowledge of exactly what the original text of any biblical writing was.⁷

The temporal gap that separates Jesus from the first surviving copies of the gospels—about one hundred and seventy-five years—corresponds to the lapse in time from 1776—the writing of the Declaration of Independence—to 1950. What if the oldest copies of the founding document dated only from 1950?⁸

Funk’s attitude is easy to see: rampant skepticism over recovering the original wording of any part of the NT. This is the temptation of postmodernism.⁹ The only certainty is uncertainty itself. It is the one absolute that denies all the others. Concomitant with this is an intellectual pride—pride that one “knows” enough to be skeptical about all positions.

Where does Ehrman stand on this spectrum? I do not know. On the one hand, he has said such things as the following:

If the primary purpose of this discipline is to get back to the original text, we may as well admit either defeat or victory, depending on how one chooses to look at it, because we’re not going to get much closer to the original text than we already are.

… [A]t this stage, our work on the original amounts to little more than tinkering. There’s something about historical scholarship that refuses to concede that a major task has been accomplished, but there it is.¹⁰

In spite of these remarkable [textual] differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy.¹¹

The first statements were made at the Society of Biblical Literature in an address to text-critical scholars. The last is in a college textbook. All of this sounds as if Ehrman would align himself more with those who are fairly sure about what the wording of the autographic text is.

But here is what Ehrman wrote in his immensely popular book Misquoting Jesus:

Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later.… And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places.… [T]hese copies differ from one another in so many places that we don’t even known how many differences there are.¹²

We could go on nearly forever talking about specific places in which the texts of the New Testament came to be changed, either accidentally or intentionally.… [T]he examples are not just in the hundreds but in the thousands.¹³

And here is what he wrote in another popular book, Lost Christianities:

The fact that we have thousands of New Testament manuscripts does not in itself mean that we can rest assured that we know what the original text said. If we have very few early copies—in fact, scarcely any—how can we know that the text was not changed significantly before the New Testament began to be reproduced in such large quantities?¹⁴

The cumulative effect of these latter statements seems to be not only that we have no certainty about the wording of the original but that, even where we are sure of the wording, the core theology is not nearly as “orthodox” as we had thought. According to this line of thinking, the message of whole books has been corrupted in the hands of the scribes; and the church, in later centuries, adopted the doctrine of the winners—those who corrupted the text and conformed it to their own notion of orthodoxy.

So you can see my dilemma. I am not sure what Ehrman believes. Is the task done? Have we essentially recovered the wording of the original text? Or should we be hyperskeptical about the whole enterprise? It seems that Ehrman puts a far more skeptical spin on things when speaking in the public square than he does when speaking to professional colleagues.¹⁵

These two attitudes—total despair and absolute certainty—are the Scylla and Charybdis that we must steer between. There are also three questions that we need to answer:

1.   What is the number of variants—how many scribal changes are there?

 

2.   What is the nature of variants—what kinds of textual variations are there?

 

3.   What theological issues are at stake?

 

---

^[1] Wallace, Daniel B. 2011. “Lost in Transmission: How Badly Did the Scribes Corrupt the New Testament Text?” In Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence, edited by Daniel B. Wallace, 22–26. Text and Canon of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional.

KJV King James Version

NT New Testament

⁷ Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 6 (italics added).

⁸ Ibid.

NT New Testament

⁹ Those whose writings are very influential in the marketplace of ideas but who are not biblical scholars make even more unguarded statements. For example, Earl Doherty declared in Challenging the Verdict (Ottawa: Age of Reason, 2001), “Even if we had more extensive copies of the Gospels from within a couple of generations of their writing, this would not establish the state of the originals, nor how much evolution they had undergone within those first two or three generations. It is precisely at the earliest phase of a sect’s development that the greatest mutation of ideas takes place, and with it the state of the writings which reflect the mutation” (39).

¹⁰ Bart D. Ehrman, “Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior: An Evaluation,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (1998), revision of a paper presented at the Textual Criticism Section of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature conference in San Francisco. He goes on to argue (in point 20 of his review), “We can still make small adjustments in the text in place—change the position of an adverb here, add an article there—we can still dispute the well known textual problems on which we’re never going to be agreed, piling up the evidence as we will. But the reality is that we are unlikely to discover radically new problems or devise radically new solutions; at this stage, our work on the original amounts to little more than tinkering. There’s something about historical scholarship that refuses to concede that a major task has been accomplished, but there it is.” This sounds, for the most part, as though he thinks the primary task of textual criticism—that of recovering the wording of the autographic text—has been accomplished.

¹¹ Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 481. All quotations are from this edition.

¹² Misquoting Jesus, 10.

¹³ Ibid., 98. Elsewhere Ehrman says, “Given the problems, how can we hope to get back to anything like the original text, the text that an author actually wrote? It is an enormous problem. In fact, it is such an enormous problem that a number of textual critics have started to claim that we may as well suspend any discussion of the ‘original’ text, because it is inaccessible to us. That may be going too far” (58); “In short, it is a very complicated business talking about the ‘original’ text of Galatians. We don’t have it. The best we can do is get back to an early stage of its transmission, and simply hope that what we reconstruct about the copies made at that stage—based on the copies that happen to survive (in increasing numbers as we move into the Middle Ages)—reasonably reflects what Paul himself actually wrote, or at least what he intended to write when he dictated the letter” (58; italics added).

¹⁴ Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 219.

¹⁵ Part of the evidence for this is what he says in interviews. In one posted on September 25, 2006, on the Evangelical Textual Criticism website (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/), he was asked by host P. J. Williams, “Do you think that anyone might ever come away from reading Misquoting Jesus with the impression that the state of the New Testament text is worse than it really is?” Ehrman responded, “Yes I think this is a real danger, and it is the aspect of the book that has apparently upset our modern day apologists who are concerned to make sure that no one thinks anything negative about the holy Bible. On the other hand, if people misread my book—I can’t really control that very well.” The cynicism and implicit condemnation of apologists, coupled with a denial of his own radical skepticism about the original text, clearly suggests that Ehrman feels that he has not contributed to this false impression. Further, in his final chapter of Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman declares, “The reality, I came to see, is that meaning is not inherent and texts do not speak for themselves” (216). But if he really believed this, would he have the right to complain about how people are reading his books?

The reality seems to be that Ehrman has had the opportunity to alter such a false impression in his many radio, TV, and newspaper interviews. But instead of tempering the misimpression, he usually feeds it. For example, in an interview in the Charlotte Observer (Dec. 17, 2005)—nine months before his interview by P. J. Williams—he said, “When I talk about the hundreds and thousands of differences, it’s true that a lot are insignificant. But it’s also true that a lot are highly significant for interpreting the Bible. Depending on which manuscript you read, the meaning is changed significantly.” No quantitative distinction is made between insignificant variants and significant variants; both are said to be “a lot.” But a qualitative distinction is made: “a lot are insignificant,” while “a lot are highly significant.” Further, in many of his interviews, he leads off with what appears to have a calculated shock value, viz., denial of the authenticity of the pericope adulterae.

One other comparison can be made: Both Ehrman and KJVers have a major point in agreement. They both view the early scribes as having almost a conspiratorial motive behind them. (Webster’s defines the word conspire in three ways: “1 a: to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement <accused of conspiring to overthrow the government>[;] 1 b: scheme[;] 2 to act in harmony toward a common end.” Ehrman does not necessarily see what the proto-orthodox scribes did as a “secret agreement,” but he certainly sees them as doing more than acting in harmony toward a common end. And if what became the orthodox view started out in a minority camp struggling for survival, then the fact of the changes the scribes made could certainly not be made public.) The basic difference is that KJVers think that heretics corrupted the text, while Ehrman thinks that orthodox scribes did. (Of course, Ehrman is not adamantly against the early Alexandrian manuscripts. But it does seem that his overriding criterion for determining the wording of the original [as seen in Orthodox Corruption] is that if a reading even gives off a faint scent of perhaps being an orthodox corruption, that trumps all other considerations, both external and internal. In addition to my discussion later in this chapter, see Philip Miller’s “The Least Orthodox Reading Is to be Preferred: A New Canon for New Testament Textual Criticism,” also in this book.)

The KJV translators were not KJV-Only

 On Foundations of the KJV^[1]

“The KJV translators were not KJV-Only. They would most definitely support the work of later translators building on their foundation and being helped by their labors. They themselves used multiple Bible translations as a basis for their work. They used the Bishops’ Bible as their formal basis, marking up large, unbound copies of it made just for this purpose… Far from seeing other Bible translations as threatening or suspect or even simply needless, they saw them as valuable assets. They built on the good work of those that had gone before.”

From Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible

On Priority of the KJV (1900)

“There has been a great ignorance of the fact that a final purification took place in the history of the King James Bible. Those who have studied the history of the King James Bible in depth would have been aware of the major purifications that took place, such as the editions of 1629, 1638 and 1769. There was also a proper purification that took place circa 1900, which has resulted in the final text of the King James Bible, which is in all ways the definitive presentation of the King James Bible, and should not be altered.”

From Pure Cambridge Edition (bibleprotector.com, retrieved on 10/13/2020)

”… there are weighty reasons for rejecting the claims of the proponents of the so-called Pure Cambridge Edition: they are contrary to Scripture, contrary to plain reason and contrary to historical testimony. In addition, an examination of the text itself of the so-called Pure Cambridge Edition reveals that, even by their own standards, it cannot be the ‘correct, perfect and final’ text as alleged by its proponents.”

From “The Doctrine of Holy Scripture and the Pure Cambridge Edition,” TBS Quarterly Record, Issue 603 (2013): 17.

 

Conclusion:

The "King James Only" movement, which asserts that the KJV is the only legitimate English translation of the Bible, developed much later. The original translators did not share this view; they were focused on creating a reliable translation based on the best available manuscripts and their collective expertise.

---

^[1] Jessica Parks. 2022. “King James Version, 1900.” In Major English Bible Translations. Faithlife Biblical and Theological Lists. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

King James Version - Revision History

The KJV is a respected and beloved translation, it should not be considered a "perfect" Bible. See the revisions below:

Revision History^[1]

•    1611: KJV is published for the first time

•    1629 and 1638: major revisions made to KJV

•    “Because of the printing technology available at the time, various misprints, variations in spelling, and other inconsistencies were common in early editions. Therefore, subsequent updates were necessary in 1613, 1629, and 1638.”²

•    1762 and 1769: KJV is revised to standardize the text

•    “the revisions made at Cambridge in 1762 and at Oxford in 1769 standardized the text, ensuring that the King James Version would remain immensely readable for generations to come.”³

•    1873: Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible is published.

•    Revisions include, “the text revised by a collation of its early and other principal editions, the use of the italic type made uniform, the marginal references remodelled, and a critical introduction prefixed.”⁴

•    1881 and 1894: KJV undergoes revision in England and is published as the English Revised Version.

•    Two committees were formed to revise the Old and New Testaments of the Authorized Version to account for recent biblical scholarship and text criticism.

•    “The character of the Revision was determined for us from the outset by the first rule, ‘to introduce as few alterations as possible, consistently with faithfulness.’ Our task was revision, not re-translation.”⁵

•    ca. 1900: The Pure Cambridge Edition is published and proponents claim it “should not be altered.”⁶

---

^[1] Jessica Parks. 2022. “King James Version, 1900.” In Major English Bible Translations. Faithlife Biblical and Theological Lists. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

² About the King James Version (KJV)  ThomasNelsonBibles.com

³ About the King James Version (KJV)  ThomasNelsonBibles.com

⁴ The Cambridge Paragraph Bible

⁵ Preface to the New Testament (ERV)

⁶ “The Doctrine of Holy Scripture and the Pure Cambridge Edition,” TBS Quarterly Record, Issue 603 (2013): 17.

The denomination of Bible-Presbyterian Church is divided into 4 groups

The denomination of Bible-Presbyterian Church is divided into 4 groups:

1. Evangelical

2. Charismatic

3. Reformed

4. Fundamentalist

Some Fundamentalists have followed the false teaching of Verbal Plenary Preservation. This false teaching divides and causes suffering within the Bible Presbyterian Church that is why we said this false teaching is a heresy. The writer's objective is to see people repent of this heresy. I pray those Fundamentalists who are teaching this heresy could stop attacking the Evangelical, the Charismatic and the Reformed, even live in peace with all men.

It is by emphasizing core Christian beliefs, promoting mutual respect, practicing biblical hospitality, prioritizing love and service, and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this diverse Bible-Presbyterian Church can experience greater unity and thrive in Christ.

May God help us.

The Preface of Scrivener's New Testament in Greek written by himself on Christmas 1880

THE NEW TESTAMENT

IN GREEK

ACCORDING TO THE TEXT FOLLOWED IN

THE AUTHORISED VERSION TOGETHER

WITH THE VARIATIONS ADOPTED IN

THE REVISED VERSION

EDITED BY

F. H. A. SCRIVENER, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D.

CAMBRIDGE:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1908

First Edition 1881

Reprinted 1881 (twice), 1883, 1884, 1886, 1890, 1908.

 

PREFACE

THE special design of this volume is to place clearly before the reader the variations from the Greek text represented by the Authorised Version of the New Testament which have been embodied in the Revised Version. One of the Rules laid down for the guidance of the Revisers by a Committee appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury was to the effect “that, when the Text adoped differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.” As it was found that a literal observance of this direction would often crowd and obscure the margin of the Revised Version, the Revisers judged that its purpose might be better carried out in another manner. They therefore communicated to the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses a full and carefully corrected list of the readings adopted which are at variance with the readings “presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,” in order that they might be published independently in some shape or other. the University Presses have accordingly undertaken to print them in connexion with complete Greek texts of the New Testament. The responsibility of the Revisers does not of course extend beyond the list which they have furnished.

The form here chosen has been thought by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press to be at once the most convenient in itself, and the best fitted for giving a true representation of the Revisers’ work. In their Preface the Revisers explain that it did not fall within their province to construct a continuous and complete Greek text. Wherever a variation in the Greek was of such a nature that it could properly affect the English rendering, they had to decide between the competing readings: but in most other cases they refrained from spending time on work not needed for the purposes of an English translation. It was therefore impossible to print a continuous Greek text which should include the readings certified as adopted by the Revisers, without borrowing all the intervening portions from some printed text which had not undergone their revision, and in which, to judge by analogy, they would doubtless have found many readings to disapprove. It is true that all variations in this unrevised part of the text must from the nature of the case be comparatively unimportant: but they include many differences of order and grammatical form expressive of shades and modifications of meaning which no careful reader would neglect in studying the Greek original. The Cambridge Press has therefore judged it best to set the readings actually adopted by the Revisers at the foot of the page, and to keep the continuous text consistent throughout by making it so far as was possible uniformly representative of the Authorised Version. The publication of an edition formed on this plan appeared to be all the more desirable, inasmuch as the Authorised Version was not a translation of any one Greek text then in existence, and no Greek text intended to reporduce in any way the original of the Authorised Version has ever been printed.

In considering what text had the best right to be regarded as “the text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,” it was necessary to take into account the composite nature of the Authorised Version, as due to successive revisions of Tyndale’s translation. Tyndale himself followed the second and third editions of Erasmus’s Greek text (1519, 1522). In the revisions of his translation previous to 1611 a partial use was made of other texts; of which ultimately the most influential were the various editions of Beza from 1560 to 1598, if indeed his Latin version of 1556 should not be included. Between 1598 and 1611 no important edition appeared; so that Beza’s fifth and last text of 1598 was more likely than any other to be in the hands of King James’s revisers, and to be accepted by them as the best standard within their reach. It is moreover found on comparison to agree more closely with the Authorised Version than any other Greek text; and accordingly it has been adopted by the Cambridge Press as the primary authority. There are however many places in which the Authorised Version is at variance with Beza’s text; chiefly because it retains language inherited from Tyndale or his successors, which had been founded on the text of other Greek editions. In these cases it is often doubtful how far the revisers of 1611 deliberately preferred a different Greek reading; for their attention was not specially directed to textual variations, and they might not have thorugh it necessary to weed out every rendering inconsistent with Beza’s text, which might linger among the older and unchanged portions of the version. On the other hand some of the readings followed, though discrepant from Beza’s text, may have seemed to be in a manner sanctioned by him as he had spoken favourably of them in his notes; and others may have been adopted on independent grounds. These uncertainties do not however affect the present edition, in which the different elements that actually make up the Greek basis of the Authorised Version have an equal right to find a place. Wherever therefore the Authorised renderings agree with other Greek readings which might naturally be known through printed editions to the revisers of 1611 or their predecessors, Beza’s reading has been displaced from the text in favour of the more truly representative reading, the variation form Beza being indicated *. It was manifestly necessary to accept only Greek authority, though in some places the Authorised version corresponds but loosely with any form of the Greek  original, while it exactly follows the Latin Vulgate. All variations from Beza’s text of 1598, in number about 190, are set down in an appendix at the end of the volume, together with the authorities on which they repsectively rest.

Wherever a Greek reading adopted for the Revised Version differs from the presumed Greek original of the Authorised Version, the reading which it is intended to displace is preinted in the text in a thicker type, with a numerical reference to the reading substituted by the Revisers, which bears the same numeral at the foot of the pages. Alternative readings are given in the margin by the Revisers in places “in which, for the present, it would not” in their judgement “be safe to accept one reading to the absolute exclusion of others,” provided that the differences seemed to be of sufficient interest or importance to deserve notice. These alternative readings, which are more than 400 in number, are distinguished by the notation Marg. or marg. In the Revised Version itself the marginal notes in which a secondary authority is thus given to readings not adopted in the text almost always take the form of statements of evidence, and the amount of evidence in each instance is to a certain extent specified in general terms. No attempt however has in most cases been made to express differences in the nature or the amount of this authority in the record of marginal readings at the foot of the page. For such details the reader will naturally turn to the margin of the Revised Version itself.

The punctuation has proved a source of much anxiety. The Authorised Version as it was originally printed in 1611, rather than as it appears in any later edition, has been taken as a primary guide. Exact reproduction of the English punctuation in the Greek text was however precluded by the differences of grammatical structure between the two languages. It was moreover desirable to punctuate in a manner not inconsistent with the punctuation of the Reivsed Version, wherever this could be done without inconvenience, as punctuation does not strictly belong to textual variation. Where however the difference of punctuation between the two Versions is incompatible with identical punctuation in the Greek, the stops proper for the Authorised Version are given in the text, with a numerical reference, without change of type, to the other method set forth in the foot-notes. Mere changes in punctuation, not consequent on change of reading, are discriminated from the rest by being set withi marks of parenthesis ( ) at the foot of the  page. The notes that thus refer exclusively to stops are about 157.

The paragraphs into which the body of the Greek text is here divided are those of the Revised Version, the numerals relating to chapters and verses being banished to the margin. The marks which indicate the beginning of paragraphs in the Authorised Version do not seem to have been inserted with much care, and cease altogether after Acts xx.36: nor would it have been expedient to create paragraphs in accordance with the traditional chapters. Manifest errors of the press, which often occur in Beza’s New Testament of 1598, have been silently corrected. In all other respects not mentioned already that standard has been closely abided by, save only that, in accordance with modern usage, the recitative ὅτι has not been represtened as part of the speech or quotation which it introduces, and the aspirated forms αὑτοῦ, αὑτῷ, αὑτόν &c. have been discarded. In a very few words (e.g. μαργαρῖται) the more recent an proper accentuation has been followed. Lastly, where Beza has been inconsistent, the form which appeared the better of the two has been retained consistently: as νεφάλιος not νεφάλεος, οὐκέτι not οὐκ έτι, ἐξαυτῆς not ἐξ αὐτῆς, ἱνα τί not ἵνατί but τὰ νῦν not τανῦν, δὶα παντὸς not διαπαντὸς, τοῦτʼ ἔστι not τουτέστι.

ΠΑΣΑΓΡΑΦΗΘΕΟΠΝΕΥΣΤΟΣΚΑΙΩΦΕΛΙΜΟΣ.

F.H.A.S.

Christmas, 1880.

Scrivener, F. H. A. 1881. The New Testament in Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

My observation:

Scrivener’s New Testament in Greek, published in 1881, is an attempt to reconstruct the Greek text underlying the King James Version. While it represents a meticulous scholarly effort, it is not a "perfect Bible" or a replica of the original autographs.

Reasons:

Limited Manuscripts: Scrivener relied on a relatively small number of late manuscripts, predominantly from the Byzantine text-type, similar to those used by Erasmus and other editors of the Textus Receptus.

Textual Variations: The Greek text has numerous variants among manuscripts. No single edition can claim to be an exact replica of the original autographs.

Scholarship Evolution: Modern textual criticism, based on a wider array of earlier and more diverse manuscripts, provides a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the New Testament text.

Scrivener’s work is valuable but should be viewed as part of the ongoing scholarly endeavor to understand and preserve the biblical text, not as an error-free reproduction of the original writings. It’s one piece of the larger textual puzzle. 

The preface of F.H.A. Scrivener's New Testament in Greek emphasizes the meticulous effort to reproduce the Greek text underlying the Authorized Version (AV) of 1611 as accurately as possible.

. Scrivener used the Beza edition of 1598 as his primary source, cross-referencing it with other editions to correct discrepancies.

. The goal was to create a Greek text that closely aligns with the AV, acknowledging the complexities and variations in the manuscript tradition.

. In essence, Scrivener's preface highlights the dedication to textual accuracy and the challenges of aligning different manuscript sources to produce a reliable text.

. This commitment to precision underscores the importance of careful scholarship in biblical studies.

My Note:

Scrivener understood that there was no such thing as a perfect TR or Greek Text at the time, thus he worked hard to modify and construct another TR or Greek Text. He aligned his TR or Greek Text with the AV.

My Question:

Did he make a perfect TR or Greek text?

The Answer:

No, he did not.

THE PREFACE OF SCRIVENERS TEXTUS RECEPTUS 1894 BY DR. MAURICE ROBINSON

 SCRIVENERS

TEXTUS RECEPTUS

1894

         Prepared by Dr. Maurice A. Robinson.

 

    THE TEXT OF THIS EDITION

This text first appeared under the editorship of F. H. A. Scrivener as “The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorised Version” (Cambridge: University Press, 1894, rep. ed. 1902). Scrivener’s text has been reprinted in the Greek New Testament published by the Trinitarian Bible Society as “Η Καινη Διαθηκη: The New Testament. The Greek Text underlying the English Authorised Version of 1611” (London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1977).

The Trinitarian edition (currently in print) reproduces without change Scrivener’s original text of 1894, which Scrivener had artificially constructed from various early printed Greek editions. Scrivener’s purpose was to provide (290 years later!) a Greek text which most closely could be said to underlie the English text of the Authorized Version of 1611—a text which could then be utilized to illustrate clearly the differences between the underlying Greek of the AV 1611 and that of the English Revised Version of 1881. A similar procedure was also performed by R.V.G. Tasker in 1964, when he attempted to reconstruct the underlying Greek text of the New English Bible from its English text, since the translators otherwise had provided no Greek edition of their own.

Because of this, the Scrivener 1894 text should not be considered in any way a product of applied textual criticism and certainly not equivalent to the autograph form of the New Testament text; this was not Scrivener’s intent. Rather, the Scrivener edition merely “fitted” the text which appears in the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611 to readings found in various printed Textus Receptus editions. Primary among these were Theodore Beza’s edition of 1598 and Robert Stephens’ editions of 1550 and 1551, which were known to have been used by King James’ translators. Beza’s editions (nine different ones) were themselves variations upon those of Stephens, and Stephens’ editions (four different ones) were basically edited reproductions of the 1527 and 1535 editions of Erasmus.

Scrivener freely borrowed from the Greek of other early printed Textus Receptus editions to construct his text, especially when the English text of the Authorized Version did not clearly correspond to the Greek found in the primary editions utilized by the Authorized Version translators as mentioned above.

In a few places, the Authorized Version apparently drew from Latin Vulgate readings and its English text fails to conform to ANY early printed Greek text. Scrivener chose in such cases to follow the nearest possible printed Greek text but did NOT attempt to retranslate from the Latin back into the Greek (as Erasmus has been criticized for doing in the Apocalypse). Thus, in Jn 10:16 the Authorized Version follows the Latin Vulgate by reading “one fold” (Latin, unum ovile, requiring μια αυλη as the Greek which should be restored as “underlying” the Authorized Version). Scrivener instead followed the reading of ALL early printed Greek texts, ALL known Greek manuscripts, Fathers, and other early versions, and printed μια ποιμνη, or “one flock”—even though this does not precisely reflect the AV’s underlying Greek text; such was the closest Scrivener could honestly come without having to perform re-translation from Latin into Greek.

Note that there are a number of places where Scrivener’s Greek text appears to reconstruct italicized passages in the Authorized Version (e.g., Mk 8:14, 9:42; Jn 8:6, Ac 1:4; 26:18; 1 Jn 2:23; 3:16; Rev. 16:14; 19:14, 18). Some of these italicized places in fact reflect textual variants known to the Authorized Version translators; other places reflect words supplied by the AV translators where there was insufficient or no Greek manuscript evidence. Many of these passages, however, were not italicized in the original 1611 AV printing, and Scrivener apparently followed that non-italicized format as the basis for his restoration. Many of these italicized passages which were not so marked in the original 1611 printing were added in later revisions by Blayney and others, up through 1769. Most of Scrivener’s reconstructed italicized readings were nevertheless drawn from one or another early printed Greek edition, rather than being a new translation from English into Koine Greek.

This Scrivener edition of the “Textus Receptus” or “Received Text”, even though artificially constructed, yet reflects a general agreement with other early printed Greek texts also called by that name. These include editions such as those of Erasmus 1516, the Complutensian Polyglot of 1514/1522, Colinaeus 1534, Stephens 1546, Beza 1565, and (the one from which we obtain the term “Textus Receptus”) Elzevir 1633. As mentioned above, George Ricker Berry correctly noted that “In the main they are one and the same; and [any] of them may be referred to as the Textus Receptus” (Berry, “Interlinear,” p.ii).

All these early printed Greek New Testaments closely parallel the text of the English-language Authorized (or King James) Version of 1611, since that version was based closely upon Beza 1598, which differed little from its Textus Receptus predecessors. These same Greek TR editions all generally reflect the “Byzantine” (otherwise called the “Majority” or “Traditional”) Textform which predominated throughout the period of manual copying of Greek New Testament manuscripts.

The user should note that the Scrivener 1894 TR edition does NOT agree with modern critical editions such as that published by the United Bible Societies or the various Nestle-Aland editions. Those editions follow a predominantly “Alexandrian” Greek text, as opposed to the Byzantine Textform which generally underlies all TR editions. Note, however, that 85%+ of the text of ALL Greek New Testament editions IS identical.

One should also recognize that NO printed Receptus Greek text edition agrees 100% with the aggregate Byzantine manuscript tradition (Majority/Traditional Text), nor with the Greek text presumed to underlie the Authorized Version. However, all printed Receptus texts DO approximate the Byzantine Textform closely enough (around 98% agreement) to claim a near-identity of reading between those Receptus forms and the majority of all manuscripts.

The significant differences between the modern critical texts, the Authorized Version, and the Byzantine (Majority) Textform are most clearly presented in the NU-text and M-text footnotes appended to editions of the “New King James Version,” published by Thomas Nelson Co.

No verse or verse number found in the Authorized Version is lacking in the Scrivener 1894 TR edition.

My Obeservation:

Dr. Maurice Robinson wrote in the preface, she clearly states that Scrivener's Textus Receptus (1894) is not a "perfect" Bible. While it represents a rigorous effort to reconstruct the Greek text underlying the King James Version, it is not a flawless replica of the original autographs. This edition, like all others, is based on a limited set of late manuscripts and reflects the complexities and variations inherent in the biblical text's transmission over centuries.

No single manuscript or edition can claim to be error-free or a perfect representation of the original writings. Modern textual criticism, which considers a wider range of earlier and more diverse manuscripts, provides a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the New Testament text. The beauty and reliability of Scripture lie in the collective witness of numerous manuscripts, not in the perfection of any one edition.

In the context of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP), this clarification is crucial. VPP proponents often claim that the TR is a perfect, divinely preserved text. However, recognizing Scrivener's intent and the limitations of the 1894 text challenges this assertion. It underscores that the TR, including Scrivener’s edition, should not be considered infallible or perfectly preserved. This perspective encourages a more balanced and historically informed understanding of biblical texts, rather than a rigid belief in the perfection of a single manuscript tradition. The emphasis should be on the reliable transmission of the biblical message through a diverse manuscript tradition.

Don’t Fall For It!