Bibliography And Glossary

Josiahs Scott, Josiahs@trueconnection.org, www.TrueConnection.org

10/2 – 10/19/09; 11/25 – 12/30/09; 1/16/10; 3/25/10; 4/1/10-7/9/10; 9/27/10-9/29/10; 10/5/10-11/24/10; 12/1/10-12/6/10; 12/9/10; 12/13/10; 12/18/10; 12/24/10-12/25/10; 1/8/11; 1/12/11-1/15/11; 2/11/11; 2/15/11-2/17/11; 3/1/11-3/2/11; 3/22/11; 3/31/11; 4/16/11; 4/27/11; (5/11/11-5/12/11); 5/13/11; 7/29/11; 8/19/11-8/20/11; 8/29/11; 9/23/11; 10/25/11; 2/13/12; 10/1/12

Note: this work is particularly prone to change drastically depending on what year you view and or print it. Please keep checking back online for the most official and up-to-date version of this Bibliography.

>> Additions/ TODO!

>>>> Problems started: GNT

>> read more on HCSB & NCV

>> add Geneva Bible

>> move Mat_4: to a basic beginning statement

Contents

Bibliography And Glossary. 1

General Explanations. 1

Bible Book Abbreviations. 1

Bible Versions, in General 2

Original Language Texts and Ancient Language Translations. 2

LXX.. 3

MT.. 4

DSS – The Dead Sea Scrolls. 5

DSS Bible. 6

HOT.. 6

GNT – Greek New Testament 6

IGNT.. 7

HNT.. 8

Latin Vulgate. 8

Finding the Old Testament - Which Source Text to use. 8

Purpose and Explanation. 8

How to Decide Which Source Text to Use. 8

An Explanation On The Nature And Current State Of The Data So Far 9

An Explanation for the Following Chart 9

Book by Book OT Source Text Summary. 9

Data Arranged by New Testament Agreement 13

Bible Translations and Versions. 13

HCSB – Holman Christian Standard Bible. 15

Bible Paraphrases. 18

Paraphrases, In General 19

What Are Paraphrases?. 19

NCV – New Century Version. 21

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias. 22

Strong’s. 22

How to Read Strong’s. 22

Berry Greek-English Lexicon. 22

Webster's Dictionary. 24

MLA.. 24

Vine’s. 24

A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. 24

The Catholic Encyclopedia. 25

Early Church Resources. 26

The Ante-Nicene Fathers. 26

Others. 27

General Glossary of Terminology Used. 27

Apocrypha / Deuterocanonical Books. 27

De-education. 27

e-Sword. 27

e-Sword – Free Resources. 27

e-Sword Compatible. 27

OT – Old Testament 30

Pseudonym.. 30

Proprietary Bible Versions. 30

General Explanations

Purpose Statement

This is my universal Bibliography and Glossary for all of my Scriptural projects; it is a general, overall definer of many of the resources and terminology that I often use in my Scriptural studies and writings. What started out as a simple bibliography, became almost a “Bible Study” in and of itself, especially in terms of studying the over-all representation of the Bible in English. I aspire for these things to be of benefit to anyone interested in knowing over-all truth about versions of the Bible, as well as critical resources and terms for studying it.

Only the Bible Has My Complete Approval

In general, please don’t take any of my use or quotations of any of the following resources to be an indication of an over-all approval of any of them at all. Sometimes works are useful for information, while the vessel that was used to compile that information was significantly defiled. In general, the only works that you should understand to have my complete approval are those that I consider perfectly Divine: I attribute absolute and complete Divine approval to the original Hebrew and Greek Old and New Testaments. Other versions, dictionaries, and or commentaries about these things are very often imperfect or downright tainted representations of these things in English or other languages.

The Use of Quotes from e-Sword

When listing and defining the resources in this bibliography that are used in my writings, I use many quotations from the information that is available through e-Sword (especially from the “Bible,” “Commentary” and “Dictionary” dropdown menus, under “Information”). These e-Sword quotations sometimes have a few formatting changes, and/or added links to define terminology as laid out in this bibliography, and all of these quotes found through e-Sword are marked with an asterisk (*).

Disclaimer

I am not done researching on every entry in this bibliography. Although I am convinced that I am preaching the Gospel even in the midst of this bibliography, my goal is to constantly be eager towards truth, so please contact me if you think that you may have found more complete answers to some of the challenging difficulties that I have presented here.

Bible Book Abbreviations

This may often be taken for granted, but one of the most basic “tools” in studying and referencing the Scriptures, is the abbreviating of the names of the books of the Bible. For the sake of those who are not used to these types of practices, I give here the common abbreviations that I use for referencing the books of the Bible throughout my writings:

e-Sword Format	Josiahs' Preferred Format	Book Name
Gen_	Gen	Genesis
Exo_	Exo	Exodus
Lev_	Lev	Leviticus
Num_	Num	Numbers
Deu_	Deu	Deuteronomy
Jos_	Josh	Joshua
Jdg_	Jdg	Judges
Rth_	Ruth	Ruth
1Sa_	1Sam	1 Samuel
2Sa_	2Sam	2 Samuel
1Ki_	1King	1 Kings
2Ki_	2King	2 Kings
1Ch_	1Chr	1 Chronicles
2Ch_	2Chr	2 Chronicles
Ezr_	Ezra	Ezra
Neh_	Neh	Nehemiah
Est_	Est	Esther
Job_	Job	Job
Psa_	Ps	Psalms
Pro_	Pro	Proverbs
Ecc_	Ecc	Ecclesiastes
Son_	Song	Song of Solomon
Isa_	Isa	Isaiah
Jer_	Jer	Jeremiah
Lam_	Lam	Lamentations
Eze_	Ezk	Ezekiel
Dan_	Dan	Daniel
Hos_	Hos	Hosea
Joe_	Jol	Joel
Amo_	Amo	Amos
Oba_	Obd	Obadiah
Jon_	Jona	Jonah
Mic_	Mic	Micah
Nah_	Nah	Nahum
Hab_	Hab	Habakkuk
Zep_	Zeph	Zephaniah
Hag_	Hag	Haggai
Zec_	Zech	Zechariah
Mal_	Mal	Malachi
Mat_	Mat	Matthew
Mar_	Mk	Mark
Luk_	Lk	Luke
Joh_	Joh	John
Act_	Acts	Acts
Rom_	Rom	Romans
1Co_	1Cor	1 Corinthians
2Co_	2Cor	2 Corinthians
Gal_	Gal	Galatians
Eph_	Eph	Ephesians
Php_	Phil	Philippians
Col_	Col	Colossians
1Th_	1Thes	1 Thessalonians
2Th_	2Thes	2 Thessalonians
1Ti_	1Tim	1 Timothy
2Ti_	2Tim	2 Timothy
Tit_	Tit	Titus
Phm_	Phil	Philemon
Heb_	Heb	Hebrews
Jas_	Jas	James
1Pe_	1Pet	1 Peter
2Pe_	2Pet	2 Peter
1Jn_	1Jn	1 John
2Jn_	2Jn	2 John
3Jn_	3Jn	3 John
Jud_	Jud	Jude
Rev_	Rev	Revelation
Tob_	Tob	Tobit
Jdt_	Jdth	Judith
Wis_	Wis	Wisdom
Sir_	Sir	Sirach
Bar_	Bar	Baruch
1Ma_	1Mac	1 Maccabees
2Ma_	2Mac	2 Maccabees

Bible Versions, in General

Most of the Bible versions that I may use and compare most frequently are freely available in e-Sword Bible Software. Below, I have included the notes about the e-Sword versions I use at times (some more than others), as well as the other versions that I may use from time to time which are not yet available through this software.

Original Language Texts and Ancient Language Translations

The entries that follow attempt to present some of the basics about the original and the ancient versions of the Bible in other languages that help reveal to us what the most accurate representation of the Scriptures is for us in English today. While I think I cover many exciting and detailed insights about these original and ancient texts, the main thing that I want to do before I present the information in the following entries, is to give you some preliminary thoughts about the text of the Old Testament.

I have had the difficulty of running into many challenges when researching the ancient source texts of the Old Testament, and in a few places, I am forced to pass on some of these difficult questions to my readers as well. As a result of these challenges in seeking to find the most accurate text of the Old Testament, I often have to use different versions of the Old Testament than what most people are commonly using today, particularly when the New Testament quotes from them instead of what we usually use.

Some of the following entries in this bibliography are aimed at explaining some of the choices within my Bible projects that I have been compelled to make. Probably one of the most defining of these choices that I have had to make when quoting the Old Testament is to frequently prioritize (or “prefer”) the reading of the LXX (Greek Old Testament) over the MT (the current standard version of the Hebrew Old Testament).

LXX

- the oldest documents (Palio Hebrew)

- “”

The LXX, or Septuagint, is the first, official Koine Greek Translation of The ancient Hebrew Old Testament, (including most of what Protestants call “the Apocrypha”).

Like the Latin term “Septuagint” (Interpretatio septuaginta virorum), “LXX” is the Roman number “70,” and both of these references to “70” stand for the 70* Jewish scribes who were sent as a delegation of the leading translators of Israel to Alexandria Egypt by royal request of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, around roughly 200 BC, to translate the original Hebrew into the first official and complete Greek Old Testament. [* note: some sources say it was 72 translators].

Contrary to the shallow and unreasonable claims and conclusions of much of modern uninformed and de-educating critique, this official work of translating the ancient Hebrew Old Testament was done with the most scrupulous, diligent, accurate, and even Divine care, as originally believed by the Jews, and even taught by Jesus (see Greek of Mat_5:18 as quoted below under “MT”), and then confirmed by the special use of Jesus and the Apostles, and reaffirmed by the consistent testimony of essentially every truly respectable early Church leader.

We have this great approval for the LXX, at least in its original form. And although the current versions we use today have apparently had changes introduced into at least many of the books just as well as the MT (Masoretic Text), still, even in its present form (with apparently even a few books added to the so-called “Apocrypha” in some cases) when compared with all of the other available ancient versions of the OT, the LXX still most closely matches the majority of the NT quotes of the OT. When it comes to Jesus and the Apostles, the New Testament most often quotes directly from the Greek Septuagint (not the Hebrew MT that we usually use) whenever quoting the Old Testament, and this can become particularly noticeable when there are significant differences between the two, and the New Testament still prefers to use what we now only commonly find in the Greek Old Testament and sometimes in a number of other confirming texts!

If (at least in the original form) Jesus, all of the Apostles, and their immediate successors put their approval on this most esteemed translation, how can we not?

One of many examples where The New Testament References or Quotes the LXX over the MT is Found in Acts 15

Act_15:13, Act_15:15-16 KJV …James answered, saying… 15 …as it is written, 16 After this I will return…

New Testament

LXX (Greek)

Old Testament

MT (Hebrew)

Old Testament

Act_15:17 KJV That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.

Amo_9:12 CAB that the remnant of men, and all the Gentiles upon whom My name is called, may earnestly seek Me, says the Lord who does all these things.

Amo_9:12 KJV That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.

Adam Clark Does a very Good Job Explaining This Discrepancy

“That the residue of men might seek - Instead of this, the Hebrew has, That they may possess the remnant of Edom. Now it is evident that, in the copy from which the Seventy translated, they found ידרשו yidreshu, they might seek, instead of יירשו yireshu, they may possess, where the whole difference between the two words is the change of the י yod for a ד daleth, which might be easily done; and they found אדם adam, man, or men, instead of אדום Edom, the Idumeans, which differs from the other only by the insertion of ו vau between the two last letters. None of the MSS. collated by Kennicott and De Rossi confirm these readings, in which the Septuagint, Arabic, and St. James agree. It shows, however, that even in Jerusalem, and in the early part of the apostolic age, the Septuagint version was quoted in preference to the Hebrew text; or, what is tantamount, was quoted in cases where we would have thought the Hebrew text should have been preferred… But God was evidently preparing the way of the Gospel by bringing this venerable version into general credit and use; which was to be the means of conveying the truths of Christianity to the whole Gentile world. How precious should this august and most important version be to every Christian, and especially to every Christian minister! A version, without which no man ever did or ever can critically understand the New Testament. And I may add that, without the assistance afforded by this version, there never could have been a correct translation of the Hebrew text, since that language ceased to be vernacular, into any language. Without it, even St. Jerome could have done little in translating the Old Testament into Latin; and how much all the modern versions owe to St. Jerome’s Vulgate, which owes so much to the Septuagint, most Biblical scholars know.”

(Clarke on Act_15:17)

Synaticus:

We should take note that this posture of preferring the LXX over the MT (as we have just seen in Act_15:16-17) is repeated over and over again with the majority of all quotes throughout the New Testament.

At this point, it can be very helpful if you make sure to read what I’ve written in this bibliography on the MT to get the rest of the story on the LXX in light of the MT.

The Septuagint versions that I use and reference are:

(1) “Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), edited by Alfred Rahlfs.” *;

(2) Other LXX variations;

(3) Although I do not necessarily think it to be the most accurate version of the LXX, I also look directly at the original “Codex Sinaiticus” at times.

See: http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx

English Translations of the LXX:

The primary ways to view the LXX for those who cannot read Greek is through English translations such as Brenton (1851), The Apostle’s Bible, and the NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint). All three of these English versions of the LXX are specifically discussed later in this bibliography. In addition to these three, there is also that of Charles Thomson (1808) and the update to this by C. A. Muses (1954).

View the Greek of the LXX at:

www.TrueConnection.org/goto/lxx

Get the LXX in Greek for e-Sword as a free download at:

www.e-sword.net/bibles.html#lxx

Compare:

MT, HOT, Brenton, CAB, NETS, ALS,

MT

When referring to the Old Testament “MT” is an abbreviation for “Masoretic Text,” which is the current standard version of the Hebrew Old Testament. This means that the MT is used as the Hebrew source text for the Old Testament with the vast majority of all Bible versions in use today.

While Hebrew is indeed the original language of the Old Testament, the “Masoretic Text” is the current version of such Hebrew texts most commonly used today as the Hebrew Old Testament.

While the extreme scrupulousness of Hebrew scribes has been practiced for many, many years, and seems to surpass any other effort in history to preserve any other text, tragically, such diligence has not existed at every stage of textual transmission. At some point long before the diligence of the Masoretes and their diligent predecessors, at a time before even the New Testament was written, variations were introduced into the Hebrew text so that, to this day, the current Hebrew Text (the Masoretic Text) is in many places still inconsistent with the generally more accurate copies of the LXX, and as a result of this, New Testament quotes of the Old Testament often don’t exactly match when referring to the current Hebrew Old Testament. So although the Masoretes seem to have been very diligent to copy the Hebrew Old Testament, they unfortunately copied some of the wrong things because of the variations that were introduced previous to their efforts. They seem to have accurately reproduced what they had but what they had was not completely accurate to begin with. The New Testament proves this when quoting the OT, (and I have illustrated this under “LXX” previously)

Though there are exceptions to the normal practice, it was the LXX (or its Hebrew source text) in most cases which was preferred by Jesus, the Apostles, the early Church, and even most of the earlier versions of Judaism, when teaching on the Old Testament. Originally, writers frequently preferred a Hebrew source text closer to the LXX (as can often be seen throughout the Gospel of Matthew and the book of Hebrews, which were both reportedly written originally in Hebrew), or else they even eventually preferred the respected LXX itself, rather than using a Hebrew text with the variations we now have in the Masoretic Text.

It is evident that these earlier alternative Hebrew versions of what we now have as the Masoretic Text became officially standardized among the Jews at what is called, “the Council of Jamnia” (around 90 AD), during which they also decided to corporately and officially oppose the early Christians by excommunicating them from their synagogues. These two verdicts seem to have somewhat been carried out in conjunction with each other: (1) get rid of the Christians (2) get rid of the Bible version that supports their message, and this seems to have been done even against the Old Testament itself at least partly because (as a number of early church writers somewhat put it) the LXX (including its “extra books”) was evidently too successful and potent at confirming Jesus to be the Christ when compared to alternative Hebrew texts.

It wasn’t until Judaism corporately and officially rejected Christianity that a Hebrew source text was officially standardized for use among the Jews, which was different from the LXX, and was eventually used for making a somewhat less “Christian-friendly” Greek translation of the Old Testament to replace the LXX among the Jews. This newer Greek translation came to be called, “Aquila” because it was translated by Aquila of Sinope around 130 AD.

So during the earliest years of original Christianity, at the close of the times of the last of the twelve Apostles, the Jews standardized the wrong version of the Hebrew Old Testament, and tragically, the Masoretes diligently copied this text, and as a result, it has been handed down through the Jews to us unto this day. After Christianity apostated into Catholicism (especially after the early 300s) the church eventually started preferring the MT by means of the Latten Vulgate (after the early 400s). This is why we have eventually come to the point that we do not commonly use an Old Testament that matches the LXX (like more ancient Judaism, original Christianity and the New Testament did), and this is why our New Testament quotes of the Old Testament now often clearly don’t match.

It is difficult to say exactly how, why or when the Masoretic Text became different from the Hebrew source text that the LXX was translated from, and this is even more challenging because the LXX has also changed over the years, although not as much as the Masoretic Text. Deu_31:24-26; 2Ch_34:14, 2Ch_34:15-28>> But somehow, after this, the Hebrew text that the LXX was based on was pushed to the side, forgotten, and essentially lost.

I have not yet been able to determine if this shift away from an LXX type of Hebrew text happened simply because the Masoretic Text was standardized (around 90 AD), or if the LXX Hebrew was largely lost about 20 years previous to these “Jamnia meetings” when Jerusalem was destroyed (70 AD). Could both of these types of factors (and or other unknown details) have come into play in losing the Hebrew source behind the LXX? Whatever the case, all of this has left us with only parts of the type of Hebrew source text that was used by the LXX to be discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (and in a few other places). This evidence in support of a Hebrew original behind the LXX, to a great deal includes many of the older Hebrew fragments (in “Paleo-Hebrew”) of the OT found in this archeological discovery, and this evidence is much greater than some people have misrepresented it at times:

These manuscripts have also helped to realign scholars' assessments of the value of the ancient Septuagint translation. Traditionally, when the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic Text (which had been considered the Hebrew original), the Septuagint was routinely thought to be a “free” translation (or even a paraphrase, or just plain wrong). The Hebrew manuscripts of Samuel found at Qumran, however, very often agree with the Septuagint when it differs from the Masoretic Text. This demonstrates that the Septuagint was translated from a Hebrew text form similar to that of the Qumran manuscripts. The problem in assessing the Septuagint, as with so many historical documents, had been with scholars’ vision and criteria, not with the data. The Septuagint, of course, just like the Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and every other ancient manuscript tradition, does have its share of errors. But the important lesson here is that the Septuagint is not a free or false rendering, but rather a generally faithful translation of its Hebrew source.

(DSS Bible, Samuel [Introduction], p. 214, second paragraph)

And this discovery helps at least partly confirm that original Christianity was right all along in defending the LXX, even though they did not have this evidence to support their stance. Things became difficult for the early Christians when these discrepancies became an increasing issue with the Jews mocking the Christians and accusing them of using a poorly mistranslated version to prove that Jesus was the Christ (initially starting after 90 AD, and it seems to be even more so in the 200s and 300s). But though Jesus’ original assemblies of disciples uniformly stood faithfully without this evidence, we should stand even more firmly with it.

I am convinced that there is a more complete Hebrew source text that would agree more precisely with the LXX (and naturally, the New Testament) since this is certainly what Jesus is referring to in reference to the Hebrew and Greek of the Law (“ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου” - Mat_5:18). But while I believe that such a Hebrew text exists somewhere, I have not found it yet, and am still searching for it, and it seems that others are too.

Everything that I have read about source texts and their variations seems to universally confirm all of these basic facts that I have presented to you in the previous paragraphs, yet to this day, contrary to early Church practice, most everyone, christian, Jew and most others alike, consider the Masoretic Text to be the primary source text that people ought to use and translate from, as though they simply ignored all of these factors.

>> Personal Notes: make above Mat quote more clear /\

Compare:

HOT, LXX, Brenton, CAB, NETS, ALS, GNT

Also Compare:

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXX

(and see declaimers under “Wikipedia” herein)

www.hebrewbibles.com/tanakh.html

DSS – The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are a very important collection of about 972 ancient documents discovered from 1946 to 1956 that were preserved in eleven caves in the Judean desert around Qumran (northwest of the Dead Sea), by a strict sect of Judaism. Other than the LXX, these Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek discoveries are the oldest known copies of books from the Bible and ancient Judaism, since most people date the documents long before the New Testament, as early as 150 BC (although some think that some of the findings are as late as 70 AD). These documents are made up of many (but not all) of the books of the Old Testament [“40%”], including what Protestants call “the Apocrypha,” and books like Enoch [“30%”], as well as a significant portion of extra psalms and songs, community rules (for living a strict community life) and many other documents [“30%”].

This strict sect may be generically referred to as the Qumran Community since most all people consider the documents associated with the settlement in Qumran, but specifically, most people have identified this community with a group called the Essenes, which is mentioned throughout history. This group has many teachings and themes of serious (“Hard-core”) Judaism throughout their writings which are naturally consistent and incorporated within the ultimate revolution brought on by Jesus and His Apostles. Perhaps one of the most striking parallels are the very specific similarities between the Qumran Community and John the Baptist.

A very significant amount of evidence in the DSS supports the original Hebrew behind the LXX which is different than the MT:

http://mysite.verizon.net/rgjones3/Septuagint/spappendix.htm

Major Parallel themes include

“by…

Note

They are ensnared by two: by fornication

The Damascus Document

---------------

Printed DSS Resources

The Dead Sea scrolls Bible: the oldest known Bible Translated for the First Time into English

By Martin G. Abegg, Peter W. Flint, Eugene Charles Ulrich

Format: Hardcover, 649pp.
ISBN: 9780060600631
Publisher: Harper San Francisco
Pub. Date: December 1999

[Buy it on eBay]

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English

Revised Edition by Géza Vermès,.

(Oldest versions Titled: Dead Sea Scrolls in English)

Newest edition: 2004 (buy the one with white cover, not the old red cover edition)

ISBN-13: 9781850755630

ISBN-10: 1850755639

Publisher: Some say, “Penguin Books, 1962-2004” and others say, “Sheffield Academic Press”

Page Count: 391

[Buy it on eBay]

The Dead Sea Scrolls, A New Translation

Revised Edition by Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and Edward M. Cook, HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, 2005.

ISBN-13: 9780060766627

ISBN-10: 006076662X

Publisher: HarperOne

Date: November 2005

Page Count: 662

[Buy it on eBay]

Generic eBay Link

The Dead Sea scrolls translated: the Qumran texts in English

Florentino García Martínez, W. G. E. Watson

ISBN-13: 9789004105898

ISBN-10: 9004105891

Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers

Date: March 1996

Page Count: 519

[Buy it on eBay]

The Dead Sea scrolls study edition

Florentino García Martínez, Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar

Very interesting, with “a critical text of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew and English),” but too expensive

Discoveries from the Judaean Desert Series

Considered a very authoritative set of books in a large 40 volume series, but too expensive

eBay

See:

Holman QuickSource

Guide to The Dead Sea Scrolls

I cannot recommend this resource because it has pornography in it (that is, mostly “classical” “renaissance,” hypocritical-religious male pornography).

$15 at BAM

Also see

DSS Bible

DSS Bible is my way of abbreviating, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.” For all of the details about this, see the “Printed DSS Resources” under DSS.

HOT

When quoting the Bible, the abbreviation “HOT” stands for the Hebrew Old Testament, which is also called the “Tanach” or “Tanakh” by Rabbinic Judaism. The word “Tanakh” comes from a Hebrew acronym for:

Torah (Law)

Neviim (Prophets), and

Ketuvim (Writings)

This is an ancient division and order of the Old Testament that is still used by the Jews today.

Compare:

MT, LXX, Brenton, CAB, NETS, ALS, GNT

GNT – Greek New Testament

The abbreviation “GNT” stands for the Koine “Greek New Testament”; (See Koine Greek as defined later in the Glossary). There are basically three major “Textual Traditions” or “types” or “versions” of the GNT in use today as a basis for translations:

(1) Textus Receptus

(2) Byzantine Majority Text

(3) Alexandrian Text

(1) Textus Receptus

The Textus Receptus is Latin for the “Received Text,” and is frequently abbreviated as “TR” (or sometimes “T”). The Textus Receptus was basically one of the very first standardized and printed Greek New Testaments, being first printed in 1516. The name “Textus Receptus,” or “Received Text” implies that this is the text that we have “received” which has been passed down to us. What is not specified in this name is that it is the first major “critical text” to examine many major documents of the GNT and attempt to determine and compile the most correct readings out of all of the textual variations available. This is what is called a Critical Text.