The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text with Apparatus: Second Edition (English and Greek Edition) [Hardcover]

Zane C. Hodges (Editor), Arthur L. Farstad (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1985

The only complete edition of the Greek New Testament that shows what the majority of Greek manuscripts in existence contain. All students of biblical Greek should use this edition to consider its thoughtful challenge to the eclectic text provided in all other Greek Testaments

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Greek

Product Details

• Hardcover: 810 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 2nd edition (January 1, 1985)
• Language: English, Greek
• ISBN-10: 0840749635
• ISBN-13: 978-0840749635
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,649 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have, January 5, 2001

By 

Jonathan Bailey (Lawton, OK USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text with Apparatus: Second Edition (English and Greek Edition) (Hardcover)

I own the second edition of this book, which is apparently currently out of print. I am hoping that a new edition is the works, and so thought I would give a review. This book is a real boon to New Testament scholarship. It is a revival of scholarly lines of thinking that have lost popularity in the last centuries. Since time immemorial, the method of finding out whether a particular Greek manuscript contained an accurate rendering of the originals written by the apostles and their associates was to compare it against the majority of available Greek manuscripts (called 'witnesses' because they testify to what the original might have been). If you have a manuscript that said that Jesus walked on honey and a thousand others that said that he walked on water, then your manuscript is incorrect. The reason for this thinking is two-fold. First, on a mundane level, good quality manuscripts will tend to be used as sources for others, while bad quality manuscripts tend to get thrown by the wayside. The second, spiritual reasoning, is that God providentially preserves his written Word, so God will protect good manuscripts and cause them to be copied reliably. God will let the bad manuscripts fall into obscurity. So this was the thinking of the midieval and reformation scholars. This thinking also created the famous "Textus Receptus" which was used as a basis for the New Testament of the King James Version.

In the last century, European scholarship began to apply critical thinking to how manuscripts were transmitted and came up with some new ideas. They thought completely from a humanistic standpoint, that is, they didn't consider God's role in preservation of scripture at all. In addition, they gave weight to the idea that errors accumulate over time, and therefore older manuscripts are better than newer ones. That is, If you have a manuscript that says Jesus walked on honey, and a thousand others that say he walked on water, but the one that says he walked on honey is older, then it is probably correct, and the others are based on later manuscripts in to which errors have crept over time.

It just so happens that this is the state of New Testament textual criticism. We have thousands of newer manuscripts that tend to resemble each other and a few really old ones that are a little different, and tend to resemble each other.

The most popular Greek texts used by modern scholars are the Novum Testamentum Graece, which is based on the critical method, and the Textus Receptus, which is based on the majority method. Unfortunately, the Receptus is from the 16th century, and has a number of readings that are not majority readings because the compilers of the text had limited information available to them. So it came to pass that anyone 'scholarly' believed in the critical text, and only bumpkin preachers used the Receptus.

Lately, however, the theories used by the critical scholars have come under some serious fire. The critical text scholars proposed a theory for why all the later manuscripts have been 'corrupted', but this theory has never yielded any evidence that would prove it true. Also, some believe that the particular family of older manuscripts used by these scholars might have come from a heretical sect. Though this theory has also not yielded any evidence proving it true, enough doubt has been cast on the situation to warrant new respect for the majority of later texts. Maybe they really are better. So the book that I am reviewing was created as a modern update of the Textus Receptus based on the cutting edge of manuscript knowledge. It is not a perfect text, but it is a good one. I highly recommend that seminary students and Greek New Testament enthusiasts purchase it in addition to the critical text and the Textus Receptus.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars English book names and chapter subtitles a key feature, May 17, 2000

By 

"shofar" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text with Apparatus: Second Edition (English and Greek Edition) (Hardcover)

When I began to study New Testament Greek, I of course needed a good Greek New Testament. The majority text edition not only provided a durable hard cover, a great introduction, the text, and two sets of apparatus to indicate all of the variant readings, but it also had a key feature that helped me to choose it over the other available options - the book names and chapter subtitles (such as "The Rich Young Ruler", etc.) are rendered in English. This feature makes it much faster to to locate specific passages and it increases comprehension. There is no interlinear or sidebar translation, so the reader must still produce his own translation, which is what you want if you are a student. But since getting to the right place can be half the battle, this edition is a great time saver.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Greek New Testament available today., March 17, 2000

By 

Bob Wilkin (Irving, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text with Apparatus: Second Edition (English and Greek Edition) (Hardcover)

I learned an eclectic approach to textual criticism at Dallas Seminary. Then, during my doctoral work, I learned about the Majority Text position and became convinced it is correct.

Whether one agrees with the Majority Text theory or not, this is an extremely well laid out Greek New Testament. It is easy to read. The textual apparatus is easy to follow. The fact that it is hardback makes it more durable than UBS or NA.

I highly recommend this book.

Bob Wilkin, Ph.D. Author of

Confident in Christ: Living by Faith Really Works