Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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

For those interested in textual criticism and wanting a different perspective from the Metzger-Aland paradigm, this volume is a good start. While individual MSS are not cited, one can still gain a plethora of information from the textual apparatus, which gives comparisons in regards to the various subgroups of M, the Critcal Text (Nestle-Aland/UBS), the TR, and the Coptic (Alexandrian) witnesses.

Areas for improvement: The critical apparati could use some cosmetic changes to facilitate easier reading. Of added benefit might be an appendix indicating all of the singular readings of the various cited witnesses, and perhaps adding citations from ALL uncials 6th century and before.

The stemmatic reconstruction of Revelation is intriguing, but the benefit to it may be further enhanced by including an appendix of where HF's Revelation disagrees with Robinson-Pierpont.

A very economically priced volume and very portable.

This is a fine book, but for those interested in an interlinear version, "The Majority Text Greek New Testament Interlinear" by the same editors is to be released in April, 07 by Thomas Nelson.

This book gives you some nice alternatives to the UBS/NA Greek NT texts, which have developed a type of undeserved monopoly. The argument that the Egyptian texts are to be prefered over the Byzantine texts, whatever be its merits, loses its force when you have a complete text of the later, and variant readers of the former. Then when you see each variant from UBS-NA relegated to a footnote (and note that UBS/NA does NOT return the favor to the Byzantine text; UBS, especially, and even NA just give you SOME of the readings from the Byzantine text)you are struck with the fact that these readings usually give you no reason to dismiss as likely to be secondary. It's all so subjective; who is to say which reading is "more difficult" or "smoother." And of course, most of the time the variants are so minor you wonder what all the fuss is about it. Either text is just fine; it's just an irony that UBS/NA enthusiasts are often just as fanatical as defenders of the old Textus Receptus.
But what I like about this text is its external features which in many ways are better than UBS or NA. The binding on this text is much better. The font is interesting, very straight and dark and clear and bigger than any but the large print editions of UBS/NA. The editors of this text say their straight font (O how we despise especially the italicized font of UBS 4, but even NA is unnecessarily sloped) is particulary easier for new readers. I don't know about that, but I like reading this font for some reason. The pages of this book are also white which is nicer than the yellow of UBS/NA. This text also does some things with puncuation which if you think about it make perfect sense. It capitalizes the first word of every sentence as we do in English. It uses regular English question marks and occasionally uses exclamation marks. This makes reading a little easier in my opinion. It also capitalizes works like Pneuma.
One naturally compares this book not only to UBS/NA (and I am not saying this book is necessarily better; just different) but to Robinson and Pierpont's "The New Testament in the Original Greek," which gives a very similar Byzantine text (see my review of that book.) Both editions are great. The font on Robinson's book is a better, the best Greek font available on any edition. The critical apparatus of this book is more complete but harder to figure out than Robinson's. This book is a little more portable, and the font is only a tiny bit smaller. This book, unlike Robinson's has nice English subheadings to each section, which help a bit with reading comprehension. The introductions to neither book, in my opinion, makes the case for Byzantine priority in a clear enough way. This book does not have a ribbon; Robinson's does. This book, because of the complexity of its apparatus, has a text which is more mared with symbols; Robinson's is pure text. I guess I have to give Robinson's text a slight edge, but I really like the readability of this text. Since at this point all the diglots and Reader's Editions bascially use the UBS/NA text, I would recommend you get one of these texts for your "unmarked" text.

I have long believed the Majority Text (MT) to be superior to the Critical Text (CT, i.e., the NA/ UBS text) and even to the Textus Receptus (TR). My first introduction to the MT was via the textual footnotes in the NKJV. These reference the first edition of Hodges and Farstad's Majority Text. I discuss in detail my reasons for preferring the MT to the CT and TR in my book Differences Between Bible Versions.

That said, this book is a quality volume. The print style is very readable, and the textual footnotes are helpful for study in this regard. The accompanying "NKJV Interlinear" (now titled Majority Text Greek New Testament Interlinear) is also a very helpful volume.

However, I prefer Robison & Pierpont's MT (The New Testament in the Original Greek) to H&F's MT. Having studied their differing methodologies, I believe that R&P's is even more accurate. However, it should be noted that the differences between these two texts are minimal. In fact, I used R&P's for translating my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT), but I also referred to H&F's text at times and to the NKJV Interlinear in my translation work and for the textual variants chapter in my Companion Volume to the Analytical-Literal Translation: Third Edition.

So H&F's text is a good volume for translation work, but R&P's text is even better.

The best thing about this publication is its easy-to-read layout and English headers. English readers will appreciate the large type and judicious use of whitespace. I end up reading from this edition rather than Nestle/Aland simply because it's a lot easier on my eyes, not because I prefer the textual variants (I'm no expert anyway). Most of the variations fall in the range of spelling or slight changes in word order, nothing that radically changes the meaning of the text. Important variations are well documented in each edition.

In Christianity there are basically two types of Greek texts used for the many different versions of English Bibles on the market. One is based on the Egyptian manuscripts used by the early Catholic Church which we today get the NIV. The other Greek manuscripts are those called the Majority Text (MT) that the King James Version is based on. You will find the MT to be accurate and its critical notes shows variations between the Egytian and MT. Lacking is notes on punctuation.

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My husband and I have been cruising used book stores for many months looking for this book. When we did find one the price was high and the condition was not great. Our daughter helped me with amazon.com and we found this book within minutes and the price was great. It arrived within one week (in time for Christmas) and the condition was excellent.