[.ca] Greek New Testament-FL (ISBN 3438051133)

Pastor / Student Greek New Testament:
Martin Luther said the following on the importance of the original languages: "Without languages we could not have received the gospel. Languages are the scabbard that contains the sword of the Spirit; they are the casket which contains the priceless jewels of antique thought; they are the vessel that holds the wine; and as the gospel says, they are the baskets in which the loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude." If the languages do not remain then the Gospel will perish! It is necessary to learn the original languages of the Old and New Testaments. This Fourth edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament is the tool, which pastors and students need to learn and maintain competency in Koine Greek. It is an excellent edition of the Greek New Testament, which allows for exegetical study of the New Testament. The introduction is a helpful foundation for using this text. It provides a brief overview of the manuscripts used, abbreviations, and a select bibliography for further research. The textual apparatus (stuff at the bottom of the page) is not as detailed as the NA27 (Nestle-Aland 27th edition), but it is generally enough for the beginning-intermediate student and the pastor. Variant readings, punctuation apparatus, and cross-references are all included in the apparatus at the bottom of the page. The Synoptic Gospels have parallel segments listed above each section and there are subject titles, which seek to divide the passage into various trains of thought. In the back there is an index of quotations, an index of allusions and verbal parallels, and a list of the principal manuscripts cited in the textual apparatus. There is also a map index provided for the color map displayed on the very last two pages. Make sure to buy the edition, which includes Barclay Newman's A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament in the back. This dictionary can also be purchased separately but it is helpful to have at hand all in one book. Overall this is a good edition to keep close at hand. However it is a tool, which again is rendered ineffective unless it is used. May such tools provide the foundation for our understanding of the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is his word to us. It is the message of hope and life - it is the wisdom of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May we seek to study it, to understand it, and to hide it in our hearts that we may glorify him.

Frustratingly, 4th edition leaves you missing the 3rd:
This Greek New Testament (UBS4) uses the same text as the earlier 3rd edition (1975, corr. ed. 1983). The presentation of this text differs in two respects, neither of which is unambiguously an improvement: 1. A different font is used for the text itself. Not just a different font, but a repellently ugly font that has not much resemblance to any font with which a quality edition of a Greek text has ever been published before. Yes, ever. The geniuses at the United Bible Societies are the first people (going back to Erasmus' publication of a NT edition in 1516) who thought that a hideous, spindly, faux-italic computer font would be a better choice than ANY of the established Greek fonts that heretofore have been used in the printing of ancient texts. I hope you'll forgive my emotion on this point, but, as a scholar of (Classical) Greek with a library full of Greek texts published by Oxford, Teubner, etc., I am just flabbergasted to see such disregard for tradition as this. The UBS4 font choice is analogous to printing an English Bible in one of those goofy "Calypso" or "Horror Movie" fonts that come with Windows. The UBS3 (1975) and its corrected edition (1983) are both presented in an attractive, standard typeface that would be suitable for a printed edition of any ancient text. (As an aside: the Nestle-Aland "Novum Testamentum Graece," in some ways the more conventional current scholarly edition of the NT, is also marred by its odd, cramped way of indicating textual variations. Again, Nestle and Aland's innovation of intruding a million squiggles, squares, circles, etc., into a text, is not an improvement over the traditional apparatus criticus--it's just an awkward space-saver. This is a major reason why anyone who wants a clean, accurate, up-to-date Greek text of the NT may want to choose UBS3 over Nestle-Aland.) 2. The other difference is in the selection and presentation of material in the critical apparatus. Here, I'm sure there were sound scholarly reasons. Note that in the UBS Greek Bibles (as opposed to the Nestle-Aland "Novum Testamentum Graece") the point of the apparatus criticus is not to present the larger manuscript tradition and variations synoptically, but to focus in on only those textual variations that might affect the translation of a passage. For these passages, the apparatus indicates a committee's judgment (indicated with a letter scale: A, B, C, D) on the different possible readings and punctuations. Unfortunately, here too the revisions are not definitely an improvement. As Edward Hobbs, a distinguished Professor of Religion at Wellesley College, wrote on a popular Biblical Greek email list, "I also prefer UBS3 or UBS3c, since the evaluations have not undergone the 'grade-inflation' of UBS4. (Slightly different method used to describe the A,B,C,D grades, but the committee membership changed over the years to a more-traditional-in-some-ways and more-clones-of-Aland-in-other-ways group.)" The upshot of this is, the range of information and opinion you get from the apparatus in UBS3 is not obsolete and not inferior to what UBS4 offers.

The Critical Edition of the Greek New Testament:
Many seem to be confused about what a critical edition is. A critical edition contains multiple texts, derived from many different manuscripts. The main text is what the editors assume to be the most likely original text, but there is always the possibility that they are wrong. In many cases choosing the "best" version is easy: all the most ancient papyri and uncials agree. In other cases the editors use their subjective judgment to choose the text. No assumption of infallibility on the part of the editors is implied! Alternative texts from different manuscripts are given in the footnotes, together with symbols representing the manuscripts that support them. The symbols for the various manuscripts are given in the little card included in the book (it is beige in my 3rd edition of the UBS Greek New Testament, ISBN 348051109). One needs to understand how to use the critical apparatus of the footnotes in order to get all the information contained in a critical edition. Learning how to use the critical apparatus is difficult enough that entire books have been written on how to do it. For instance the Alands "The Text of The New Testament" (ISBN: 0802840981) is mostly a guide to the use of the modern critical editions. This is the most useful part of the book: the introduction to the rules of textual criticism is the weakest part. The UBS New Testament does not give as many different versions as Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, but the footnotes are easier to understand. The variants chosen represent the oldest papyri and codices. What is the point of including variants from tenth century (or later) miniscules? There seems to be a school of "thought" that considers later manuscripts preferable to the early ones. It is obvious were this strange belief comes from: the need of propping up cherished but obsolete translations.

A trusted Resource:
I purchased my second edition back in 1976 while a seminary student. Although I have not proved to be a Greek scholar, I have found The Greek New Testament a trusted resource and helpful aid in my studies, especially in the realm of apologetics. Especially helpful are the textual variants listed on the bottom of the page, and the ratings given to them by the editors. Whereas a Greek scholar would prefer to make his or her own judgments and to the veracity of the variants, as a country preacher whose Greek skills, though rusty, were never very good in the first place, I find them a helpful aid. In an age where seminaries are increasing dropping the Hebrew and Greek requirements for the study of the ministry, a working knowledge of Hebrew and Greek is still a valuable skill for the preacher of God's Word. Though I seldom use my Greek New Testament, it still gets pulled of the self every so often to check out controversial passage that I have to comment on. After almost thirty years, my Greek New Testament still have an honored place on my library shelf.

Important Variant Readings Missing:
The apparatus of this edition lacks all variant readings which are important for someone interested in stylistic problems. The codex Alexandrinus on which this edition is heavily based is very much an atticised version of the New Testament. However, there are many manuscripts that are written in a more koine style. Like all the UBS editions this edition underestimates the importance of philological research as has been done, for instance, by Sturz and other philogists. Of course, style has never been a preoccupation of students of christianity.