Resource Review: Crossway’s The Greek New Testament, Reader’s Edition, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge
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It is the question that plagues every new seminarian or undergraduate student taking their first course in biblical Greek: “Why do we need to study the Greek New Testament?!”
However, that question isn’t just for the frustrated first-semester Greek student. It is also a question asked by a wide array of Christians from a wide variety of contexts. Do we really need to study the New Testament (or the Old Testament – more on that in a future post) in the original languages? With all of the resources available for Christian leaders today, what is the merit of spending time to learn – and read – the Bible in its original languages?
Many great answers can and have been given in response to those important questions. However, they all boil down to the same crucial point. We read the Bible in the original languages to more deeply and fully understand the word of God as His revelation of Himself to us. Translations of the Bible into English and other languages are an incredible gift of God to His church. Not being able to read the Bible in the original languages does not hinder or hamper our ability to study and learn from His word and to live faithful, Christ-honoring, and obedient lives in service to Him. However, nothing gets us as close to the fullness of the truth of God as conveyed in His word as being able to read and understand it in the original languages. As the Jewish poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik observed, “Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil.”[1] The great reformer, Martin Luther, also asserted the value of learning the original languages when he stated, “As we value the gospel, let us zealously hold to the languages.”[2] We study the original languages – including the Greek New Testament – because we want to more fully and faithfully understand the Bible as the word of God!
Overview:
The Tyndale House Greek New Testament, Reader’s Edition (THGNT-RE), published by Crossway, is a magnificent new edition of the Greek New Testament. As will be discussed and examined in what follows, the THGNT-RE contains a variety of features that make the work a wonderful blessing to both the new student just beginning to learn Greek and the seasoned veteran with years of study of the Greek New Testament under his/her belt.
The Greek Text:
The 27 books of the Protestant New Testament canon of Scripture were originally written in a language called koine Greek. In contrast to classical Greek, this is the type of Greek that was “common” (koinē) to the Near Eastern and Mediterranean lands in Roman times.[3] The Bible was given by God for all of His people to study, read, understand, and apply in Christian life. Accordingly, I have always found it to be both moving and powerful to recognize that God chose to give the New Testament in the everyday, common language of His people during the first century. Further, throughout the centuries, He has blessed His church with pastors, scholars, and teachers gifted in the study of the original languages of Scripture to translate, preach, and teach His Word and to assist other Christians in their study and understanding of it.
The Greek text behind the THGNT-RE is the version of the text produced by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. Tyndale House is an international center for research that specializes in conducting research related to the languages, history, and cultural context of the Bible.[4] The institute houses one of the world’s most advanced libraries for biblical scholarship and has an expressed commitment to deepening Christians’ understanding of the Bible. Tyndale House explained its mission and activities as “At our core is a community of researchers who study the Bible at the highest level and collaborate on projects to deepen Bible knowledge. We bring together outstanding Christian researchers from around the world with the aim of promoting Bible understanding in the Church and beyond.”[5]
There are several versions of the Greek New Testament available for study today. For many years, the standard scholarly edition of the Greek New Testament used in colleges, universities, and seminaries all across the world was (and largely still remains) the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece text, currently in its 28th revised edition (commonly abbreviated NA28) published by Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The NA28, along with its parallel expression in the form of the United Bible Society’s The Greek New Testament, 5th Revised Edition (UBS5), are the texts I learned to translate when taking Greek as an elementary and intermediate Greek student (except it was the NA27/UBS4 when I first started learning Greek…). They remain widely used by pastors, scholars, and students of the Greek New Testament all around the world.
So, why the need for another edition of the Greek New Testament? Dr. Dirk Jongkind, the editor of the THGNT, explained that the editorial choices made in other editions of the Greek New Testament (including the NA28/UBS5) related to how the Greek text is presented are not universally accepted or agreed upon by scholars based on the weight of manuscript evidence. This reality created the need for an alternate edition of the text. To further explain, the original copies of each of the 27 books of the New Testament were written on papyrus sheets and scrolls (called papyri). Because of the delicate physical nature of these documents, they don’t last for long lengths of time before breaking down without extraordinary preservative care (similar to what archivists do today to preserve copies of texts written on other delicate/perishable forms of paper, such as the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution). As a result, to preserve the text of Scripture through the centuries, the church created and preserved thousands of copies of the text all over the world that were passed down, copied, and re-copied through the years.
Given the enormous geographical spread of the church, the development of various doctrinal/denominational traditions, convictions, and schools of thought, and the many persecutions and challenges faced by the church all over the world throughout its history, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ achieved a breathtaking level of accuracy through the centuries in copying and preserving the original text of the Greek New Testament. This phenomenal level of accuracy emphasizes just how miraculously God worked through His people to preserve His word. However, given that these copies were produced and transmitted by hand, small variations developed between them. This is not evidence of a conspiracy, as some like to claim, nor does it corrupt the nature of the Bible as God has given and preserved it. To illustrate, I love to share Bible verses regularly on social media. Every now and then, when typing verses into my status bar, I make a spelling or grammatical mistake. When I catch it, I go back and correct it. It doesn’t corrupt the original, as there are other copies and expressions of the text to which my status can be compared and its accuracy can be evaluated. It isn’t a conspiracy on my part to change or alter the meaning of the biblical text. Rather, it is simply a clerical mistake to be corrected. Can you imagine copying the entire text of the New Testament, or even a single book of the New Testament, by hand in the early centuries of Christian history without making a single mistake? Some days, I can’t even get one verse posted without making a grammatical mistake – even with all of the benefits of modern technology and the resources and helps available to us….and yet the church achieved an almost unimaginable level of accuracy in copying, transmitting, and preserving identical texts of Scripture all over the world!
Nonetheless, because we do not possess the originals written by the Apostles, reviewing, studying, and evaluating various copies of the Greek texts throughout the centuries is how the church ensures that the text of Scripture used to translate and produce English and other language versions of the Bible today is accurate and faithful to the originals God gave to the church through the biblical authors. This process is known as New Testament text criticism. Every edition of the Greek New Testament involves the work of teams of New Testament scholars who evaluate the thousands of copies of the Greek New Testament available to us throughout the centuries and seek to produce a single volume of the Greek New Testament that accurately reflects the composition of the original text given to the church.
The THGNT is a vital contribution to this field of study. Dr. Jongkind and the team of scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge, have made helpful and faithful editorial choices in producing this copy of the Greek text that enhances the clarity of the Greek New Testament for readers and further develops our understanding of the biblical text. For a relatively brief but highly informative treatment of the philosophy, need, methodology, and rationale of the scholars in producing the THGNT, check out Dr. Jongkind’s complete introduction to the work, An Introduction to the Greek New Testament Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge, from Crossway (click here to purchase).
Editorship and Qualifications:
The editor of the THGNT-RE is Dr. Dirk Jongkind. Dr. Jongkind is academic vice principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge, and spent ten years editing the THGNT. He received his Master of Arts degree in Old Testament at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Master of Philosophy (M. Phil.) degree in New Testament from the University of Cambridge, and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in New Testament studies from the University of Cambridge.[6] The associate editor of the work is Peter J. Williams. Dr. Williams serves as Principal and CEO of Tyndale House, Cambridge. He received the M.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in the study of ancient languages related to the Bible from the University of Cambridge.[7] THGNT-RE’s assistant editors are Peter M. Head and Patrick James. Dr. Head serves as Tutor in New Testament at the University of Oxford and earned his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from the University of Cambridge.[8] James serves as a Research Associate at Clare College and a faculty member in classics at Haileybury College.[9] The reader’s textual notes found throughout the work were compiled by Drayton C. Benner, James R. Covington, and Andrew Zulker. All scholars who contributed to the THGNT-RE are eminently qualified and possess educational and professional backgrounds commensurate with the project.
Materials and Construction:
The THGNT-RE is one of the most beautifully constructed copies of the Greek New Testament I have ever held in my hands. The work is produced using high-quality materials throughout. The hardback binding is thick, sturdy, and an attractive shade of matte black that complements the gold gilding in the embossed title on the front and spine of the book.
The work is also Smyth-sewn, which is one of my favorite features of this edition. Other versions of the Greek New Testament I have used, including my paperback copy of the UBS Greek New Testament, 4th edition, use more economical glued bindings that last a fraction of the time that a sewn binding will endure. In addition, the pages are surprisingly thick compared to other editions of the Greek New Testament I own or have previously used, with relatively little ghosting of the text on the next page. The work also contains a good-quality black ribbon marker that matches the color of the binding.
The text itself is printed in 10-point Adobe font. This is among my favorite features of the book, as both the sizing and font of the text make it very clear, easy to read, and enhances the experience of studying the Greek New Testament. Some other editions of the Greek New Testament available today, while being of great quality in terms of accuracy and overall craftsmanship of materials, use fonts that can be incredibly difficult to read. Particularly for beginning students of the Greek New Testament, reading a copy in a less-than-clear font can be a frustrating, confusing, and even discouraging experience. The THGNT-RE avoids that challenge by providing a clear, well-sized, and excellent-quality font for the Greek text.
In addition, the reader’s edition of the THGNT includes a well-constructed slipcase for the book. The slipcase is thick and durable, and contains a summary of the features of the work on the back. The spine of the slipcase is also labeled with information about the work, so it can be placed on a bookshelf with either the spine of the case or the spine of the actual work displayed and still provide helpful identification of the work.
Survey of Contents & Critical Evaluation:
The THGNT-RE includes a brief preface and introduction, followed by the text of the Greek New Testament. One of the most significant differences between the THGNT-RE and other copies of the Greek New Testament immediately becomes apparent in the table of contents. Traditionally, the Protestant New Testament lists the books in order of the Gospels, followed by Acts, followed by the Pauline Epistles, then the General (sometimes called “Catholic”) Epistles, and then Revelation. However, in the THGNT-RE, the order of the epistles is a little different. While the work lists the Gospels in their usual placement and order, as well as the book of Revelation at the end of the canon, the traditional order of the epistles is altered. The book of Acts is followed by the Catholic Epistles, and then the letters of Paul follow. At the conclusion of the canon, Revelation, or ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ (Apocalypse of John) is found in its traditional place.
Dr. Jongkind provides the rationale for this change in his separate, longer introduction to the work. Jongkind observed: “First of all, within the printing of the Greek New Testaments, this is not an unusual order. Other editions have done the same (e.g., the Robinson-Pierpont edition of the Byzantine text in 2005). The reason for this order is that in the manuscript tradition, Acts and the Catholic Epistles frequently go together and also appear in the manuscripts before the Pauline Letters. Not every manuscript conforms to the same order, but the overall pattern in the Greek tradition is clear.”[10] In short, the editors of the THGNT-RE made this decision to keep the work in alignment with what they believed best represented the majority of the copies of the Greek New Testament and, thus, the historical Greek text tradition.
As is traditional with copies of the Greek New Testament, the titles are provided in Greek, as well, with the traditionally truncated titling. For example, the Gospel of Matthew is labeled as “KΑΤΑ ΜΑΞΞΑΙΟΝ,” or “According to Matthew” in the table of contents. “The Gospel,” or “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ,” is the implied beginning of the title and is included at the top of the page where the Gospel actually begins, but is not included in the table of contents. ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ is also not included in the title on some copies of the Greek New Testament manuscripts.
On each page, the page headings consist of the title of the book in question (found at the top of every page) along with a page number on the top left and the first complete verse found on the page provided on the top right. Below the heading is the Greek text, which consumes approximately half of the page. Instead of indicating new paragraphs within the chapter by use of a .5” indentation, which is the typical English structure of the text within chapters, the THGNT-RE follows the practice of most Greek manuscripts by extending the first line of the paragraph into the left-hand margin. Each new verse is indicated within the paragraphs by the use of superscript numbers (small numbers elevated at the beginning of the sentence/verse).
The key feature that makes the THGNT-RE a “Reader’s Edition” is found on the second half of each page containing the Greek text. For words in the Greek text that occur fewer than 25 times throughout the New Testament (that is, relatively rare Greek words), a running glossary is provided at the bottom of the page. These words are indicated within the Greek text through the use of superscript numbers found at the end of a word (and, often, within the sentence). The glossary indicators for rare words are differentiated in a slightly modified font to assist the reader in distinguishing between superscript verse indicators at the beginning of the verse and superscript glossary indicators following certain words. Verse indicators are bold, slightly larger, and followed by a space between the superscript text and the first letter of the word that begins the verse. Glossary indicators for rare words appear slightly smaller in size, are not in bold font, and contain no space between the last letter of the rare word in question and the superscript number indicating the glossary reference on the bottom half of the page. While these differences may sound (and initially appear) to be minuscule, the style difference makes distinguishing between verse indicators and glossary indicators much easier than expected when reading the text. This feature also gives this edition an advantage over some other reader’s editions.
Similar to most reader’s editions, the running glossary at the bottom of the page is linked to the text above through the aforementioned superscript number references and provides a brief definition of each rare word in the text for the reader. However, the glossary also incorporates another one of my favorite features of the THGNT-RE: parsing for each rare word. Parsing refers to analyzing the various words in the Greek New Testament according to their various parts and components that provide meaning. Greek words employ a variety of suffixes, prefixes, and other grammatical features that provide additional meaning beyond the root definition of a given word. These grammatical features identify the word’s gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular or plural), and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative) – all of which are key grammatical features that convey the meaning of a given word in the text. All reader’s editions of the Greek New Testament, by virtue of being reader’s editions, provide a brief lexical definition of rare words. However, few of them also provide parsing for words these words in addition to a root definition. These features add immense value for the reader, and particularly so for readers of the Greek New Testament who are relatively new to the Greek language.
Towards the back of the work, two additional features of note are also provided. First, a section entitled “Surface Forms to Lemmas” is provided. As noted in the introduction, excluding proper nouns in the text, all words corresponding to lemmas that occur twenty-five times or fewer receive footnotes marked by numbers. For those unfamiliar with the term, a “lemma” refers to the headwords (and by extension, the whole entry) of an individual variation unit in the apparatus of the Greek text.[11] These variations are those discussed earlier that occur as part of the natural process of copying and re-copying the Greek text through the centuries. Second, a master glossary/dictionary of words occurring more than 25 times can be found. Both features are designed to “provide accommodations for holes in one’s knowledge of these words” (vix).
Summary and Recommendation:
I began studying the Greek New Testament during my first semester of college in the Fall of 2008. Since that time, I have collected and read from a variety of copies, editions, and versions of the Greek New Testament. As a pastor, I reference these resources regularly in the course of sermon preparation, Bible study for pastoral counseling and teaching applications, and my own personal study and application of the Word of God. There are many great copies and editions of the Greek New Testament available today, including the NA28, the UBS5, and the Zondervan A Reader’s Greek Testament, among others.
However, in terms of the quality of materials and publication, the nature of the Greek text presented, and the features contained in the edition, the Crossway THGNT-RE ranks as one of my absolute favorites. The work is of breathtaking quality and beauty that makes for a pleasurable experience in reading and studying the Greek New Testament. The quality of construction, combined with the advances in the underlying Tyndale House text used for this edition and its supporting features, make this a work of tremendous value for any current or aspiring student of the Greek New Testament. This work will prove an enduring asset to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as His people seek to study and understand His Word in a deeper way for generations to come.
“Knowing the biblical languages ‘provides a sustained freshness, a warranted boldness, and an articulated, sure, and helpful witness to the truth.’” -Dr. Jason DeRouchie[12]
[1] Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer, Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 4.
[2] Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer, Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 5.
[3] Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Koine Greek,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1293.
[4] Tyndale House, Cambridge, “What We Do,” tyndalehouse.com, Tyndale House, Cambridge, https://tyndalehouse.com/about/
[5] Tyndale House, Cambridge, “What We Do,” tyndalehouse.com, Tyndale House, Cambridge, https://tyndalehouse.com/about/
[6] Tyndale House, Cambridge, “Dirk Jongkind,” “Staff,” “About,” tyndalehouse.com, Tyndale House, Cambridge, https://tyndalehouse.com/about/staff/dirk-jongkind/
[7] Tyndale House, Cambridge, “Peter J. Williams,” “Staff,” “About,” tyndalehouse.com, Tyndale House, Cambridge, https://tyndalehouse.com/about/staff/peter-j-williams/
[8] Wycliffe Hall, “Dr Peter Head,” “people,” Wycliffe.ox.ac.uk, Wycliffe Hall, the University of Oxford, https://www.wycliffe.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-peter-head
[9] Academia.edu, “Patrick James,” Academica.edu, https://haileybury.academia.edu/PatrickJames
[10] Dirk Jongkind, An Introduction to the Greek New Testament Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 35.
[11] Dirk Jongkind, An Introduction to the Greek New Testament Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 114.
[12] Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer, Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 14.
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