A
new translation of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John
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July 1st, 2009 I have uploaded my new translation of the Third Epistle of John.
June 23rd, 2009 I have added the minuscules 1678 and 2080 to the witness list for 1 John and 2 John. In addition, I have cleaned up and further proof-read the footnotes to these files.
April 21st, 2009: I have just uploaded a
MAJOR update of my translation of Revelation,
with all the major textual variants now footnoted with a revised
consistent list of witnesses. I have also found quite a few errors in
the process, unfortunately. It is just a huge job, and I have to go to
a paying job too. But I am on a small vacation now, and have really
attacked the revision and proof-reading job on these files. I have
updated and corrected 2
John significantly as well. November 20, 2008: I have finished my translation of the Second Epistle of John. This document indicates every difference between the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text and the UBS/NA27 text in 2 John. It also shows differences, in the footnotes, between various editions of the KJV and TR for 2 John. It contains the Greek text of the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition ("NA27") combined with the Robinson-Pierpont ("RP") 2005 edition; The agreement thereof in black text; otherwise, the NA27 in green text and the RP in red; with critical footnotes combining the data from the Text und Textwert catholic epistles volume, the UBS4, the UBS3 (not including its patristic citations), the NA27, and the online Münster apparatus. Every one of the "teststellen" from Text und Textwert is
listed in the apparatus with a greater number of witnesses, showing the
readings of 86 of the Greek manuscripts: It is a pdf document, and its size is 211 KB. Here is the download link To download the PDF, right-click the link, and choose "save." To download the edition without the Greek (189 KB), right-click this link, and then choose "save as." October 08, 2008 I have corrected several errors in the footnotes of my translation of the First Epistle of John. They were mainly cases of a manuscript being cited twice. Thanks to Richard Wilson of laparola.net for pointing these out to me. To download the edition without the Greek text, right-click this link, and then choose "save as." May 28, 2008: I have finished my translation of the First Epistle of John. This document indicates every difference between the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text and the Critical text in 1 John. It also shows differences, in the footnotes, between various editions of the KJV and TR for 1 John. It contains the Greek text of the Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Major ("ECM") combined with the Robinson-Pierpont ("RP") 2005 edition; The agreement thereof in black text; otherwise, the ECM in green text and the RP in red; with critical footnotes combining the data from the Text und Textwert catholic epistles volume, the UBS4, the UBS3 (not including its patristic citations), the NA27, and the online Münster apparatus; plus readings of 5 6 442 468 supplied by Wieland Willker in "ECM Variants 1 John" where there is no Teststelle in the Text und Textwert volume. Every
one of the "teststellen" from Text und Textwert is listed in the
apparatus with a greater number of witnesses, showing the readings of
86 of the Greek manuscripts: It is a pdf document. Here is the download link To download the PDF, right-click the link, and choose "save." To download the edition without the Greek text, right-click this link, and then choose "save as."
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Word for Windows Section: (NOTE: for the Word documents, Word 97 or higher will display them correctly, and also WordPad, might open them. Except WordPad might not display the footnotes. You can download for free the Open Office Suite software free by clicking here, or, from Microsoft's website, a Word Viewer for read-only purposes, by clicking here.) Word 98 or later for Mac will open the Word for Windows documents, and display the English fine, but will not display the Unicode Greek and Hebrew fonts correctly. You need Word 2004 for Mac or later to display the Unicode correctly. The whole Bible, Word 97 for Windows,
.doc format, (Macintosh Word 98 or later will open and read this too) PDF Section: These documents are in PDF (Portable Document Format), readable by most all platforms- Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Besides cross-platform compatibility, another advantage to these is that you don't have to download and install any fonts. To read these, you probably already have Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download these files, right-click the links, and then choose "save as" or "save link as." I will from now on be putting most of my efforts into these PDF editions, since I don't have to use as much time adding changes to all the various Word editions. The
whole Bible,
PDF format; 7 MB. Updated August
09, 2010 Someone commented on the fact that I apparently think that present tense in the verbs means "continuous." One man in Illinois said, "Show me just one authority on New Testament Greek, that says this is so." So, here are some lessons in N.T. Greek verb tenses, from two authorities that do say this is so. The first is from A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by F. Blass and A. DeBrunner, A translation and revision of the ninth-tenth German edition, incorporating supplementary notes of A. DeBrunner, by Robert W. Funk, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London (1961). This is one of the top two or three advanced grammars of New Testament Greek. You won't find a higher authority than this. In my footnotes in my translation, I refer to it as "BDF" for Blass-DeBrunner-Funk. Here is what they have to say about the Greek tenses, in Section 318, in pertinent part. **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this page is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only. [ Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] 318
Introduction The original function of the so-called tense
stems of the verb in Indo-European languages was not that of levels of
time (present, past, future) but that of Aktionsarten
(kinds of action) or aspects (points of view). Cf. Hebrew. Past
time (past from the standpoint of the speaker or narrator)
was designated within the several tense stems by a prefixed, originally
independent (but not obligatory) particle, the so-called augment. The
old and common temporal significance (contemporary time) assigned to
the unaugmented indicative (present, perfect) grew out of the contrast
to augmented forms. In Greek the temporal significance of the
corresponding indicatives has been carried over to a much smaller
degree to the moods (subjunctive and optative, also the the infinitive
and participle), and then it is, of course, so-called relative
time, i.e. the temporal relationship is determined by
something else appearing in the speech or narrative... Edward W. Goodrick in his "Do It Yourself Hebrew and Greek," Multnomah Press, (1976) has made a nice and simple chart or paradigm on page 4:13 showing the eight tenses of N.T. Greek verbs (Aorist, Imperfect, Pluperfect, Present, Perfect, Future, Periphrastic Future, Future Perfect), and then a nice list of the six question you must ask of a N.T. Greek verb: (1) What is its Person? Options: First Person, or Second Person, or Third Person. (2) What is its Number? Options: Singular or Plural. (3) What is its Voice? Options: Active Voice, or Middle Voice, or Passive Voice. (4) What is its Aspect? Options: Punctiliar Aspect, or Linear Aspect, or Combined Aspect. (5) What is its Mood? Options: Indicative Mood, or Subjunctive Mood, or Imperative Mood, or Optative Mood. (6) AND ONLY IF YOUR ANSWER TO QUESTION FIVE IS "INDICATIVE MOOD" CAN YOU ASK THE SIXTH QUESTION, "What is its Time? Options: Past Time, or Present Time, or Future Time. This latter, the 6th Question and its rule, is one that throws many English speakers off. It is hard to get it into heads, that the MAJORITY of N.T. Greek verbs DO NOT TELL TIME in the sense of past, present or future. And since participles and infinitives are not in the Indicative Mood, their Time, if any at all, is relative; that is, it must be gleaned from their context. The most important semantic content of a N.T. Greek verb, other than its lexical meaning, is its ASPECT, the "kind of action," that is, whether Punctiliar, Continous, or Combined. This is true even when in the indicative mood. The two main tenses having "Continuous Aspect" are the Present and the Imperfect. The Imperfect tense is the verbs with past time and continuous aspect. I handled the Imperfect three ways: the Continuous or Progressive I rendered as "He was walking." The "Iterative" and/or "habitual" imperfect I rendered "He would walk." And the third way, when it was most agreeable to the context and/or the rhythm required, just a simple past, "He walked."There are some verses that simply do not make sense unless you make the imperfect-tense verbs incompleted action. One obvious one is Luke 22:2. The entire emphasis of the verb "fearing" is that it was ongoing and incomplete. (This is what the word "imperfect" means, after all!) On March 08, 2000, Richard Robinett wrote: Brother
Dave, My
Answers: Here is a breakdown of the downloads of these files, as of December 2008: By
file: By country: USA
- 9,485 Following is an example of the endnotes you can read in my translations: WHAT IS THE AUTHENTIC ENDING OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK? Here
is a composite of
all four endings of the gospel of Mark:And all the things announced
they shortly reported to those around Peter. And after these things
also Jesus himself sent out through them, from the rising as far as the
setting of the sun, the holy and enduring proclamation of eternal
salvation. Amen.9 And having risen early on the
first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary the Magdalene, from
whom he had expelled seven demons. 8
And going out, they fled from the tomb. For trembling shock was holding
them; and they said nothing to anyone, because THEY
were afraid. PROBLEM
1: The passage
contains a statement that is contrary to the gospel of Luke.The
statement is found in verses 12 and 13 about the two walking to Emmaus:12
And after these things he was manifested in a different form to two of
them who were walking along in the country. Luke says the rest responded "The Lord really has risen," thus agreeing with the two. The others agreed that Jesus was alive, because Simon Peter had already come back and told them the same thing as the two were telling them. But "Mark" 16:13 says the rest disbelieved the two. Thus, Mark 16:12-13 contradicts what Luke 24:33-35 says. So then, we either have to believe that the scriptures contain an error, or else believe that one of these passages is not scripture. The problem of the contradiction is solved, by concluding from the objective external evidence that the longer ending of Mark is not scripture, therefore we do not have a case here of scripture contradicting other scripture.Some say that there is not a contradiction between Mark in the TR and Luke, because later in Luke, in 24:40-41, it says"40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41But, since they were still not believing, out of joy and astonishment, he said to them, "What do you have to eat in this place?"But this is another event. The passages I already compared, are talking about the same event, which is the only legitimate comparison.There are other contradictions caused by this ending of Mark, against the other gospels, that are not evident until you try to do a harmony of the gospels, as I have. My harmonization, called Palmer's Diatessaron, will be available when I have finished translating all four gospels. PROBLEM 2: The last twelve verses of the gospel of Mark as found in the King James Version, or footnoted in recent translations, (chapter 16, verses 9-20) are not found in the two earliest Greek manuscripts. They are also absent from many of the oldest translations of Mark into other languages, for example, the Latin, Sinaitic Syriac, and Georgian translations. Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate an inauthentic addition to a document. Other manuscripts which do contain the passage place it in differing locations in Mark, and still another Greek manuscript that contains the long ending has a large addition following verse 14. There is also another ending entirely, a shorter one, found in other Greek manuscripts. Add to all this the internal consideration that none of the endings are written in Mark's style and vocabulary. Another major internal consideration is how awkwardly verse 9 connects the line of thought from verse 8, or rather fails to connect.See Metzger, Bruce M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, on behalf of and in cooperation with the Editorial Committee of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament: Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren (Stuttgart, United Bible Societies, Corrected Edition, 1975) for the details, which are compelling evidence in favor of the spuriousness of the passage. The Editorial Committee concludes:"Thus, on the basis of good external evidence and strong internal considerations it appears that the earliest ascertainable form of the Gospel of Mark ended with 16:8. (Three possibilities are open: (a) the evangelist intended to close his Gospel at this place; or (b) the Gospel was never finished; or, as seems most probable, (c) the Gospel accidentally lost its last leaf before it was multiplied by transcription.) At the same time, however, out of deference to the evident antiquity of the longer ending and its importance in the textual tradition of the Gospel, the Committee decided to include verses 9-20 as part of the text, but to enclose them within double square brackets to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist." Eusebius of Caesarea, who died in the year 339, said, in Ad Marinum, "On one hand, the person who rejects the passage itself – the pericope which says this – might say that it does not appear in all copies of the Gospel of Mark. At least, the accurate copies round off Mark’s account [or, At least the accurate copies have the subscription, 'The end of the account given by Mark'] with the words of the young man who appeared to the women and said to them, "Do not fear. You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene" and so forth, proceeding to where it says, ‘And having heard, they fled, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.' "For there the end of the Gospel of Mark is delineated [or, "For there the subscription 'The end of the Gospel of Mark' occurs"] in almost all the copies. The material that comes afterward seldom appears; it is in some copies but not in all, and may be spurious, especially since it implies a disagreement with the witness of the other Gospels.” This, then, is what someone might say to avoid and altogether dismiss a superfluous question. "On the other hand, someone else, who dares to set aside nothing at all which appears, by whatever means, in the Gospel-Scriptures, says that the reading, like many others, is double, and each of the two must be accepted, since they are advocated by the faithful and pious, not this one instead of that one, or that one rather than this one." We see from the preceding paragraph that scribes were far more afraid to REMOVE anything, however suspect it was, than to ADD something to the text. Which is another prop for the tenet, that the shorter reading is generally to be preferred. That tenet has that going for it, that scribes were more afraid to remove anything than to add something. I say that, since Eusebius declares that the Gospel of Mark ended at verse 16:8 in "almost all the copies" in the 4th century, it is therefore either uninformed, or deceitful of those who make it sound like only two or three manuscripts omit the long ending of Mark, and must therefore be an insignificant consideration. Thus we can say, that though a majority of late copies now contain it, the "majority text" used to omit it. What value is there, then, in a "majority text" derived from counting up only the recent and late copies, when in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the majority of manuscripts read so differently than the present majority? The conclusion is, most Textual Criticism scholars agree, we must "weigh" each manuscript and witness, not "count" them. Thus, the testimony of Codex Vaticanus is more important than the testimony of 4,000 cursives from the much later centuries. I was recently referred to John William Burgon, and his book, "The last twelve verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark vindicated against recent critical objectors established., pp. 41-51. In it Burgon attempts to lessen the impact of the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome about the the longer ending of Mark not being found in the accurate copies, and being absent in almost all the copies of Mark. Burgon spends some time questioning the authenticity of the document provided by Cardinal Mai entitled "Quaestiones ad Marinum," and its quotations of Eusebius. Why? Because it appears to be a CONDENSED version of Eusebius, Burgon says. But then, on p. 44, Burgon says, "Let it, however, be candidly admitted that there seems to be no reason for supposing that whenever the lost work of Eusebius comes to light, (and it has been seen within about 300 years,) it will exhibit anything essentially different from what is contained in the famous passage which has given rise to so much debate,..." Ok, so reading all that questioning of the authenticity of the Eusebius quotations was a waste of my precious time. In the succeeding pages, Burgon's main point seems to be that Eusebius is playing Devil's advocate, that "some may say that..." Well, Eusebius does not contradict or refute or dismiss those statements from such advocate. Burgon's purpose was to show that Eusebius did not question the authenticity of the passage. In fact, Burgon himself quotes Eusebius, on p. 45, where Eusebius says about the last 12 verses of Mark, "Well then, allowing this portion to be really genuine, our business is to interpret the sense of the passage." (KAI DH TOUDE MEROUS SUGCWROUMENOU EINAI ALHQOUS, PROSHKEI TON NOUN DIEREMHNEUEIN TOU ANAGNWSMATOS) Thus, Burgon himself shows us that Eusebius did in fact question the authenticity of the longer ending of Mark. Eusebius only allows for the sake of argument that it is "really genuine." That does not sound to me like Eusebius believed it to be genuine.
PROBLEM 3: The passage can be easily taken to teach doctrines that are contrary to teachings found elsewhere in the New Testament.Verses 17-18 say Jesus said,17 And these signs will accompany the ones who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak in new tongues, 18 they will pick up serpents, and should they drink something deadly, it would in no wise hurt them; they will lay their hands on sick ones, and they will have health again.In the book of I Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 7-11, 29-31, on the other hand, the apostle Paul teaches that not all believers will speak in tongues and not all believers will have the gift of healing. A new Christian, unfamiliar with the rest of scripture, might question whether he has truly believed, thinking, "These things have not happened in my life, so I must not be a real Christian." And if the new Christian were to deliberately drink deadly poison, he would be putting God to the test, as Satan urged Christ to do when he suggested that he throw himself off the highest point of the temple. Jesus responded that although the scriptures promise the believer that God's angels will not allow his foot to strike against a stone, it would be sin to deliberately put oneself in harm's way (for example, drinking deadly poison), for the scriptures also say, "Thou shalt not put the Lord your God to a test." But, in violation of this prohibition, there is a practice by some churches, based on this passage, of handling deadly snakes in church. Scores of Christians therefore die each year from snake bites in church, giving unbelievers a fair opportunity to mock Christians. SUMMARY: The evidence, both external and internal, is conclusive that the Mark 16:9-20 pericope is not part of the original Gospel of Mark. In addition, it cannot be harmonized with the Gospel of Luke. It appears that the author of Mark 16:9-20 considered verse 8 to be an inappropriate ending and felt the need to add to it a better conclusion. I suggest that the following is what he did: In verses 9-14, he summarized the endings of Matthew, Luke and John, but carelessly. Then the contents of verses 15-20 are for the most part taken from the book of Acts. He took some historical happenings of miraculous events such as tongues speaking, healing of the sick, and the apostle Paul being bitten by a snake but not being harmed, and tacked them on following Mark 16:8 because he knew from his vantage point looking back from centuries later, that these are what in fact happened next. The problem is that the way it is written, he has in effect put them into Jesus' mouth as if Jesus was saying that all people who believe in him would have these things happen to them. You can download the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John here, by clicking the link of your choice. The Microsoft Word files are "ready to print" in format; i.e., they are double-columned, and even and odd guttered for double-sided photo-copying and velo-binding or spiral binding. If you find them too small to read on screen, make sure Word is not in "Page View" mode. If after that they are still too small, you can make adjustments to your word processor, like zooming them larger. In Macintosh Word, I have provided a few files with enlarged fonts, for screen viewing. PDF Section: These documents are in PDF (Portable Document Format), readable by most all platforms- Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Besides cross-platform compatibility, another advantage to these is that you don't have to download and install any fonts. To read these, you probably already have Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download these files, right-click the links, and then choose "save as" or "save link as." I will from now on be putting most of my efforts into these PDF editions, since I don't have to use as much time adding changes to all the various Word editions. The
whole Bible,
PDF format; 7 MB. Updated August
09, 2010 The
whole Bible,
Word 97 for Windows, .doc format, (Macintosh Word 98 or later will open
and read this too) Click
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