TNIV the Basis for New Edition of A Reader's Greek New Testament

Earlier this month, Zondervan released the second edition of A Reader's Greek New Testament. Like the first edition, the second edition contains a Greek text of the New Testament with a vocabulary apparatus at the bottom of the page listing all Greek words that occur 30 times or less along with a brief English definition. The goal of the RGNT is that a person with at least a basic knowledge of the language can simply read the New Testament in its original language without having to constantly consult one of the standard lexicons.

The RGNT differs from standard UBS/NA Greek texts in a number of places. The original first edition was based on the Greek text underlying the New International version of the Bible. The copyright page of the RGNT2 contains this statement:

The Greek text used in this edition of the Greek New Testament was originally developed for the Portland Index Project by Edward W. Goodrick and John R. Kohlenberger III, and subsequently reviewed and modified by Gordon R. Fee.

The first edition contained the same statement, but without the mention of Fee, which makes for speculation that Fee, a member of the TNIV committee had a hand in modifying this new edition which is based not on the NIV text, but rather the TNIV. There's also a brief forward by Fee immediatly following the title page.

What many people don't realize is that the so-called "standard" Greek text is an amalgam of readings from many different ancient manuscripts in an attempt to sort through discrepancies and find what is probably the original reading. Many people may not also realize that often strong cases can be made for the reading of another variant over the one accepted in the standard text. Almost all English translations have readings in which a variant has been chosen over the "accepted" text. In the past, unless one chose to compare a translation very closely and systematically to the Greek text, there was no way to discover how many places that a translation committee chose to follow a variant text. 

When the first edition of the RGNT was published, it was based upon the NIV and it listed exactly 231 places where this translation diverged from the standard text. This new second edition has been modified to match the TNIV, and according to the introduction, 285 divergent readings are found in this translation. Everyone of the divergences are indicated in the text at the bottom of the page in both editions.

Until now, it's been very interesting to compare translation renderings between the NIV and TNIV texts. Now, however, we have access to something more interesting--the underlying Greek texts themselves. Now we can spot and confirm alternative readings such as that found in Mark 1:41 which I've written about on This Lamp.

I'm also pleased to see Zondervan make a bold step away from the NIV and to the TNIV as it is time for the older to become "lesser" and the newer to become "greater" (to borrow from John 3:30). I've suggested to my contacts at Zondervan that should consider publishing a diglot containing the RGNT2 text on one page with the TNIV on the facing page.

If you're interested in further information about the second edition of the Reader's Greek New Testament, see my full review at This Lamp. I welcome all of the new features except the new typeface, which I don't care for any more than I did that of the original.

Dig Deeper

The advertisement above ran in a recent issue of Christianity Today. You probably cannot make out the actual copy in the ad, but it says:

There are many reasons the Today’s New International Version Study Bible from Zondervan is the first choice for serious students of Scripture. Verse-by-verse notes. Detailed historical and archaeological commentary. The incredibly detailed topical index. Satellite-generated maps. The clarity and accuracy of the TNIV translation. For digging deeper, there’s no better choice than the Zondervan TNIV Study Bible.

I like this ad for a number of reasons:

1. I'm glad to see Zondervan promoting the TNIV in an Evangelical publication like Christianity Today. This is yet another move by the publisher that directly addresses one of the concerns I voiced in my "open letter" earlier this year.
2. As it says in the ad, the TNIV can be used by "serious students of scripture," going beyond any assumption that it is strictly a popular translation. My reading of the TNIV, especially in some of its choices away from its predecessor, the NIV has demonstrated some very significant wrestling with texts on the part of the translators. Wayne Meeks' choice to use the TNIV in his second edition of The Writings of St. Paul, a scholarly and essentially non-evangelical work, also confirms the strong academic potential of the TNIV. But more will have to be done, which I'll mention in a moment.
3. Ultimately, this ad is not simply highlighting the TNIV, but more specifically, The TNIV Study Bible. This is currently the Bible I teach from at church, and find it to be the best choice for that task among the current options. I've never carried a study Bible with me before the TNIVSB, but it's a good choice until I can get a wide margin text edition from either Zondervan or Cambridge one day. When I first saw the picture above, I wondered if someone from Zondervan snuck into my house and took a picture out of my copy. Nevertheless, the TNIVSB is worthy of this kind of exposure. If you haven't already, see my review here.
   

Perhaps now that the TNIV has been out a while and can be evaluated on its own merits as opposed to the rhetoric of an uncharitable disinformation campaign, ads like this may spur potential readers to take another look. This is all well and good, but where do we need to go from here? How do we dig even deeper, to borrow from the theme of the ad?

I would suggest that we need to see more advertisements like this, but we need to see some specifically with newly written testimonials from academics like Don Carson on the Evangelical side of scholarship and perhaps even someone like Wayne Meeks representing the non-evangelical world as well. I've found that many who want to have nothing to do with the TNIV simply go on the rhetoric they've heard. When I start mentioning names like Carson or Timothy George or even TNIV translators such as Doug Moo, Bruce Waltke, and Gordon Fee, those who think they won't like the TNIV often have to stop and really consider why they think this way. Throwing respectable names around doesn't solve the issue of whether a translation is reliable or not, but would hopefully cause others to examine why these individuals have endorsed the translation.

There have been rumors, denials, and maybe's floating around a while, but I'd really like to see the TNIV expanded to include the Deuterocanonicals. Let me reiterate to those who haven't heard me say it, that I do not consider these books to be inspired Scripture. Nonetheless, the Deuterocanonicals are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the context of the New Testament. Further, there's a long Protestant tradition of including the Deuterocanonicals, or "apocrypha" in Bible translations, often in a section between the testaments. These writings were in Luther's Bible, the KJV, the RSV and many others along the years. If we want to see more works like that of Meeks' using the TNIV, this will be essential.

Finally, while I like the ad above, I immediately noticed that only a small section of a TNIVSB page appears. If the camera had zoomed out, we would immediately see that there's no space to include notations to go along with those highlights and markings. One can highlight a Bible as much as one wants, but highlights alone are useless (in my opinion) without accompanying notes. I know that regular readers will perceive me as a broken record by this point, but I still suggest that a small percentage of TNIV users, specifically teachers and pastors want wide-margins in which to write their own notes. Yes, I know the upcoming TNIV Reference Bible is designed for teachers and pastors, but it will not have margins wide enough to completely fulfill this need. Those who want a wide margin TNIV will continue to look for something more. Hopefully publishers realize these users are the gatekeepers' gatekeepers.