QUOTE
THE GREEK TEXT IN THIS VOLUME
The Greek text herein is purportedly that which underlines
the King James Version, as reconstructed by F.H.A. Scrivener in
1894. It thus differs to a degree from all previously printed
editions of the Received Text (there are over 250 differences -
most of them quite minor - between this text and the Stephens
1550 "standard" Textus Receptus). The present text was typeset in
England for the Trinitarian Bible Society, and corresponds to The
New Testament in the Original Greek according to the text
followed in the Authorized Version, edited by F.H.A. Scrivener,
and originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1894
and 1902. The present Trinitarian Bible Society edition was fist
printed in 1976.
Careful study, however, will show that this present text
does not agree 100% with the text used by the KJV translators,
though it virtually always does so. In places it has a different
reading than that found in the KJV (e.g. Matthew 12: 24, 27, Gr.
Beelzeboul; KJV, 'Beelzebub' - John 8: 12. Gk. 'sin'; KJV, 'sins'
- John 10: 16, Gk. 'one flock'; KJV, 'one fold' - 1 Corinthians
14 : 10, KJV 'of these' omitted in Gk. - 1 Corinthians 16: 1, KJV
'churches;' Gk. 'church;' this with no MSS support at all!).
In other places, the present text gives Greek words where
the KJV translators indicated by italics that they had none (the
following KJV italicised words are actually given in the Greek of
this TBS edition; Mark 8: 14, 'the disciples;' Mark 9: 42,
'these;' John 8: 6, 'as though he heard them not;' Acts 1: 4,
'them;' 1 John 3: 16, 'of God.' Some of these readings do have
minority MSS support - see Majority Text Notes in this volume
- but it seems clear that these readings were not in the text
chosen by the KJV translators.
Nevertheless, to all intents and purpose the TBS edition
faithfully reproduces the KJV Greek text, as nearly as could be
done at this date.
Although it is admitted that Erasmus has added to his
Received Text two or three readings from the Latin Vulgate,
without Greek manuscript authority (e.g. Acts 9: 5, 6), and one
from the Complutension Bible which has no Greek manuscript
authority (1 John 5: 7), we have not deleted these from the Greek
text as supplied by the Trinitarian Bible Society - though we do
not accept them as true Scripture.
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
There are two translations in this volume, one appearing as
the literal translation of the Greek words, with English
equivalents directly under each of the Greek words, and the
other, The King James 2 Version, on the side of the page, which
serves to provide a straight-forward translation for the purpose
of making it easy for the reader to see the proper word order in
English, and to thus easily essiminate the message given in God's
word on that page. Both translations are accomplished in a
word-for word translation.
The 'conceptual idea' form of "translating" the word of God
has been rejected, studiously avoided because no person has the
right, nor the inspiration, to rewrite God's word to conform it
to his own cincepts.
Those passing off their conceptual ideas are, in our
opinion, despising the words originally given, and carefully
preserved.......
It is hoped that these literal word-for-word translations
will demonstrate that a true word-for-word translation can also
be a readable and easily understood representation
of the Scriptures.
INTERPRETATIONS
In the matter of interpretation, or as some would call it,
bias, there is no hesitation on our part to admit to the fact
that there are many interpretive decisions that must be made in
any translation of the Bible. It has been our determination to
let the text say what is says. And so no particular set of
beliefs have been inserted into the text by these translations.
Nevertheless, by the very fact that a true translation must take
into consideration the entire context of a word, or phrase, or
sentence, or verse, interpretation must be present in making that
translation - especially in those places where a Greek
word, apart from the context, may be correctly translated by
several different English words. For instance, it does make a
difference whether a person is "saved," or "cured."
And conceivably there could be a difference of opinion in the
choice of an English word to express a Greek word in such a
cases.
If a list of interpretive renditions were to be compiled,
these at least should be noted as present in this volume: (a)
Punctuation has been added, and the original manuscripts have
none; (b) Capital and small letters have been added....especially
we have attempted to aid the reader by capitalizing pronouns
connected to a Person of the Godhead. Without a doubt there is
room for differences of opinion here. In those placed quoted from
the OT, the NT writers nearly always fix the deity of the Person
quoted, therefore these are not so interpretive. But in another
class of places, where we have endeavored to capitalize, or not
to capitalize pronouns - according to whether the persons
addressing Jesus acknowledge Him a God - there is room for much
differences of opinion; (c) Words have sometimes been added to
aid the English reader to follow the sense, in which case those
supplied words are in parentheses under the Greek, or in italics
in the marginal English translation.
PRESUPPOSITIONS
Being a willing slave of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
and joyfully submitting to His higher calling thoughts, we gladly
admit to a number of presuppositions: (a) We have acted on the
premise that "the Scriptures cannot be broken," meaning that not
an iota or a point of them has been lost; having the firm
conviction that each word was God-breathed, and that having such
an origin, God Himself has preserved His words for us even unto
this day. Therefore we did not dare to change a word, or supply a
word without designating it as uninspired by parentheses or by
italics. If God appear to use an ambiguous word we tried to
translate it that way; (b) We have presupposed that Jesus
Christ is not only our personal savior and Lord, but that the
Scriptures clearly reveal Him as equal with God the Father...that
He came to earth to give Himself a fully-paid ransom for many;
that He both lived and died as a substitute for the sins of all
those who shall come to a saving knowledge and belief in Him;
that He has risen to sit at the right hand of God the Father,
ruling the world from there, interceding for and providentially
guarding His own, until that day when He will destroy the earth
by fire, and shall come to receive all of them to a place at His
right hand; and finally that He will sit as supreme Judge of all
men of all ages, and that He will use the words of the Bible to
judge the deeds of each and every person who will have inhabited
the earth, casting all unbelievers into the Lake of Fire, with
the Devil, and sitting all true believers at His feet to learn
from Him "the depths of the riches and of (the) wisdom and
knowledge of God" during all eternity.
DISTINCTIVE TRANSLATIONS
For easy apprehension, and continuity with the OT, we have
translated the Greek representing the OT characters and places by
the same English names that were used there.
Due to the principle of translating each Greek word
literally, a number of translatings have emerged that are quite
different from other versions.
The Greek word designating the mother of Jesus has always
been translated "Mary," but the Greek word actually stands for
"Mariam" (or "Miriam"); therefore we have so given it. It is not
that we think we can at this late date change her name in the
mind of others from Mary to Mariam, but that we simply translated
literally. It does answer to the objection by some that there
would not be two Marys in one family.
In translating the Greek words for "I am" in certain places,
we have capitalized these words: viz. I AM (see John 8: 59 and
other places). It is our firm conviction that in those cases
Jesus is identifying Himself as Jehovah (Jehovah properly
translated meaning, I AM THAT I AM). Jesus is of course the
English name assigned to a word which means Jehovah is salvation.
Under the Greek we have translated literally, "to the ages,"
though we surely believe that the words are clear idiomatic
expressions for "forever." In the marginal translation we have
reversed this. Likewise we have translated "clean" heart, when we
firmly believe that "pure" could be idiomatically used.
We have tried to translate various places in a way that
would not be misleading as to sex. Many times other translators
have put "any man" where "anyone" was literally correct. Male
pronouns and male references abound in the Scriptures. There is
no good reason for supplying additional male references.
This is now the only interlinear NT in current, proper
English - all others continuing to use Elizabethan age English.
The Bible was written in simple, common Hebrew and Greek words,
with no special language used when addressing God. Why now encase
the Bible in a stilted language of another age, whether it be
Latin or Elizabethan English. As Tyndale said, every plowboy
should be able to understand the Scriptures in their own
language. Otherwise, why not leave it in the original languages?
Our constant aim in translation has been to present the
meaning of the Greek words in English as precisely and accurately
as the English language will allow. This has include an attempt
to display the meaning of compound Greek words so that the parts
of them are expressed in the translation. For example, in John 8:
7, Jesus did not merely rise, and stand up - He had bent down,
and now He was bending back up - by which words we can visualize
exactly what He was doing. The principle may have been
imperfectly applied, but in succeeding editions an attempt will
be made to achieve more of thus type of accuracy.
There has been a conscious recognition of the value of
consistency in translation. And though we believe we have
achieved more consistency than in other versions, there is
recognition that there is yet more to be done in this area.
TRANSLATION PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES
Just as there are difficult places to understand, so there
are difficult places to translate. And sometimes the difficulty
is not so much in assigning meaning to the Greek words as it is
in punctuating them so as to catch the apostle's meaning. One
example of this is 1 Corinthians 12: 2.
Among the many decisions made, some may want to challenge
the translation made. For instance, in many places a Greek word
has been left untranslated, usually a particle or an article,
where it would be redundant or otherwise unsuitable to English
transmission.
Where the Greek order of words is difficult, superior
numbers have not been used, because it is believed that the
reader may more easily see the English order by referring
to the marginal translation. In most cases the literal
translation of each word is given, rather than an idiomatic
phrase, where it was considered more explanatory of the
meaning than the idiom would supply. In some places where the
present tense in the Greek takes an English past tense for proper
English, the past tense has been used in the translation. But in
a great many cases this has not been done, depending on the
reader to realize the differences in the two languages.......
Due to space problems, a true translation of the participle
has not always been given under the Greek. For example, where the
English words "having been" would be proper; "being" has often
been given. In other places where the Greek word is short, but
the English equivalent is long, a substitution many have been
given (e.g. "by" instead of "through"). In the case of
double-negative construction in the Greek, it is often left as
literal translated, rather than to change one negative to a
positive in order to make good English out of it.
In some cases the added strength of the double-negative, as
intended in the Greek, has been transmitted by the use of the
punctuation.
Many other problems are encountered in rendering Greek into
English. The read is referred to other introductions to the Greek
New Testament, especially to those in other interlineary New
Testaments.
THE MAJORITY TEXT NOTES
A healthy debate is beginning to rage between adherents to
the Alexandrian textbase (which underlines most of the modern
'version,' and those who believe that the Byzantine/Majority
textbase is the only true text of the NT.
William G. Pierpont of Wichita, Kansas has prepared "The
Majority Text Notes" that appear in the appendix. By the use of
these notes, one can make a direct comparison between the
Received Text in this volume, and the manuscript evidence. These
notes represent years of research, and it is a privilege to share
them with the reader in this volume.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TRANSLATION
The English translation in this volume, both the literal
translation under the Greek words, and the translation named "The
King James 2 Version" in the margin, are the work of Jay P.
Green, Sr., improved and corrected by the suggestions of others
who have reviewed the manuscript pages, and (subsequently the ten
printings of this volume since - Editor). The responsibility for
the assignment of English equivalents belong to Jay P. Green,
Sr., since he was the sole judge of what would, or would not, be
allowed in either of the English translations.
In each printed volume an invitation will be given to all
lovers of God's word to submit suggestions for improvement of
these translations.
May God be pleased to use us collectively to achieve the
most accurate translation possible in the English language!
JAY P. Green, Sr.
General Editor
END QUOTE
...............................
Compiled 2003
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