The New Testament in the Original Greek

"The New Testament in the Original Greek" is the name of a Greek language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892). It is a critical text, compiled from some of the oldest New Testament fragments and texts that had been discovered at the time.

West and Hort state: "our belief that even among the numerous unquestionably spurious readings of the New Testament there are no signs of deliberate falsification of the text for dogmatic purposes." [http://books.google.com/books?id=0xtVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA282&sig=ACfU3U33CMW3331Vv20NgGvjyOs52I1mlA&vq=%22will+not+be+out+of+place+to+add+here+a+distinct+expression+of+our+belief+that+even+among+the+numerous%22&source=gbs_quotes_r&cad=2_0#PPA283,M1] - Page 282

Westcott and Hort distinguished four text types in their studies. The most recent is Syrian, or Byzantine text-type, of which the newest example (thus from the critical text view less reliable) is the Textus Receptus. The Western text-type is much older, but tends to paraphrase, so according to them also lacks dependability. The Alexandrian text-type, exemplified in the codex Ephraemi, exhibits a polished Greek style. The two scholars identified their favorite text type as "Neutral text", exemplified by the two 4th century manuscripts codex Vaticanus (known to scholars since the 15th century) and codex Sinaiticus (discovered only in 1859), both of which they relied on heavily but not exclusively for this edition. Westcott and Hort worked on their Testament from 1853 until its completion in 1881 (Metzger, p. 129). It was followed by an "Introduction and Appendix" by Hort appearing in a second volume in 1882. In 1892, a revised edition was released by F. C. Burkitt. According to Metzger, "the general validity of their critical principles and procedures is widely acknowledged by scholars today." (Metzger, p. 136)

References

*Bruce M. Metzger, "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration" (3rd edition, 1992), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-507297-9, p. 129–136
* Palmer, Edwin Palmer, [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843560232 ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. The Greek Testament] with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. London: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007. ISBN 1843560232

External links

* [http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/Ebind/docs/TC/WH1881/ Hort's Introduction to his Greek New Testament] (= Vol. 2)
* [http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/GNT/books.html Greek Text of Hort's "The New Testament in the Original Greek", Vol. 1] with variants
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=0xtVAAAAMAAJ&dq=The+New+Testament+in+the+original+Greek+By+Brooke+Foss+Westcott,+Fenton+John+Anthony+Hort&lr=&as_brr=1&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 The New Testament in the original Greek: the text revised by Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, Published by Macmillan, 1907] ]