How did you determine the Greek text used for translation–did the Textus Receptus play any role?
Watch Bill Mounce respond (Windows Media format).
The question is, what Greek text did we follow, and how did we handle the Textus Receptus in the process of translating?
In almost every case, we used the standard critical text used in scholarship today, represented by the United Bible Society’s Nestle-Aland people. And so we pretty much stuck to that because it was very safe and very well-accepted by the academic community.
As far as Textus Receptus is concerned (the Greek text that lies behind the King James), what we did was, we paid very close attention to especially those well-known verses in the King James. It’s important to us as ESV translators to maintain the same flow of thought coming from Tyndale. And so we see ourselves in the line of interpretive tradition from Tyndale through the King James. And so in those verses that are very well-known, we paid especially close attention to them. And even when the Textus Receptus is different from our critical Greek text now, we sometimes even put things in footnotes to help people who were used to the King James see where they are in the current Greek text.
Comment on this post by July 11, 2005, for your chance to win a free ESV Bible.
Recent Comments