Featured The NIV Is In Good Company

Complicated question! The ESV is a revision of the Revised Standard Version edition of 1971 (using UBS 4th edition Greek New Testament) which was a revision of the Revised Standard Version edition of 1948/52 (edited using the NA17 Greek New Testament), which was a revision of the ASV of 1901 (which was based on the Westcott/Hort Greek New Testament of 1881) a revision of the English Revised Version of 1885 (which was also based on the W/H GNT of 1881).

So, the answer to your first question is "yes" and "no." The ERV/ASV was based on the W/H text, but all revisions were based on subsequent eclectic Greek texts. (All of which fall, generally, under the heading "Critical Text.")

Another CT? Well, yes. Several. NA is now in its 28th revised text and UBS is now in its 5th revised text.

Much of the early resistance to the ESV was due to it being a revision of the RSV which most of Conservative Evangelicalism rejected due to the "de-Christianizing" of some of the Old Testament (see Isaiah 7:14 for an example). However, the ESV corrects most of the passages in question.

I, being a Byzantine Priority Preferred fellow, am not a great fan of the ESV, but it is the pulpit bible in the church where we presently serve but we are allowed great soul liberty (love those Baptist Distinctives) so last week when I taught one of the adult Sunday School classes I used my NKJV, and this coming Sunday I will be preaching in the early, Traditional service from my trusty old KJV.

 

The Nestle-Aland text is intended for New Testament textual criticism and work in New Testament studies.

The United Bible Societies (UBS) text contains pretty much the same base text as NA. The primary difference between the Nestle-Aland and UBS editions is that the UBS is aimed at translators and so focuses on variants that are important for the meaning of passages where variants occur, whereas NA is aimed at textual critics and other scholars and so includes the relevant variants for that purpose (even if the meaning is not seriously impacted).

I can understand your confusion. This is a very confusing subject. After over 40 years of study I still sometimes throw my hands in the air and just walk away.

 

The first edition of NA, published by Eberhard Nestle in 1898, combined the readings of the editions of Constantin Tischendorf (the man who discovered Codex Sinaiticus at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai), Westcott/Hort, and Richard Weymouth (The Resultant Greek Testament, an eclectic text based on the work of eighteenth and nineteenth century textual critics), placing the majority readings of these in the text and the variant readings in the textual apparatus. In 1901, he replaced the Weymouth New Testament with Bernhard Weiss's text ( A New Text of the Greek New Testament).

So, NA is a departure from the WH text edited using the works of the other three men.

The United Bible Societies had its start as the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 and slowly merged with other bible societies to eventually form UBS. The publisher of NA, (the German Bible Society), is a member society of UBS and the primary editors of the UBS 5 were members of that Society (Barbara and Kurt Aland).

 

Tough question. At least for the Gospel accounts I would nominate Codex Alexandrinus as the most accurate early Greek manuscript of the Gospels. Codex Angelicus, although a bit later, is an excellent example of Acts, the Church and Pauline Epistles.

 

I would not characterize the Alexandrian textform as "inferior."

I believe the Byzantine textform is more likely to be closer to the original manuscripts than is the Alexandrian textform. However, those differences are, for the most part, insignificant and do not affect any doctrine of Christendom.