ECM Revelation

I have been using my printed ECM of Revelation for some time now, and I inform you that you need both the printed and the online editions. For example, a footnote I worked on today is πληρωσωσιν in 6:11. πληρωσωσιν is the Majority and the ECM reading, πληρωθωσιν is the NA28 reading, and the TR reading is πληρωσονται. However, the printed edition does not list the witnesses supporting the majority for this variant, but only those supporting the minority readings. The online edition, however, does list those. The problem is that Hoskier lists GA2256 as supporting the TR, but if you had only the printed edition of the ECM, you would not know that the online edition lists 2256r as supporting πληρωσωσιν. The small letter “r” after a MS number means that though it is misspelled or misformed, it supports the reading it is listed with. I looked at the fine image of 2256 online, and Hoskier is incorrect. GA2256 reads πληρώσοσιν, which most certainly does not support the TR. That leaves the TR reading with support only from 296 and 2049, which are handwritten copies of the TR itself.

But I have also found places where Hoskier was correct and the NA28 apparatus was wrong, like Revelation 5:9, where Hoskier correctly shows that GA2329 omits τω θεω ημας εν τω αιματι σου εκ πασης φυλης και γλωσσης και λαου και εθνους, but the NA28 and UBS5 list it as supporting the Majority.

Download free my critical edition of Revelation as PDF here.

Friberg Explanation

New Upload: A PDF of Timothy Friberg’s paper, A MODEST EXPLANATION FOR THE LAYMAN OF IDEAS RELATED TO DETERMINING THE TEXT OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. Here is the download link.

This paper explains the Byzantine Priority position in Textual Criticism. The PDF is 1.5 MB in size. The document title for download purposes is Modest-Explanation-Friberg.pdf

Please Donate

I don’t like to do this, but I must share something with you, brothers and sisters. I am old and am retired, and am living on Social Security. I do not have a job, so that I can spend my time on these documents and translations, which are free to download. But I do not receive enough money to pay rent anywhere, so the past 6 months to the present, I have been living in a van. Also, since I moved to northern Nevada from Florida, my SS check decreased by $176 dollars a month. Last night it got below freezing and was difficult sleeping in the van. And last month my laptop computer died.

I need another laptop, and I need to pay off a couple credit cards. If you appreciate the documents I have made, and the resources offered on my website, and feel the Lord leads you to share financially, you can do so on my donate page. There are several ways to help me out: you can purchase a few of my printed books, or send crypto-currency, or use PayPal.

David Robert Palmer

Difficult Robinson-Pierpont Readings

I had difficulty translating these first two passages from the Robinson-Pierpont text, so I looked at the WEB version, which is generally a Majority Text translation, and I see that he did not adapt the RP text in these two passages, but the NA28 instead.

In James 2:18,
the EMTV version follows the TR rather than RP, and the WEB follows the NA28 rather than the TR or RP.

RP: εῖξόν μοι τὴν πίστιν σου ἐκ τῶν ἔργων σου, κἀγὼ δείξω σοι ἐκ τῶν ἔργων μου τὴν πίστιν μου.

“Show me your faith by your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”


This completely misses the contrast set by the previous sentence: “You have faith, I have works.”  But here, they both have works by which they demonstrate their faith.  The Textus Receptus and the NA28 text do show the contrast, but the TR has one more σου- “your” in it and an extra μου- “my” in it. 

TR: δεῖξόν μοι τὴν πίστιν σου χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων σου, κἀγὼ δείξω σοι ἐκ τῶν ἔργων μου τὴν πίστιν μου.

“Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

EMTV: Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by means of my works. 

NA28: δεῖξόν μοι τὴν πίστιν σου χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων, κἀγώ σοι

δείξω ἐκ τῶν ἔργων μου τὴν πίστιν

DRP: “Demonstrate to me that faith of yours without works, and I will demonstrate faith to you by means of my works.”

WEB: “Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
The WEB follows the NA28 without the extra “your” found in the TR, because the NA28 text has the clearest teaching of the principle. 

Revelation 3:7

TR: ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖδα τοῦ Δαβίδ, ὁ ἀνοίγων καὶ οὐδεὶς κλείει, καὶ κλείων καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίγει

the one holding the key of David, who opens and no one closes, and closes and no one opens

NA28: ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖν Δαυίδ, ο ανοιγων και ουδεις κλεισει
και κλειων και ουδεις ανοιγει
“the one holding the key of David, who opens and no one closes, and closes and no one opens”

RP: ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖν τοῦ Δαυίδ, ὁ ἀνοίγων καὶ οὐδεὶς κλείσει αὐτὴν, εἴ μὴ ὁ ἀνοίγων: καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίξει.

the one holding the key of David, who opens and no one shall close except the one opening, and no one shall open:

WEB: he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens

EMTV: He who has the key of David, He that opens and no man shuts, except He that opens, and no man shall open.”

The EMTV follows the RP text but it inaccurately says “no MAN” shall open, but that is not in the Greek.  The WEB version follows the TR or NA28, which say the same thing as each other with slightly different verb tenses. 

Acts 26:4

RP: τὴν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς γενομένην ἐν τῷ ἔθνει μου ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις

My manner of life since youth therefore, which took place at first in my own country in Jerusalem

NA28: τὴν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς γενομένην ἐν τῷ ἔθνει μου ἔν τε Ἱεροσολύμοις
My manner of life since youth therefore, which took place at first in my own country and also in Jerusalem

The problem with translations made from the Byzantine Greek text not containing τε – “and also” – is that they are saying Paul’s life was spent in Jerusalem from the beginning, when in fact his country was Cilicia, in the city of Tarsus. (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3; 23:34).  Under the law, Paul was a citizen of Cilicia, Acts 23:34.  Paul consistently calls Cilicia his “country” and Israel his “nation.”The WEB version, a Majority Text translation, therefore does not follow the TR or Majority text here but follows the NA28 instead.

You can download my translations of James, Revelation, and Acts at these links.

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Updates September 2024

I updated the Gospel of Luke with the Tyndale House diamonded readings, as also the Gospel of John. Luke is also updated in the printed versions on Amazon: Gospel of Luke eclectic; Gospel of Luke Byzantine.

I also updated the Textus Receptus whole Bible on Kindle. The Textus Receptus whole Bible PDF is also updated, as are the eclectic whole Bible, and the Robinson-Pierpont whole Bible.

I am continuing working on Revelation, updating it from the ECM, and also plan to add the Tyndale House diamonded readings in the Gospel of Matthew.

Ambiguity of No Spaces

A Greek textual variant in Revelation 17:3 shows the ambiguity of ancient manuscripts having no spaces between words. This particular variant has caused the Editio Critica Major (ECM) to change its reading away from the NA28 text to that of the Robinson-Pierpont.

txt γεμοντα ονοματα Avid P 2053 2062 2329 SBL TH NA28 (γεμον[τα]) {\} ‖ γεμον ονοματα ℵ² 046 93 911 922 1611vid 1678 1734 1778 1828 2070 2814 2846 AN HF RP ECM ‖ γεμων ονοματα 469 792 1006 1852 ‖ γεμον ονοματων 051 2074 2344 2723 Hipp TR BG ‖ γεμον τα ονοματα ℵ* ‖ lac C 2050 2080.  The ECM says the MSS that I show reading γεμοντα ονοματα read instead γεμον τα ονοματα with ℵ*, and then shows no MSS support for the SBL/TH reading.  (We know Sinaiticus reads γεμον because it uses a high line, which is a final form of NU. And the dots above the letters TA indicate a corrector saying “delete.”)  As for Codex A, it certainly had room for γεμοντα τα ονοματα.  It would make sense in Textual Criticism that when there are two τα in a row, one would get accidentally dropped.

Codex Alexandrinus (GA 02):

GA 2053:

GA 2062:

GA 2329:

Codex Sinaiticus (GA 01):

Current Activities August 2024

In the Gospel of Mark, I added the diamonded variant readings indicated in the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (the diamond meaning another variant of equal weight as the one printed in the main text), plus a half dozen new TC footnotes, and a few updates from the Editio Critica Major (ECM). So this is essentially a 3rd edition of Mark, which you can download here, or purchase a Mark printed edition here.

I recently purchased the ECM of Revelation, so am in the process of updating the Apocalypse of John textual criticism footnotes, including also adding the diamonded readings from the Tyndale House GNT.

I also purchased the ECM of the Acts of the Apostles, and am still creating the TC footnotes for Acts.

Minuscule GA 2324

I found a 10th century gospels minuscule that I have not seen collated, GA 2324, so I obtained its readings for:

Matt 17:21 – includes the verse, with the ἐκπορεύεται variant
Matt 18:15 – αμαρτηση εις σε
Mark 9:29 – καὶ νηστειᾳ
John 5:3,4 – includes, with text similar to Antoniades
John 7:8 – οὔπω ἀναβαίνω
John 7:53- 8:11 – omits PA

I added its readings to my PA chart, which includes John 5:3,4, https://bibletranslation.ws/trans/pachart.pdf