Tag Archives: Acts of the Apostles

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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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.

Timing of Baptism

The apostles and prophets gave us teaching by example on the topic of the timing of baptism. We find in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that believing the gospel and getting baptized are closely associated.

Acts 2:38– And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized each one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
Acts 2:41- The ones therefore who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand souls were added during that day.

Other passages in Acts showing immediate baptism are 8:12; 8:36-38; 9:18; 10:47-48; 16:14-15; 16:32-33; 18:8. You were expected to be baptized at the same time as you believed, they are a simultaneous event.

Take for example the Philippian jailer, when he believed, he was baptized “on the spot…in the middle of the night.” (Acts 16:31-34).

In Acts 8:13 Simon the magician was baptized by the apostles even though they knew his heart was not right. But he had professed belief, so he had to be baptized immediately, that is true doctrine and practice.

This doctrine of immediate baptism is so important, that God performed a miracle for the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts 8:26, the scripture tells us that the road he was on was desert. Yet as soon as the eunuch believed, they saw a body of water deep enough for both Philip and the eunuch to get down into it and the eunuch be baptized. (Acts 8:36)

Have you believed, but are not yet baptized? If so, you are in disobedience to the apostles of Christ, and your leaders are in disobedience, who have neglected to baptize you immediately upon your profession. Satan, the enemy of your soul, wants you to have a cooling down period.

Am I saying that, if say, a man leads 3 people to belief in the gospel on Thursday, that he should not wait until the next Sunday to baptize them? Exactly! I am saying that if he led someone to the Lord during lunch break at work on Thursday, the convert should tell his boss he is leaving his job temporarily in order to find water to be baptized that Thursday afternoon, baptized by the believer who told him the gospel. What a powerful testimony that is, that you drop everything else going on in order to find water and be baptized. You are now dead to the world, so what else matters? Find water, and show everyone that you died and were buried with Christ, and have come out in newness of life, and nothing else matters. Do not allow anything or any human to let you cool down from your first love.

This truth about the timing of baptism has bearing on a couple textual variants in the Greek New Testament text. The biggest one is in Acts 8:37, where it was added to the narrative of the Ethiopian eunuch, where the eunuch had asked, “Look, water. Is there anything forbidding me to be baptized?” Then an addition was made later to the text which says, 37″And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, it is permissible.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ “

Similar is an addition made to Acts 2:41. Papyrus 74, Codex Sinaiticus, Codices A, B and C, Sahidic Coptic, the Ethiopic, Clement, and Eusebius read: “The ones therefore who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand souls were added during that day.”

But later manuscripts read: “The ones therefore who READILY accepted his message were baptized…”But this “readiness” was not for the baptizers to judge. If the person accepted the message and professed belief, they were to be baptized, period.

The bishops had later decided that there should be some kind of “probationary period” to see whether the convert was serious or not. They also made baptism something only “clergy” could perform, but this is not indicated by the example and teaching of the apostles.

At the same time, since believing the gospel and baptism are closely connected, it is not appropriate for an infant to be baptized since the infant is not capable of believing the gospel and repenting of his/her sins.

Candace Queen of the Ethiopians

In Acts 8:27, in the King James Version, we are told that the Ethiopian eunuch was “of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians.”  This word Candace came to us through the Latin language, from the original Greek κανδακη – Kandake.  As is usually the case, a letter “C” in KJV names was originally a “K.”

This Kandake was not the woman’s name, but rather her title.  She was “the Kandake of the Ethiopians, like how we say “the Pharaoh of Egypt. This title was used for at least 5 known queens of the Nubian kingdom.  The wording of the translation should be that the eunuch was of great authority under The Kandake. 

My research into the original Nubian pronunciation of the word leads me to believe it was pronounced Kentakee.  And the personal name of this particular woman, who ruled about the years 25-41 A.D. was apparently Amantitere.  You can read my new translation of the Acts of the Apostles here: https://bibletranslation.ws/acts.html

Acts Ch 4 Verse 12 Variant

Acts 4:12

υπο τον ουρανον το δεδομενον εν ανθρωποις ℵ A B E Ψ 0165 33 181 1175 1739 1891 Chrys Cyr TR AT BG SBL TH NA29 {/}

υπο τον ουρανον το δεδομενον ανθρωποις D¹

υπο τον ουρανον ο δεδομενον ανθρωποις D*

το δεδομενον εν ανθρωποις υπο τον ουρανον 1611 syr-h

το δεδομενον εν ανθρωποις P 049 056 RP

lac 𝔓⁷⁴ C H L

The Robinson-Pierpont text omits the phrase υπο τον ουρανον “under heaven.” There is no footnote about this even in the NA28. Is this a case of homoioteleuton, νον to νον? In Acts, I generally go against the Nestle-Aland text when all the earliest minuscules are against it. But here, they, 33 181 1175 1611 1739 1891, are all with it, and against the Robinson-Pierpont text. The RP text does not even have the Harklean Syriac this time. Nor are the Textus Receptus and the Antoniades Greek patriarchal text with it.

Acts 27 verse 19

I am translating Acts chapter 27. In verse 18 it says that, because of being in a violent storm, they lightened the ship by throwing stuff overboard. Then in verse 19 it says they threw stuff overboard “with their own hands.” But wait, whose hands were doing the ship lightening in verse 18 then?

Was it because of this very problem that the Byz text of verse 19 has the main verb in the 1st person, to differentiate the actors from verse 18? So the Byz text says “WE threw the ship’s equipment overboard with our own hands.”

Who is “we”? Paul, Luke and Aristarchus?

Then again even later, in verse 38, the crew throws cargo overboard to lighten the ship.

Some possibilities I see are:

  1. The Byz text changed the verb in v. 19 to the 1st person in order to eliminate the seeming nonsense described above.
  2. The 𝔓⁷⁴ ℵ A B C text wrote the verse 19 verb in the 3rd person by unconscious assimilation to the 3rd person verbs in the preceding verse.
  3. A long shot, but perhaps the original text in v. 18 had the violent storm itself causing the cargo to fly off the ship, and then in v. 19 the crew starting throwing stuff off with their own hands.

Acts 27:19 txt ερριψαν 𝔓⁷⁴ ℵ A B C 33 181 1175 1739 1891 2464 latt cop SBL TH NA29 {\} ‖ ερριψαμεν L Ψ 049 056 1611 𝔐 syr eth Chrys TR RP ‖ lac 𝔓⁴⁵ 𝔓¹¹² D E H.

Read Acts so far here: https://bibletranslation.ws/acts.html

Robinson-Pierpont GNT 2018 Update

Robinson-Pierpont Greek New Testament 2018 edition

I have updated and uploaded my PDF document of the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Greek New Testament. The 2017 text was converted to Unicode in Microsoft Word by myself, David Robert Palmer, from CCAT raw text files sent to him by Dr. Maurice A. Robinson. Then DRP has now updated the Nestle-Aland textual variants to the NA28, and in Acts, to the ECM / NA29.  All old links to the RP GNT still work, and they do point to this updated edition, since I did not change the file name.

The 2018 edition of the Robinson-Pierpont text has very few, and minor, text changes from the 2005 edition, including one corrected error of reading (based on misinterpretation of Hoskier’s data) at Rev 2:17 (now omits φαγειν) and John 18:11, 32, where a marginal reading has now become the main text and vice versa. Mainly it has updates and corrections in capitalization, accentuation, and punctuation, plus some previously missing iota subscripts. The most significant changes in this 2018 edition is that the variant readings of the Nestle-Aland text are updated to the NA28 in the catholic epistles, and in the Acts of the Apostles, to the ECM (Editio Critica Maior), which changes in Acts will likely be the text of the NA29.

Now available for download by right-clicking here or going to the long list on my translations page: Robinson, Maurice A., and Pierpont, William G.: The New Testament in the Original Greek, Byzantine Textform; PDF, 13 MB. This is a free download of a single pdf. (A stripped down edition without variants or Appendix is available also, a 9 MB pdf.) This Robinson-Pierpont edition of the Greek New Testament attempts to represent the Byzantine text form archetype. This is not the same approach to textual criticism as, for example, the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text approach. Also included in this document is the Appendix, entitled, “The Case for Byzantine Priority” by Maurice A. Robinson, PhD.

I have also uploaded editions of some of my Greek-English documents, but with the Robinson-Pierpont 2018 Greek text, and the English translation thereof. You can download them right here as well. Completed are: The Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke,  Gospel of John, The General Epistles and Revelation.  You can get Amazon printed editions of Robinson-Pierpont Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the General Epistles as well.

Download Robinson-Pierpont 2018 NT PDF.

robinson-pierpont 2018

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