I have published on Amazon two editions of my translation of the gospel of Matthew. They alternate verse by verse between the Greek text and my English translation. They have 671 footnotes each. I have footnoted with critical apparatus most all the meaningful variants between the NA28 text and the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text.
Eclectic Edition of the Gospel of Matthew, with my Greek text being unique. I follow more Byzantine readings than does the Tyndale House GNT, but on the other hand there are a few times the TH follows the Byz where I do not. I have a couple readings not found in any of the above.
As I am making my Robinson-Pierpont edition of the gospel of Matthew, I am editing my eclectic edition here and there. During this process I found a Byzantine reading that I think is the original text rather than what I previously had in my eclectic text and is found in the NA28.
Matt 21:25 παρ εαυτοις ℵ C D E W Σ Φ 0102 0233 𝔐 TR RP TH ‖ εν εαυτοις B L Z Cyr SBL NA28 {\} ‖lac A N P 0281.
The reading with παρ has strong support. I immediately thought that since εν εαυτοις is a very common phrase in the gospels, and παρ εαυτοις is not, it is far more likely that scribes would write εν εαυτοις automatically unconsciously, than the other way around. So I changed my text to the παρ εαυτοις reading, and this was before I looked up the Tyndale House reading and saw that they follow that reading. The preposition παρα with the dative case answers the question “where.” They were “by” themselves, which implies separation for privacy; thus, “away by themselves.” You can download my eclectic edition of Matthew’s gospel here.
As I make my Byzantine edition of Matthew’s gospel, I get annoyed sometimes by the numerousness of variants that are meaningless in the Greek manuscripts and even in the editions thereof. Matthew chapter 15 verse 36 is a good example, in which there are a half dozen unimportant variants.
One that is actually amazing to me is that the word for crowd, οχλος, is plural in the NA28 but singular in the Robinson-Pierpont, yet in the previous verse, v. 35, they switch, and οχλος is singular in the NA28 and plural in the RP! Both verses are talking about the same crowd and occasion.
15:35 τοις οχλοις E F G H K L M N P S U V W X Γ Δ Π Σ Φ 0233 2 118 565 700 1071 𝔐 it-a,d,e,f,k,q syr-c,p cop-bo Hil TR RP ‖ τους οχλους C 892c 1424 ‖ τω οχλω ℵ B D Θ ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 157 346 579 788 892* it-b,ff¹,f²,g¹,g²,l vg syr-h cop-sa-mss,mae,bo-mss arm eth Or SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖lac A Q Z 0281 28 69.
15:36 τω οχλω C D E F G H N P S U W X Γ Δ Θ Σ Φ 2 118 565 1071 1424 𝔐 it> vg cop-sa-mss,mae arm Chr TR RP ‖ τοις οχλοις ℵ B K L M Π ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 157 238 243 346 579 700 788 it-e,f,ff¹ syr cop-sa-ms,bo SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖ lac A Q Z 0233 0281 28 69.
I offer a few observations: 1.) The plural is maintained in both by L M Π 700 syr-c,p cop-bo. (2.) The singular is maintained in both by arm. I would not begrudge any translator rendering all these as a singular. (3.) This may demonstrate how insignificant the singular v. plural of οχλος is.
Though I still have a job doing something I don’t want to do, I now have a little more spare time than I did the last few years. Also, I moved to the state of Florida. I am currently working on 3 projects at once:
1.) Revising and updating my translation of the Apocalypse of John, or the Book of Revelation. My original edition I did about 15 years ago, and it still refers to the UBS4 and NA27. I am updating the GNT editions cited to include the SBL and Tyndale House editions, and of course UBS5 and NA28, as well as the BG, family 35 and Antoniades here and there. In addition, I am eliminating the accentuation of the Greek in the textual variant footnotes, since the direction of the accents would be technically incorrect when outside of the sentence and punctuation of the actual Bible text, and the early manuscripts did not contain them. This is what the Nestle-Aland editions do in their footnotes. This is all in preparation for publishing on Amazon.
2. Revising and updating my translation of the gospel of Matthew, since, again, my original was done 20 years ago or more, and I have learned much since then, and also become less closed to the Byzantine text stream. Like with Revelation, I am adding citation to the SBL and TH editions, but also adding many more textual variants in comparison to the Robinson-Pierpont text, as I am simultaneously creating a Robinson-Pierpont (RP) edition. This is all in preparation for publishing on Amazon.
I just published “The Gospel According to Mark, a New English Translation of the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform” in paperback form on Amazon.
Alternates verse by verse between the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text and Author’s English translation, with many Textual Criticism footnotes and commentary footnotes and end notes by David Robert Palmer. The critical apparatus is after the pattern of the United Bible Societies’ editions. Includes the readings of most all manuscripts and witnesses 8th century and earlier; and the readings of at least five Greek New Testament editions: The NA28, SBL, Tyndale House, Robinson-Pierpont, and the Textus Receptus. Contains cross references to “Palmer’s Diatessaron,” a harmony of the gospels in English similar to Tatian’s.
I have completed my Robinson-Pierpont edition of Mark’s gospel. It alternates verse by verse between the latest edition of the RP Greek “majority text” and my new English translation. It has many new footnotes, for a total of 354.
Here is an other Greek textual variant not found in apparatuses, because it is not terribly important, but it is a difference between the texts nevertheless. In Mark 15:34 in my text, the Nestle-Aland 28th Edition, it says “at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, why have you forsaken me?” But in the Textus Receptus from which the King James Version was translated, and in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine textform, which many call “the majority text,” it says “at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, why have you forsaken me?”
The difference is the presence or absence of the word λεγων, which means “saying.” The readings of the earliest manuscripts are shown below. The Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) edtion, the Tyndale House edition (TH) and the Nestle-Aland 28th edition (NA28), do not have the word λεγων after the word μεγαλη, “great, loud,” while the Textus Receptus and the Robinson-Pierpont editions do have λεγων.
15:34a txt μεγαλη ℵ B D L 059 083 it-ff²,k,u cop SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖ μεγαλη λεγων A C E N P Σ 0233 it-l vg syr arm Eus TR RP ‖lac W 0184.
I list the witnesses 8th century or earlier only. The manuscript we are going to look at today is Gregory-Aland number 059, or GA 059, which is a 5th century Uncial or Majuscule, that is, it is in all capital letters, prior to the cursive style used later. In the attached image of 059, in the middle of the 2nd line, the word ΦωΝΗ (voice) is clearly seen, then MEGALH (loud) faintly, and after that there is clearly not enough room for the word ΛΕΓωΝ at the end of the third line, before the fourth line begins with HλEI HλEI. (My God, my God.)
The footnote apparatus in the NA28 does list the readings of various manuscripts that read Eloi versus Elei. ELOI would represent the Hebrew for “my god,” while ELEI as in this manuscript would represent the Aramaic for “my god.”
I have published new printed editions of my translation of the gospel of Luke, with the Greek text alternating verse by verse with my English translation thereof; one edition with an eclectic Greek text, and another of the Robinson-Pierpont 2018 text which I received by email directly from Dr. Maurice A. Robinson.
There are a few minor improvements since the previous publication: I added the Tyndale House reading to many of the TC footnotes, using the abbreviation TH, and I corrected a few typographical errors. The Table of Witnesses is now more full, giving the full names and dates of the major manuscripts and versions.
