Book Description:
THE NEW TESTAMENT was written in Koine Greek during the first century AD. From the time of its original revelation, handwritten copies continually were prepared in order tomaintain and preserve that original text into the modern era. All copies made prior to the invention of movable type printing were made by hand, resulting in various scribal alterations, most of these being of a minor nature. Although the autographs no longer exist and no two manuscript copies are completely identical, sufficient evidence exists by which one can produce an accurate representation of the original text by comparing and evaluating the overall manuscript consensus. Robinson and Pierpont have taken the utmost care in preparing that text for this edition.
Various other methods for restoration of the original NT text have fallen short of their goal, in part due to methodological subjectivity, and in part to a presuppositional bias against the claims of the Byzantine Textform. The texts created under such a bias tend to be based on only a handful of favored manuscripts, and fail to consider all transmissional factors in the preservation of the original text. As a result, the modern eclectic texts tend to preserve more of a caricature than the essence of the originals.
In contrast, Robinson and Pierpont have applied many of the same methods of textual criticism to their task, but without the anti Byzantine bias. Their method of 'reasoned transmissionalism' is based on the wider scope of manuscript transmission throughout history. The preface of this edition explains the basic method by which the present editors have arrived at their basic text. The appendix contains Robinson's essay, 'The Case for Byzantine Priority,' which presents a rationale for and defense of the theory and methodology that has been applied in the preparation of this edition.
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