ACVI - A Conservative Version Reverse Interlinear New Testament Miniscule Edition

A Greek-English Study New Testament
A Conservative Version New Testament
paired with
The New Testament in the Original Greek
According to the Byzantine-Majority Textform
(miniscule edition)
This text is in the public domain

Foreword

Greek is not English

One of the strengths of Greek is that it is an inflected language. Therefore, most Greek words contain more information than English words do. This is one reason why I added the supplemental study aids made available by the Greek scholar Maurice A. Robinson to the text of this translation format. These aids are given to help compensate for the unavoidable loss of information that results when translating from Greek to English. Consider the simple word "it". In English we use the word "it" to refer to animals and things. However, in the Greek language animals and things are often assigned a gender. For example, the Greek word for temple is masculine. Now consider this familiar translation of some words that Jesus said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19; KJV). Yet literally he said "I will raise him up," because the Greek pronoun translated "it" in this verse is masculine. And since Jesus is also masculine, the statement could be interpreted as referring either to himself or the temple. The false witnesses at the trial of Jesus (as is typical of the enemies of God and his servants) added to his words, saying, "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands" (Mark 14:58; KJV).

Another example of lost information resulting from typical English translations can be seen in two parables that Jesus gave about rejoicing over lost possessions. The first concerns a man who lost a sheep. Here is what Jesus said the man did when he found it: "…he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost" (Luke 15:6; KJV). Then Jesus tells of a woman who lost a coin. Here is what Jesus said she did when she found it: "…she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost" (Luke 15:9; KJV). In the original Greek the words for "friends" and "neighbors" are masculine in the first example, but feminine in the second one. Thus, revealing that the man called his men friends and neighbors, but the woman called her women friends and neighbors. By examining the Greek code that I included you can better appreciate such information, which is not usually revealed because of the limitations of the English language.

The Format I Used

The format I used in this Greek-English New Testament involves repeating each verse three times. The first verse in each group is my English translation. The third part of each verse group is the Greek text in its original word order. The middle verse is a combination of the English and the Greek, plus study aids. In that material each Greek word is preceded by its English translation, and followed by its vocabulary number (Strong’s) and grammar code (in curly braces). In this middle section I sought to be as literal as I could while still being readable in English. However, I am neither a professional Greek scholar nor an English grammarian. Hence, those of you who are such kind will no doubt find many things to criticize. I welcome any such attention, and urge you to take this simple beginning, and make it much better. Then share it with the rest of us.

The vocabulary numbers following each word are from the code used in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Hence, you will be able to more easily check the core meaning of any Greek word by using the code number to find its definition either in Strong’s dictionary or a lexicon that uses his code. I personally have a copy of Thayer’s lexicon published by Baker Book House that lists every New Testament Greek word in numerical order using Strong’s code. This is sometimes necessary to find a word because most words in Greek have variant spellings, and because of the nature of inflection sometimes the first letter will be changed. Therefore, unless you are skilled in the language you will not be able to find the word in the dictionary by its spelling. For an explanation of the grammar code you can read the two files by Robinson, Parsing.txt and Decline.txt. You can also read GGcode.txt which is a smaller file I created from the grammar code information contained in Robinson’s two files. If you plan to use that information much, I recommend you print GGcode.txt for ready accessibility.

The following example from the book of Acts illustrates this format:

1:1 I indeed made the former treatise, O Theophilus, about all things that Jesus began both to do and to teach,

1:1 INDEED ΜΕΝ 3303 {PRT} I MADE ΕΠΟΙΗΣΑΜΗΝ 4160 {V-AMI-1S} THO ΤΟΝ 3588 {T-ASM} FORMER ΠΡΩΤΟΝ 4413 {A-ASM} TREATISE ΛΟΓΟΝ 3056 {N-ASM} O Ω 5599 {INJ} THEOPHILUS ΘΕΟΦΙΛΕ 2321 {N-VSM} ABOUT ΠΕΡΙ 4012 {PREP} ALL ΠΑΝΤΩΝ 3956 {A-GPN} THAT ΩΝ 3739 {PR-GPN} THO Ο 3588 {T-NSM} IESOUS ΙΗΣΟΥΣ 2424 {N-NSM} BEGAN ΗΡΞΑΤΟ 756 {V-ADI-3S} BOTH ΤΕ 5037 {PRT} TO DO ΠΟΙΕΙΝ 4160 {V-PAN} AND ΚΑΙ 2532 {CONJ} TO TEACH ΔΙΔΑΣΚΕΙΝ 1321 {V-PAN}

1:1 ΤΟΝ ΜΕΝ ΠΡΩΤΟΝ ΛΟΓΟΝ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΑΜΗΝ ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ Ω ΘΕΟΦΙΛΕ ΩΝ ΗΡΞΑΤΟ Ο ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΠΟΙΕΙΝ ΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΔΑΣΚΕΙΝ

How Much to Compromise?

Why are the words in the middle section in all capital letters? Because that is how the original manuscripts were written. The minuscule writing of small case letters was invented many centuries after the New Testament was written. Hence, small case letters are alterations of the original. Does it matter? Indeed it does. For example, only a novice would see no difference in the meaning of these two phrases: "in the spirit," and "in the Spirit." For the same reason, I forsook all punctuation marks (except one) in the middle section of each triad. These also are later inventions and additions to the text. The one exception I made was the use of the question mark because some Greek words are in an interrogative form, and attaching the English question mark to them was necessary to reveal this.

Actually, a completely literal translation is impossible because English and Greek are just too different. And since the grammar is quite different I was forced to change the order of some of the words so as to accommodate for English rules of grammar—although in the majority of cases I was able to keep the original word order. I further compromised from the exact format of the original manuscripts by retaining the customary word and verse breaks, which are also later alterations. For, the original text of each book was one continuous string of capital letters broken only when the line ran out of space. For example, using English words, the first two verses of Acts from the KJV would read as follows:

TheformertreatisehaveImadeOTheophilusofallthatJesusbegan
bothtodoandteachUntilthedayinwhichhewastakenupafterthat
hethroughtheHolyGhosthadgivencommandmentsuntothe
apostleswhomhehadchosen

The English Words I Used

In some cases I translated words more literally in the middle part of the triad. For example the transliterated Greek word "Satan" was translated to what it means, "adversary." Also in that section I transliterated the Greek word used in the manuscripts for the name of our Savior, Iesous.

The words "tho," "thos," "tha," "thas," and "thes" in my translation are not misspellings, they are words I coined in order to compensate for the lack of an English equivalent. You see, the Greek language has 17 words that are classified as definite articles, while English has only the word "the". As I use them, "tho" is a masculine singular article, "tha" is feminine singular, and "the" is neuter singular. Adding an "s" makes them plural. I had originally used this kind of modification to create many other English words that are more comparable with Greek (e.g., "thiso" for the masculine "this"), but I decided for this effort to limit such new words to just these five definite articles: tho, thos, tha, thas, thes. When English speaking men become motivated to improve the language this way, it can easily be done.

Acknowledgments

I am exceedingly grateful to the editors of the Byzantine-Majority textform Greek New Testament, namely Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont. These men have done the Church an invaluable service by providing a superior Greek New Testament text. I am likewise very grateful to Maurice A. Robinson for making this text available in electronic form with all of the grammar code and Strong’s numbers information, especially since he very graciously placed it all in the public domain. I originally discovered this material at Vincent Broman's web site:

http://www.znet.com/~broman-editions.html

Reproduced below is the response I received from professor Robinson about using this material:

Your letter regarding permission to use the transliterations and parsing information arrived today at my office. Feel free to use the data any way you wish, so long as it is made clear that the data provided in this regard came from me, have been declared non-copyrighted freeware and have been released into the public domain for anyone to use.

I would make sure you have a current and updated copy of this file, since various errors have been found and corrected over the years, but some internet sites have copies dating back to 1991, and do have some errors in them. The latest copy can be obtained from Vincent Broman's site (archimedes.nosc.mil). I think this is the address of his ftp site; if not, his email is broman@nosc.mil

_______________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina

Confessions

Thanks to brother Robinson this work was much easier to create. As with any such work errors are made, and in this case I have no doubt that I created most of them. I also have no doubt that, in spite of all my efforts, some remain. I and every man who uses this material would be very grateful if you would help me find and correct them.

As I have stated I am not a professional Greek scholar. I have relied very heavily upon computer software, especially BibleWorks, in creating this translation. And as already stated, all of the grammar code and Strong’s numbers information was furnished freely by brother Robinson. In the same benevolent spirit of Christ, I also place this material in the public domain for the glory of God, and for the benefit of my brothers in Christ. I would be honored if some man of greater qualifications and talent than I have would consider it worth improving. Also, it would be a great blessing if the Old Testament were translated using the same format. Even if I tried, I doubt that I have enough years left to do such a work.

Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, alone wise, to God is honor and glory into the ages of the ages. Truly (1st Timothy 1:17).

Walter L. Porter
www.stillvoices.org

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