BEST GREEK NEW TESTAMENT SOURCE !!!

Introduction

After years of critical review of all biblical manuscript sources, we have determined that the Stephanus Greek New Testament from 1550 is absolutely the best source to use, either alone as a Greek text, or for use in translations.  What we have found is that Stephanus “stands tall” above all the other sources in many areas of evaluation.  In fact, we have not found any other Greek source is superior in any area above Stephanus. In fact we think it is perfect. (See STGNT_odds.)

What follows is some of the areas we evaluated and what we found.

(Note: any reference to the word “verse” is referring to modern verse numbering, which were not numbered until about 1550.)

Summary of findings from our detailed studies

The Greek New Testament of Stephanus excels over all others. It is:

1. superior to the Alexandrian texts and therefore Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament
2. superior to the Byzantine Majority text
3. superior to the Scrivener text
4. superior to the Beza text
5. superior to the Erasmus text
   
6. reflective of the gradual changes of the Greek spellings in the 1st century, much more so than the above texts
7. backed up by thousands of citations of the 2nd-4th century, over all the above texts.

Stephanus GNT is superior to the Alexandrian GNT texts

1. the variants in the Alexandrian texts that actually change a meaning in a verse, when compared to Stephanus, are only in the doctrinal verses, proving in probabilistic terms, they are not mistakes, but deliberate changes, for the obvious reason, to change doctrine:

• Alexandrian texts have over 3500 verses of uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic doctrinal accommodations, and as such, we consider them unfaithful, unlike Stephanus that rejects those accommodations

• as a foot note, virtually all non-doctrinal verses are precisely the same in the Alexandrian and Stephanus GNTs (save spelling differences that do not change the meaning, such as the names of towns or people or objects)

2. the Greek grammar in Stephanus is correct all the time

• but Alexandrian texts have lots of obvious Greek grammar errors

3. virtually all Stephanus variants are backed up from early extant writings of the 2-4^th century and more and more extant writings continue to fill the gaps over time

• but Alexandrian texts have very few variants backed up before the 4^th century and those are dubious at best

4. Stephanus uses 1^st and 2^nd aorist grammar correctly, over all the others

• but Alexandrian texts have many obvious aorist errors where the emphasis causes doctrinal contradictions

5. Stephanus disagrees widely with the Latin Vulgate of the Catholic church in about 2700 verses

• but Alexandrian texts agree with the Vulgate in about 2700 verses

6. Stephanus has absolutely no Latin grammar vestiges

• but Alexandrian texts have about 2300 verses back-translated from the Latin Vulgate or other Latin sources

7. Stephanus uses Koine Greek more faithfully than all the rest from the 1^st century (with evolving word spellings from the 1st century)

• but Alexandrian texts have many Medieval and Egyptian spellings from the 4^th century onward

8. Stephanus does not contain any Arian/Gnostic accommodations

• but Alexandrian texts contain almost 400 verses with these accommodations

9. Stephanus does not contain any uniquely Catholic doctrinal accommodations

• but Alexandrian texts contain almost 3200 verses with these accommodations

10. Stephanus gets the word order right based on when we know God wants to emphasize spiritual things over material, for example

• but Alexandrian texts emphasize material things over spiritual at all the wrong times

11. Stephanus verses are consistent with the rest of scripture, Old and New Testament

• but Alexandrian texts contradict themselves thousands of times

12. Stephanus contracts words when required in Greek grammar, so when spoken, they are understood better (like not ending certain words with a vowel that is used as the first letter in the next word, "alla", for example, "all" or "kata" as "kat")

• but Alexandrian texts often are inconsistent with respect to contractions

13. Stephanus has no track record of forgery

• but Vaticanus has the original texts overwritten in thousands of places and Sinaiticus is easily proven to be a forgery (both sources for most all modern translations)

14. Stephanus is reputable handler but ...

• dubious to outright heretics produced Alexandrian texts

• dubious to outright heretics produced the Hort and Westcott GNT
• as for contemporary handlers, they too are from dubious to heretics (see Handlers)

Stephanus GNT is superior to the Byzantine Majority GNT

While the Byzantine Majority GNT is a good reinforcement to the Received Text GNTs, the Byzantine GNT has dozens of obvious mistakes that Stephanus does not have, in about 1500 verses. These include, but are not limited to:

• extant manuscripts and texts from the 2-4^th century overwhelmingly back up Stephanus over the Byzantine

• the Byzantine has occasional Greek grammar errors not found in the same verses in Stephanus

• the Byzantine has more contemporary Greek word spellings from as recent as the 11th century, while Stephanus reflects the evolving Greek word spelling changes of the 1st century (read more about this below)

• the Byzantine sometimes separates prefixes from the root word with white space, which is not normal in Koine Greek

• some verb tenses and/or moods are inconsistent within some verses, which is confusing in the Byzantine

• the Byzantine sometimes fails to use contractions where they are required, so texts can better be understood when read out loud, while Stephanus is consistent in this area.

Stephanus GNT is superior to Scrivener GNT

While Scrivener is to be well-respected for all of his contributions to the GNT, because he served on the 1881 committee with Hort and Westcott, his credentials are dubious. Also, his own GNT has obvious errors. For example, it is well reported that some portions of his GNT are back-translated from English versions, especially the KJV. It is a virtual impossibility to do this! (see below)

Put another way, the Greek has grammar components the English does not have, so it cannot be determined what was in the original Greek from the English. This includes, but is not limited to:

• formal gender (which serves as a classification system that has nothing to do with male or female)

• many more verb tenses

• verb moods and voice not existent in English at all

• emphatic word order (most are uncertain from English)

• unique Greek grammar rule conformity

• actually has some Latin influenced spellings from the English KJV, instead from Koine Greek

Then Scrivener makes a lot of other obvious errors:

• uses verb tenses and moods that do not make sense in the context (possibly from back-translation?)

• obvious Greek grammar errors

• back-translated spellings for names of towns not found in any other source (possibly from back-translation?)

• Greek spelling mistakes (no one agrees with some of his spellings)

• alters critical or essential doctrine with variants in dozens of places that are closer to uniquely Catholic beliefs than non-Catholic

• incorrect formal gender usage that makes the Greek verse gibberish

• occasional Medieval/Egyptian spelling (not Koine)

• writes some numbers like “thirty and eight” in Greek, and that is not Koine Greek, but Latin in origin

• has no early Koine Greek word-endings for sigma (σ) and uses only stigma (ς) while others use both early and later sigma/stigma word-ending letters.

Stephanus GNT is superior to Theodore Beza GNT

It is well documented that Beza, in his own words, emended his GNT by adding text that he “thought belonged in the Greek text,” and did so without any manuscript support. This discredits his GNT out-of-hand, simply because it cannot be trusted as faithful to God.

Source: "Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament."

Stephanus GNT is superior to Erasmus GNT

An Italian, Lorena Valla (1407-57), is credited for creating a document over a thousand pages long that noted where the Latin was not faithful to early Greek texts. This inspired Erasmus to continue where he left off, albeit instead a document full of notations, he just published his Greek along side of the Latin for all to read and see for themselves the errors in the Latin.

Stephanus then went further than Erasmus in this process, creating what appears to be the best GNT ever, and that is what makes Stephanus superior to Erasmus.  Furthermore, Stephanus scrubbed any back-translated Latin that Erasmus had used, having found other Greek sources to fill in the gaps.

(All of the above is well-documented from multiple sources.)

Stephanus GNT reflects Greek spelling evolution of the first century

The evolution of the Greek spelling in the first century is easily seen in the Stephanus GNT. It can be seen that the earlier Greek spellings were present in the earlier Gospels and Epistles of the Apostles, and that as the Epistles and Gospels progress in dates of origin, so does the Greek spellings of words evolve in the Stephanus GNT, which also helps to date when the Apostles penned each one. One might say Stephanus documents the evolving Greek of the 1st century better than all the other Greek texts.

Conversely, Hort and Westcott, Alexandrian, Scrivener and Byzantine GNTs all contain far less evolution of the early Greek spellings of the 1st century, and far more recent Greek spellings, from 4^th to 11^th century Greek. The order of magnitude between Stephanus retaining the early spelling evolutions over all the other GNTs, numbers several tens of thousands of words. This adds great credence to the probability that the Stephanus GNT is exactly as it was written by the Apostles, including the variants that are not related to spelling, per se. It is as if Stephanus pulled out of his sources, copies of the originals, exactly as they were written by the Apostles. 

It seems as if providence preserved faithful copies, likely backup copies made to preserve the original Greek texts, and well preserved because they simply were not read very often, but were mainly stored for safe keeping, and according to most scholars, copies were stored in major depositories in major city-centers once under Roman rule.  

Furthermore, all the other GNTs appear to lack credence due to the failure to reflect the early evolution of the Greek in the first century, upwards of tens of thousands of times.

FYI: While there are many examples, one of the simplest evolutions in the Greek spelling was the letter sigma. First written similar to our "w" it was turned 90º to look like this: Σ.  Then for the lower case it was written as this: σ. Then a major change took place in the 9th Century AD onward, where gradually Greek words that had the sigma as the last letter of most all words became written as ς (stigma).  This is one of the most obvious changes that took place.  Many have wrongly ascribed Stigma to the first few centuries, when Stigma did not exist after the 9th Century.

Now Stephanus has a mix of the two lower case Sigmas (one being the Stigma) as the last letter of words, reflecting the evolution that took place in the 9th century, while all the others are completely or nearly completely using the ς as the last letter, showing that these were later reproductions of each other, or even back-translated Latin.

Besides this single letter change, many noun spellings were changed, especially proper names of people and places. A very noted example is the name "David".  The Latin spelling is of course "David".  But the early Greek spelling was "Dabid", while the later Greek spelling became "Dauid" (the "u" emulating the Latin "v") .  Again, Stephanus retains the original Greek spelling of "Dabid" while all the others, most of the time, use "Dauid" exclusively, indicating a later origin with respect with to their creation.  

"Dabid" was used from the 5th century BCE (Attic Greek) through at least the 4th Century (Koine era: 336 BC – 300 AD ), thus showing that Stephanus was using the spelling at the time of the Apostolic era in the 1st Century. This goes to add credence to the accuracy of other parts of the Stephanus GNT, where the "Dabid" spelling is used 54 times, exclusively.

In summary, there are many hundreds of other such examples. Suffice it to say Stephanus accurately reflects the changes that took place, in sync with when most scholars believe the Gospels and Epistles were written, giving it credence to it being the most faithful Greek text, if not an exact copy of actual texts the Apostles penned.

Stephanus GNT is backed up better than the others by Coptic, Aramaic and Old Latin and extant texts from 2nd-4th century

It is well documented that the Coptic, Aramaic and Old Latin texts (from the 2^nd century in origin) do not “perfectly” back up any GNTs created in the last 500 years. However, statistically, Stephanus fairs far better than all other GNTs with respect to variants. It has the fewest number of overall differences between it and any of these 2^nd century texts.

When Stephanus and his team worked on his GNT for over 5 years, they discovered with great amazement just how accurate the Greek manuscripts were that they had in their possession, because they supposed, like so many, that 14 centuries of copying would have resulted in a great many variants. 

However, given the number of words in the Stephanus Greek New Testament (140,526), the variants were relatively few, and mostly without consequence. In fact, the claims of lots of variants due to copying errors proved to be false then, and proves to be even more false today with the advent of more and more manuscripts being found. Any large number of variances are due to a conspiracy by some to deliberately alter scripture to “their liking”, nothing less.  Mistakes did not creep in, but deliberate changes did. We prove this in Possessing God's Word.

Furthermore, Stephanus is backed up by thousands of quotations of scripture from early writers of the 2nd-4th century that prove Stephanus chose correctly with respect to variants. The Hort and Westcott GNT comes no where near this many.

The Conspiracy against God's Word

It is well-documented that in the first 4 centuries that the church at Rome changed dozens of doctrines, and admits doing so. Thus by the time Jerome created the New Latin Vulgate in 410 AD, those changes were incorporated into his new text. What is amazing is that the Alexandrian Greek texts contain the exact same accommodations as found in the New Latin, along with a few hundred verses of Arian-Gnostic doctrinal accommodations, albeit in Greek. This is observed in the Hort and Westcott GNT,  the basis for most all modern translations.

Today's Catholic scholars will tell you the early popes believed they had the right to change the scriptures due to God's direct revelation to do so. Furthermore, one can verify their changes when one reads the thousands of quotations by officials of the church at Rome in the 2nd through 4th century. (They are well preserved to this day.)

These early readings from the church at Rome vary widely in many cases from the readings found in the New Latin of Jerome of 410 AD. The earlier texts reflect what the scriptures originally said in the beginning, and can be contrasted easily with those found in the New Latin.  Even the Alexandrian Greek texts and later in the Hort and Westcott  are taken from the New Latin text by back-translation. (See Latin Grammar Vestiges.)

In short, most all modern translations are from one degree to another, uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic doctrinal accommodations. If you are Catholic, enjoy! If you are not, best to reject virtually all modern translations.

A few modern versions that are not based in anyway on the Hort and Westcott GNT “corruptions” are the 21^st Century KJV and the Jubilee 2000, and of course the Authorized KJV.

Many modern versions may say they are based on the UBS, NA or SBL Greek New Testaments, but these are all based on the Hort and Westcott GNT to a significant degree, which then is based on the Alexandrian texts which are uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic doctrinal accommodations. 

(Young's literal is based more on Scrivener and so has the same flaws in his GNT.)

CONCLUSION

We believe the Stephanus Greek New Testament to be the most accurate copy of the original Koine Greek New Testament today. It also has a high probability that it is the exact words penned by the Apostles. 

We believe all this because:

• Stephanus appears to be flawless, relative to all the others, including reflecting the evolving 1st century Koine Greek as seen in Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, the likely chronological order of these texts

• The devil is the author of confusion, but Stephanus is coherent

• Stephanus got wide acceptance and many translations were derived from it in the early going, and even today, still are. Translations like the German Schlachter 2000 and other new versions are based solely on it.

• As born of God Christians, we have the Holy Spirit to assure us of our conclusions about the Stephanus GNT.

Thus translations accurately based on the Stephanus GNT will be relatively faithful, depending of course on how well they are translated into any particular language. This includes translating the nuances of Koine Greek with a full comprehension. 

For example, a verb such as “believing” in the Greek that is in the present active participle should be translated as “continuously believing without our effort,” not merely “believing.” And another example would be “saved” in the perfect participle passive as “permanently saved without our effort,” and not merely “saved”.

Unfortunately, except for a verbose literal translation, all translations do not go to so much trouble. Fortunately, with the Holy Spirit's guidance, a born-of-God believer can comprehend that “saved” is indeed permanent and without our effort or that “believing” is permanent without our effort because of God's intervention via the Holy Spirit working in our mind and heart to convince us of these promises. 

Conversely, we have seen that the lack of clarity in translating the Greek most accurately has resulted in thousands of doctrines being taught by thousands of various denominations.  However, even if everyone understood the Greek perfectly, it seems various interpretations would still occur, and we would still have thousands of denominations anyway.

For detailed information on the studies we have performed, see Possessing God's Word

Also see Hort and Westcott and RT Versions