The English Bible Family Tree

Where each Bible came from, down to the original writings

Twenty-eight English Bibles, from Wycliffe's to the Christian Standard Bible, in five families. A solid line means one Bible was revised from another, a dashed line that it drew on it, a dotted line that it replaced it. Choose any Bible to drill down through what it revised, the printed texts it was translated from, and the manuscripts behind those texts.

The Line and the Branches

The church bodies these Bibles were made for, and how far each stands from the New Testament pattern.

The Seven Councils

Church history before the English Bible: the councils of 325 to 787.

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, 1909): Wyclif's Bible

F. F. Urquhart, "Lollards", Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (1910), New Advent

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): Tyndale

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): Coverdale's Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): Matthew's Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Great Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Geneva Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Bishops' Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Rheims and Douai Bible

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Authorized Version

F. G. Kenyon, "English Versions" (1909): The Revised Version

Coverdale's preface to the reader (1535)

The Geneva Bible (1560): preface "To our beloved in the Lord"

"The Translators to the Reader", preface to the King James Version (1611)

M. Marlowe, "The Challoner Revision of the Douay Bible" (with J. H. Newman, 1859)

Prefaces to the Revised Version, 1881 (New Testament) and 1885 (Old Testament)

Prefaces to the American Standard Version (Old Testament 1901, New Testament 1900)

M. Marlowe, "American Standard Version (1901)" (bibliographic entry: New York, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1901)

Preface to the Revised Standard Version (2nd ed., 1971)

M. Marlowe, "The Revised Standard Version (1946-1977)", with the Catholic editions

Foreword and preface to the New American Standard Bible (1995, with the wording of earlier editions noted)

M. Marlowe, "The New American Standard Bible"

The Lockman Foundation: New American Standard Bible (NASB)

M. Marlowe, "New King James Version", with the NKJV preface

Preface to the New Revised Standard Version (B. M. Metzger, for the Committee)

Bible Gateway: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Crossway: Preface to the English Standard Version

M. Marlowe, "English Standard Version"

M. Marlowe, "The Living Bible (1971)", with the prefaces of 1962 and 1967

Note to readers and introduction to the New Living Translation, first edition (1996)

Preface to the New English Bible (1970)

Introduction to the New Testament of the New English Bible (1961)

Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible (1970)

M. Marlowe, "The New English Bible"

M. Marlowe, "The Revised English Bible (1989)", with the REB preface

M. Marlowe, "Good News Bible", with the foreword and preface (1976 and 1992 editions)

Preface to the New International Version (June 1978)

M. Marlowe, "The New International Version: A History and Evaluation" (2011)

The NIV Bible: About the NIV

Introduction to the Holman Christian Standard Bible

M. Marlowe, "The Holman Christian Standard Bible" (2011)

Christian Standard Bible: Frequently Asked Questions

Christian Standard Bible: Translation Philosophy

M. Marlowe, "The Jerusalem Bible (1966)", with the editor's foreword

M. Marlowe, "The New American Bible", with the prefaces of 1970 and 1986

Wikipedia, "Mikraot Gedolot" (citing Schmid and Schröter, The Making of the Bible, 2021, p. 22)

R. L. Thomas, "Bible Translations: The Link Between Exegesis and Expository Preaching", The Master's Seminary Journal 1/1 (1990), pp. 53-73 (deviation values measured in Romans and 1 Corinthians, figures 1-3, pp. 62-67; quoting J. P. Lewis, The English Bible from KJV to NIV, 1981, and F. F. Bruce, History of the English Bible, 1978)

Wikipedia, "Dynamic and formal equivalence", section "Bible translation" (citing Thomas 1990, pp. 63ff, and T. E. and J. Clontz, The Comprehensive New Testament, p. iii)

M. Marlowe, "English Revised Version (1881-1895)" (quoting J. W. Burgon in the Quarterly Review, 1882, and B. F. Westcott, Some Lessons of the Revised Version, 1898)

F. F. Bruce, "John Wycliffe and the English Bible", Churchman 98/4 (1984)

J. P. M. Walsh, "Contemporary English Translations of Scripture", Theological Studies 50 (1989), pp. 336-358

R. Marsden, review of S. Edgar, ed., The Vulgate Bible, vol. 1 (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2010), The Medieval Review 11.06.26 (2011)

B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible (3rd ed., revised by W. Aldis Wright, Macmillan, 1905), pp. 13, 165, 218–219, 239–240

A. W. Pollard, Records of the English Bible (Oxford, 1911), pp. 297-298: Archbishop Parker's "Observacions respected of the Translators" of the Bishops' Bible

Bible Gateway: American Standard Version (ASV)

Wikipedia, "The Living Bible" (citing K. N. Taylor, My Life: A Guided Tour, 1991, p. 212)

G. W. and D. E. Anderson, "The Received Text: A Brief Look at the Textus Receptus" (Trinitarian Bible Society, Quarterly Record 546, 1999)

Trinitarian Bible Society, "Why Acts 8.37 is in the Bible"

Trinitarian Bible Society, "The Power and the Glory" (the doxology of Matthew 6.13)

E. F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, section on the Johannine Comma (excerpt at Confessional Bibliology)

D. B. Wallace, comment on the Comma Johanneum (posted by J. Taylor, The Gospel Coalition, August 2010)

B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed., 1994), note on 1 John 5:7-8, as reproduced by M. Marlowe

B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed., 1994), note on Acts 8:37, as quoted by E. D. Andrews

M. Marlowe, ed., "Concerning the Ending of Mark" (Metzger, Textual Commentary, 1971, pp. 122-126, and Canon, 1987, pp. 269-270; Scrivener, Plain Introduction, 4th ed., 1894, vol. 2, pp. 337-344)

G. Wilson, review of D. A. Black, ed., Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: 4 Views (B&H Academic, 2008), quoting pp. 10, 24, 103 and 140

M. Marlowe, ed., "Concerning the Story of the Adulteress" (Tregelles 1854; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 1971, pp. 219-221; R. E. Brown 1966; Scrivener 1894, vol. 2, pp. 364-368)

Wikipedia, "Luke 22:43-44" (citing Metzger, Textual Commentary, 2nd ed., 1994, p. 151; Aland and Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 1995, p. 310; L. Blumell, TC 19, 2014, pp. 1-35)

Confessional Bibliology, "Luke 22:43-44 I: The Manuscript Evidence for the Angel and the Bloody Sweat"

GreekNewTestament.net, "Luke 22:43" (quoting Tregelles, Scrivener and T. H. Horne)

Confessional Bibliology, "Matthew 6:13"

Confessional Bibliology, "Matthew 6:13: 'Thine Is the Kingdom': The Doxology of the Lord's Prayer" (with a synopsis of Metzger's note)

S. P. Tregelles, "Notes on Some Passages of Dogmatic Importance", An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament (1854), pp. 226-236

M. Marlowe, "The Majority Text Compared to the Received Text" (every translatable difference between Hodges-Farstad and Scrivener)

M. Marlowe, "What about the Majority Text?"

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: A (the UBS editions)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: B (Beza)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: E (Erasmus, Estienne, Elzevir)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: H (Hodges and Farstad)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: N (Nestle)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: P (Palmer; Pierpont and Robinson)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: S (Scrivener; Stunica)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: T (Tasker; Tischendorf)

M. Marlowe, Annotated Bibliography of New Testament Textual Criticism: W (Westcott and Hort)

M. Marlowe, "Codex Vaticanus" (with images of John 7:40-8:19 and Mark 15:43-16:8)

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), ch. 4, "From Manuscript to Print"

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), ch. 6, "The Search for Manuscripts"

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), ch. 7, "The Revision of the Text"

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), ch. 9, "The Age of Discoveries (continued)": the Chester Beatty papyri

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), Appendix 1, "The Principal Manuscripts and Versions of the Greek Bible"

F. F. Bruce, "The Last Thirty Years", supplementary chapter to Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (2nd ed., 1964)

Codex Sinaiticus Project (British Library, Leipzig University Library, National Library of Russia, St Catherine's Monastery): History of the Codex

Codex Sinaiticus Project: Content

Codex Sinaiticus Project: Significance

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts: GA 03 (Codex Vaticanus, Vatican Library, Vat. gr. 1209)

British Library, catalog record for Royal MS 1 D VIII, Codex Alexandrinus (with provenance)

Cambridge Digital Library: Codex Bezae (introduction by D. C. Parker, 2012)

Cambridge Digital Library: Nash Papyrus (Or.233)

Vatican Apostolic Library: The Hanna Papyrus 1 (Mater Verbi), P75

Chester Beatty, Dublin: "Fragments" exhibition, New Testament

B. Nongbri, "A New Article on P52 in New Testament Studies" (2020)

Wikipedia, "Isaiah Scroll" (citing Ulrich, Flint and Abegg, Qumran Cave 1: II, The Isaiah Scrolls, 2010, pp. 2, 59-65, 88)

Israel Antiquities Authority, Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library: Discovery and Publication

Center for Online Judaic Studies, "Silver Scroll Amulets from Ketef Hinnom, c. 600 BCE"

TheTorah.com, "The Ketef Hinnom Amulets: Wearing the Priestly Blessing for Protection" (citing Barkay et al., BASOR 334, 2004, pp. 41-71)

M. Marlowe, "The Aleppo Codex" (quoting Maimonides via E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2001, p. 46)

German Bible Society: Rudolf Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (BHK)

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Biblia Hebraica (history of the series, BHK to BHQ)

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS)

German Bible Society: Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ)

University of Basel edoc: review of Biblia Hebraica Quinta, fascicle 18, General Introduction and Megillot (Stuttgart, 2004)

German Bible Society: The Nestle's History (Novum Testamentum Graece, 1898 to the 28th edition)

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Die Geschichte des Nestle

Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF), Münster: editions

F. W. Danker, "Aids to Bible Study: The Nestle Text", Concordia Theological Monthly 29 (1958)

German Bible Society: Septuagint (LXX) publications (Rahlfs 1935; Rahlfs-Hanhart 2006)

W. Reilly, "Polyglot Bibles", Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (1911), New Advent

F. A. Gasquet, "Revision of Vulgate", Catholic Encyclopedia (1912), New Advent

Smithsonian Magazine, "After 1,300 Years Abroad, Earliest Complete Latin Bible Returns to England" (2017)

e-codices: Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN IV 1 (Greek Gospels, GA 2), description by C. Malgonne (2018)

C. D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London, 1897), ch. 13, pp. 956-957 (quoting Jacob ben Chayyim's introduction)

Wikipedia, "Vulgate" (content of the Vulgate; Jerome's three Psalters)

Wikipedia, "Aleppo Codex"

Wikipedia, "Leningrad Codex"

Wikipedia, "Ketef Hinnom scrolls" (present location: Israel Museum)

Wikipedia, "Rylands Library Papyrus P52"

Wikipedia, "Minuscule 1" (Basel AN IV 2; dated by the INTF to the 12th century)

Wikipedia, "Lord's Prayer" (the doxology: manuscripts, Vulgate, scholarly view)

Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), "Jacob ben Hayyim ben Isaac ibn Adonijah"

F. G. Kenyon, The Story of the Bible (1936), ch. 2, "The Old Testament"

Wikipedia, "Biblical Aramaic"

Wikipedia, "Codex Montfortianus"

Wikipedia, "Codex Bezae"

Latin & Catholic

Tyndale & the Tudor Bibles

King James & its revisions

Paraphrase line

Fresh translations

Word-for-word (formal equivalence)

Essentially literal

Balanced (between word-for-word and thought-for-thought)

Thought-for-thought (dynamic equivalence)

Paraphrase

Approach not stated in our sources

Textus Receptus (the printed Greek of the 1500s)

Critical text (edited from the oldest manuscripts)

Greek, edition not named

Hebrew (Masoretic Text)

Mixed: part from the Hebrew, part from other translations

Latin Vulgate

Other translations (Latin, German, English)

Paraphrase of an English version

Not stated in our sources

The Wycliffe Bible

NT c. 1380; OT 1382–1384; revised soon after 1384

Wycliffe wanted the Bible in the hands of the whole English people, high and low, as part of his appeal to them against the doctrines and power of Rome.

A small group working by hand, before printing. The first version was stiff and uneven, so it was revised throughout; the revision soon replaced it.

Two versions with two approaches, so it is not placed on the scale. Bruce (1984) calls the earlier version "a rigidly literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate" made for "word-for-word identity" with the Latin, and says the revision "was composed in idiomatic English". Westcott (1905) says the first was "so exactly literal that in many places the meaning was obscure".

Editions

• vulgate-jerome

Translated from the Latin Vulgate, not from the Greek.

Editions

• vulgate-jerome

Translated from the Latin Vulgate, not from the Hebrew.

The first complete Bible in English, copied by hand; over 140 copies of the revised version survive. Its opponents identified it with the Lollards. In 1407 a synod at Oxford under Archbishop Arundel set rules for the translation and use of the Scriptures; afterwards English translations were limited to those with a bishop's license, and owning parts of the English Bible without one was taken as evidence of Lollardy.

Tyndale's New Testament

NT 1526 (revised 1534, 1535); Pentateuch 1530; Jonah 1531

He vowed that a boy who drives the plow would know more of the Scriptures than an opponent who disputed with him. Finding no place in England to translate the New Testament, he left in 1524.

An individual translator. He revised his own New Testament in 1534 and again in 1535.

Marlowe: "his New Testament was essentially a literal translation". R. L. Thomas (1990), measuring Romans, places it in his "literal translations" range: "Tyndale's work was near the top of the literal translation range", with later revisions in the line coming closer to the original's form.

Editions

• tr-erasmus

From the Greek of Erasmus's editions of 1516, 1519 and 1522, with Erasmus's Latin, Luther's German New Testament and the Vulgate as aids.

Only the Pentateuch (1530) and Jonah (1531) were published in his lifetime, translated from the Hebrew. Which printed Hebrew edition he used is not stated in our sources.

The first printed English New Testament, and the first English Bible translated from the original languages. Tyndale was strangled and burned at Vilvorde in 1536.

Coverdale's Bible

England still had no complete printed Bible; Coverdale says it grieved him that other nations were better provided with the Scriptures in their own tongue.

An individual. In his preface he disclaims originality: he followed earlier translators, chiefly the Latin and the German ones.

No source we found classifies it. Westcott (1905) compares it with Tyndale's: "Coverdale's work is smooth rather than literal", with "a tendency to diffuseness" that sometimes leads to "long paraphrases".

Tyndale's New Testament, revised with the Zurich German Bible, the Latin of Pagninus, the Vulgate and Luther. Kenyon finds no noticeable use of the Greek.

Tyndale's Pentateuch and Jonah, revised as above; the rest translated mainly from the Zurich Bible.

The first complete printed English Bible. It gathered the Apocrypha into a section of its own; Kenyon calls Coverdale's example "decisive" for the English Bible.

Matthew's Bible

Rogers is generally believed to have had Tyndale's unpublished translation of the historical books, and to have published it with the rest of Tyndale's work, completing the Bible from Coverdale's.

An editor's compilation: Tyndale's Pentateuch, historical books and 1535 New Testament, with Coverdale's version for the remaining books and the Apocrypha.

Editions

• tr-erasmus

Tyndale's final (1535) New Testament with little change; Tyndale had translated from Erasmus's Greek.

The Pentateuch is Tyndale's, from the Hebrew; Joshua to 2 Chronicles is a new translation almost certainly his; Ezra to Malachi and the Apocrypha are Coverdale's, from other translations.

No one named Thomas Matthew is known. Rogers was recorded at his arrest in 1555 as "John Rogers alias Matthew".

The Great Bible

1539 (seven editions to 1541)

Matthew's Bible showed too plainly its origin in Tyndale and was controversial in character; Cromwell and Cranmer wanted a revision that could be set up in the churches.

Coverdale revised Matthew's Bible, working from Tyndale's text and his own, with reference to the Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

R. L. Thomas (1990), measuring how far each Bible departs from the form of the Greek in Romans only, places it within his "literal translations" range, nearer its upper edge than the King James.

Editions

• tr-erasmus

Revised with considerable use of Erasmus.

Revised with reference to the Hebrew, helped especially by Sebastian Münster's Latin translation (1534–35). Which printed Hebrew edition is not stated in our sources.

The first and only English Bible formally authorized for public use: Cromwell ordered a copy set up in every parish church. Its Psalms stayed in the Book of Common Prayer.

The Geneva Bible

The exiles believed the earlier translations, made with imperfect knowledge of the languages, needed to be "perused and reformed".

A small group, more than two years in the work, in consultation with the Geneva scholars then revising the French Bible, Calvin and Beza among them.

Its preface says the translators "chiefly observed the sense" while keeping "the propriety of the words"; that is not a point on a modern scale, and no scholar we found places it on one. Westcott (1905) finds most of its changes to the Great Bible in Isaiah 9 "due to the desire of greater literality".

Based on Matthew's (that is, Tyndale's) New Testament, with Beza as the principal guide. Which Greek edition they used is not stated in our sources.

Based on the Great Bible, revised with the Latin versions of Pagninus (1527) and Leo Juda (1544); the preface speaks of keeping Hebrew phrases. The Hebrew edition is not stated in our sources.

The first English Bible with numbered verses and roman type, and for a full century the Bible of the people; over 160 editions are said to have been printed.

The Bishops' Bible

1568 (revised 1569, 1572)

The Geneva Bible was plainly better than the Great Bible but found little favor with the Church of England's leaders, so the bishops made their own.

Parts were assigned to different revisers under Parker's general supervision, without any organized system of revision, so the results were uneven.

R. L. Thomas (1990), measuring how far each Bible departs from the form of the Greek in Romans, places it within his "literal translations" range (Romans only), level with the Great Bible and nearer the upper edge than the King James. Westcott (1905), collating Ephesians 4, finds its New Testament "a very close and thoughtful revision based faithfully upon the Greek", with an "anxiously literal rendering of the particles".

Parker's instructions: follow the Great Bible "and not to receed from yt but wher yt varieth manifestlye from the Hebrue or Greke originall". Kenyon finds more independent scholarship here than in the Old Testament, and use of the Geneva Bible. Which printed Greek edition is not stated in our sources.

Revised from the Great Bible, the changes mainly verbal (Kenyon). For "the veritie of the Hebrue" Parker told the revisers to follow the Latin versions of Pagninus and Münster "specially". Which printed Hebrew edition is not stated in our sources.

It replaced the Great Bible as the Church of England's official Bible and was the base text the King James translators were told to revise.

The Douay–Rheims Bible

NT 1582 (Rheims); OT 1609–1610 (Douay)

To answer the Protestant versions with an English Catholic Bible, equipped with controversial notes.

A small group. The Old Testament was ready with the New, but lack of money held it back until 1609.

Kenyon (1909): it follows the Vulgate "with a close fidelity which is not infrequently fatal, not merely to the style, but even to the sense in English". R. L. Thomas (1990): "The principle of literality was observed so scrupulously in the Douai-Rheims version that the English product is unintelligible in some places." Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas and the Clontzes, puts it under "predominant use of formal equivalence". Its literalness is to the Latin Vulgate it was translated from, not to the Hebrew or Greek.

Editions

• vulgate-jerome

Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Which printed Vulgate edition is not stated in our sources.

Editions

• vulgate-jerome

The first English Catholic Bible. The King James translators used it, and many of the Latin-derived words in the KJV came from it.

The King James Version (Authorized Version)

1611 (text standardized 1762 and 1769)

At the Hampton Court Conference (1604) the Puritan John Reynolds complained of the faults and disagreements of the existing translations, and the king took up the idea of a new version. In the translators' words, the aim was "to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one".

Each company sent its finished books to the others for review; a final revision by two members from each company took nine months. No notes were allowed except on Hebrew or Greek words.

R. L. Thomas (1990), measuring Romans and 1 Corinthians, places it among the "literal translations", level with the NKJV and close to the ASV. Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas and the Clontzes, puts it under "predominant use of formal equivalence". Its own preface speaks to consistency, not literalness: the translators did not tie themselves "to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words".

Editions

• tr-stephanus
• tr-beza
• complutensian

The translators had "the Greek of the New". The 1881 revisers judged their chief guides to be the later editions of Stephanus and Beza, and to some extent the Complutensian Polyglot.

Editions

• bomberg-1525

The preface says only "the Hebrew text". The NKJV preface and Wikipedia (citing Schmid and Schröter) give Jacob ben Chayyim's text in Bomberg's Second Rabbinic Bible as the text the translators' Hebrew Bibles carried.

There were at least two 1611 printings, the "He" and "She" Bibles, named for their readings at Ruth 3:15. Later printings follow the revised editions of 1762 (Cambridge) and 1769 (Oxford).

A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The Challoner revision of the Douay–Rheims

NT 1749; Bible 1750; revised 1752 and 1763–64

Newman judged the aim to be a more intelligible text: old and unusual words and phrases gave way to familiar ones.

One editor, revising his own editions repeatedly. He left no preface explaining his changes.

No source we found classifies it. Marsden (2011) says Challoner smoothed "the sometimes awkward literal idiom of the D-R translators", taking the text further from the Vulgate; Swift Edgar, who edited it for the Dumbarton Oaks Vulgate, praises "its proximity to the literal translation of the most important book of the medieval period--namely, the Latin Bible".

Editions

• vulgate-clementine

"Newly revised and corrected according to the Clementine edition" of the Vulgate (title page).

Editions

• vulgate-clementine

Revised according to the Clementine Vulgate.

Newman judged the result "little short of a new translation", nearer in wording to the King James than to the Douay. It was the standard Catholic English Bible until 1941.

The Revised Version

NT 1881; OT 1885; Apocrypha 1895

Manuscripts far older than any the King James translators knew, and the work of Tischendorf and Tregelles, showed that the Received Text the KJV followed needed correction.

Two passes through every book; a change in the King James text needed a two-thirds majority on the second. American suggestions were weighed at every stage, and their unadopted preferences printed in an appendix.

Marlowe: it "has often been criticized as being difficult and ungraceful, because of its severely literal character"; J. W. Burgon, reviewing it in 1882, called it "unidiomatic", "servile" and "pedantic". The reviser B. F. Westcott answered that "it is better to incur the charge of harshness, than to sacrifice a peculiarity of language". R. L. Thomas (1990) measures it with the ASV, the lowest departure from the Greek of any Bible he tested; Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts it under "predominant use of formal equivalence". Its first rule was to make as few changes in the Authorized Version as faithfulness allowed.

Editions

• palmer-1881

The revisers chose readings case by case, led largely by Westcott and Hort but more conservatively than their text. The Greek they followed was printed by Edwin Palmer (Oxford, 1881).

The revisers adopted "the Massoretic Text", leaving it only in exceptional cases. Which printed edition is not stated in our sources.

The New Testament company met on 407 days over eleven years; the Old Testament company on 792 days over fifteen.

The American Standard Version

The American preferences had been left in an appendix to the English Revised Version. After the agreed fourteen years, the Americans issued an edition with them in the text.

A committee, revising its own appendix and adding changes it had earlier voted by two-thirds but left out.

Marlowe: the ASV "excelled in literal accuracy, and gave little consideration to the ease of the reader". R. L. Thomas (1990) measured it as the most literal of the Bibles he tested: "the ASV is more literal than the NASB". Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts it under "predominant use of formal equivalence".

Editions

• palmer-1881

An edition of "the Revised New Testament of 1881", with the American company's preferred readings and renderings.

A recension of the English revision of 1885. Which printed Hebrew edition is not stated in our sources.

It put "Jehovah" in place of "LORD" and "GOD" throughout the Old Testament.

A Psalm of David. Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The Revised Standard Version

NT 1946; complete 1952; NT 2nd ed. 1971

To revise the ASV thoroughly while staying "as close to the Tyndale-King James tradition" as present knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek and of English allowed.

Old and New Testament sections reviewed each other's work; every change needed a two-thirds vote of the whole committee.

R. L. Thomas (1990) places it among the "literal translations" but at the top of that range in Romans, level with the Great and Bishops' Bibles, and says its philosophy "is not radically different from that of the NIV". Marlowe: it is "more concerned with making the general meaning of the text clear" than the ASV. Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts it under "predominant use of formal equivalence"; the weight of the sources places it as essentially literal, with its revisions the NRSV and ESV.

Editions

• nestle-17

Marlowe identifies the Greek usually followed as the 17th edition of Nestle (1941).

The consonantal Hebrew text as fixed by the Masoretes, corrected from the ancient versions only where copying errors seemed clear. The preface does not name a printed edition.

It dropped the ASV's "Jehovah" and returned to "LORD", following the King James and the ancient Greek and Latin translators.

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition

To make the RSV acceptable for Catholic use.

Sixty-six changes were made in the New Testament. The Old Testament text was not revised; the deuterocanonical books, from the RSV Apocrypha of 1957, were put in their traditional Catholic places.

Its text is the RSV's with 66 New Testament changes, and Wikipedia's list names it with the RSV. It is placed with the RSV: R. L. Thomas (1990) puts the RSV at the top of his "literal translations" range. Thomas did not measure this edition itself.

Editions

• nestle-17

The RSV New Testament with 66 changes.

The RSV Old Testament, unrevised.

Its New Testament carried an imprimatur dated Pentecost 1964.

The New American Standard Bible

John 1960; NT 1963; complete 1971 (updated 1995)

To preserve the values of the ASV while bringing in recent discoveries of Hebrew and Greek texts and rendering it into more current English.

Decisions by consensus of the editorial board, then review by Hebrew and Greek scholars outside the board.

Lockman: it "consistently uses the formal equivalence translation philosophy" and translates "word-for-word" as much as possible.

Editions

• nestle-23

"In most instances" the 23rd edition of Nestle (the 26th from 1995).

"The latest edition of Rudolf Kittel's BIBLIA HEBRAICA", with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The preface does not say which edition that was in 1971.

For many years the publisher withheld the translators' names; it disclosed them in 1995.

The New King James Version

To update the King James Version's language while keeping the readings behind it.

A revision, which its preface calls "the fifth revision of a historic document translated from specific Greek texts".

Its preface calls its principle "complete equivalence", which "seeks to preserve all of the information in the text".

Editions

• textus-receptus

The traditional text, the Textus Receptus, kept in the body; footnotes give the critical text (Nestle-Aland 26th and UBS 3rd, "NU") and the Hodges–Farstad Majority Text ("M") where they differ. The preface does not name a printed TR edition.

Editions

• bhs

The 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition (BHS), "with frequent comparisons" to the Bomberg edition of 1524–25.

Its preface holds that "fully eighty-five percent" of the New Testament text is the same in the Textus Receptus, the Alexandrian text and the Majority Text.

The New Revised Standard Version

To take account of manuscript discoveries and new study since the RSV, and to remove masculine-oriented language where the original applies to both men and women.

A standing committee, authorized in 1974 by the Policies Committee of the RSV (National Council of Churches).

Its maxim was "As literal as possible, as free as necessary"; the preface says it "remains essentially a literal translation".

Editions

• ubs3

The UBS Greek New Testament, 3rd corrected edition (1983), with advance notice of changes for the 4th edition.

Editions

• bhs

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977; corrected 1983).

Double brackets enclose a few passages generally regarded as later additions, kept because of their antiquity and their importance in the textual tradition.

The English Standard Version

Its makers wanted an evangelical Bible more literal than the NIV but more idiomatic than the NASB, and in 1998 Crossway agreed with the National Council of Churches to revise the 1971 RSV.

A revision of the 1971 RSV text by the oversight committee, with review scholars and an advisory council.

Its preface: "an 'essentially literal' translation" with an emphasis on "word-for-word" correspondence.

Editions

• ubs5
• na28

The current preface names the UBS Greek New Testament (5th corrected ed., 2014) and Nestle-Aland (28th ed., 2012). Marlowe's collation of the 2001 first edition cites the UBS 4th edition.

Editions

• bhs

The Masoretic text as found in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (5th ed., 1997).

In many places where the RSV had emended the Hebrew, the ESV went back to the Masoretic text; in Job it removed all but six of the RSV's sixty-three emendations.

The Living Bible

Living Letters 1962; NT 1967; complete 1971

Taylor began writing out passages thought by thought for his own children at family devotions, because they could not follow the King James Version.

Taylor's own paraphrase, checked by unnamed Greek and Hebrew experts and English stylists, and revised by an unnamed committee.

Its 1962 preface: "This book is a paraphrase", expanding "where necessary for a clear understanding".

Paraphrased from the American Standard Version of 1901, an English text, not from a Greek edition.

Bible Gateway and Wikipedia (citing Taylor's memoir, My Life, 1991, p. 212) name the American Standard Version of 1901 as the base text of The Living Bible (1971); neither treats the Old Testament separately. The 1971 preface says a team of Greek and Hebrew experts checked the content.

By 1997 its publisher reported sales of more than 40 million copies.

The New Living Translation

Begun in 1989 as a revision of The Living Bible; the result was a translation from the Hebrew and Greek.

Each book went to three scholars, whose suggestions a general reviewer turned into a first draft; after further committee review, the Bible Translation Committee approved every verse.

Its introduction: "a thought-for-thought translation", using "dynamic equivalence" or "functional equivalence".

Editions

• ubs4
• na27

The UBS Greek New Testament (4th revised ed., 1993) and Nestle-Aland (27th ed., 1993), which have the same text.

Editions

• bhs

The Masoretic Text in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977), compared with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint and other versions.

It is the one Bible in this tree that began as a paraphrase and ended as a translation from the original languages.

The New English Bible

In 1946 the Church of Scotland asked for a Bible in present-day English, because the language of the Authorized Version had become archaic.

One scholar drafted each book; the panel discussed it verse by verse; a panel of literary advisers then reworked the English, and the translators checked the meaning again.

R. L. Thomas (1990) measures it "well within the category of free translations", bearing out J. P. Lewis's verdict that it is "a free translation", but not a paraphrase, since its translators said they refrained from paraphrase. Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts it under "extensive use of dynamic equivalence or paraphrase or both". Its New Testament introduction: "not another revision of the Authorized Version but a genuinely new translation", replacing Greek constructions "by those of contemporary English".

Editions

• tasker-1964

The translators weighed variant readings for themselves, passage by passage. The Greek text they followed was published by R. V. G. Tasker in 1964.

Editions

• bhk

The third edition of Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgart, 1937).

Roman Catholic representatives attended the Joint Committee as observers.

The Good News Bible (Today's English Version)

A Bible for everyone who uses English, as a mother tongue or an acquired language, in "standard, everyday, natural" English.

Drafts went to a review panel of theologians and biblical scholars and to the English-speaking Bible Societies; the American Bible Society gave final approval.

Its preface: "no attempt to reproduce in English the parts of speech, sentence structure, word order, and grammatical devices of the original". Bratcher followed Eugene Nida's theory, which Nida called Dynamic Equivalence.

Editions

• ubs3

The UBS Greek New Testament (3rd ed., 1975).

Editions

• bhk

The Masoretic Text in Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (3rd ed., 1937).

It was also meant to help missionary translators in Asia and Africa, many of whom worked from English versions rather than the original languages.

The New International Version

NT 1973; complete 1978 (revised 1984, 2011)

Evangelical scholars meeting in 1965 at Palos Heights, Illinois, agreed that a new translation in contemporary English was needed.

Each book went from a translation team to an intermediate editorial committee, a general editorial committee, and the Committee on Bible Translation: three revisions in all.

The 1978 preface: the translators "have striven for more than a word-for-word translation"; the publisher now speaks of balancing transparency to the original with clarity.

Editions

• ubs1
• ubs2

The preface calls the Greek text "an eclectic one". Marlowe identifies the starting point as the 1st and 2nd editions of the UBS Greek New Testament.

"The Masoretic Text as published in the latest editions of Biblia Hebraica", with the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient versions consulted. The preface does not name the edition.

Its preface calls it "a completely new translation": it was not a revision of any earlier English Bible.

The Revised English Bible

The NEB's Old Testament had never been revised, and the NEB was being read aloud in worship more than its translators had expected; in 1974 the Joint Committee began a major revision.

Revision panels reporting to the Joint Committee, whose members inspected drafts as each book neared its final form.

No scholarly source we found classifies it. Marlowe says it is more literal than the NEB "but it remains considerably less literal than the Revised Standard Version", and its method "is comparable to that of the New International Version". Wikipedia's list puts it under "extensive use of dynamic equivalence or paraphrase or both", but for the REB that rests on the Clontzes' Comprehensive New Testament, since Thomas's article predates it.

Our sources do not state the Greek text used.

Our sources do not state the Hebrew text used.

It dropped the "thou" form in prayer that the NEB had kept.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible

NT 2001; complete 2004 (revised 2009)

The publisher wanted a modern translation of its own rather than depending on another publisher's version.

Translators, editors and stylists under contract; an executive team edited and reviewed the final manuscripts.

Its introduction names "optimal equivalence": a literal rendering where it is clear, an idiomatic one where clarity demands, with the literal form in a footnote.

Editions

• na27
• ubs4

Nestle-Aland (27th ed.) and the UBS Greek New Testament (4th corrected ed.).

Editions

• bhs

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (5th ed.).

Farstad began it in 1984 as a translation of the Majority Text he had edited with Zane Hodges; after his death in 1998 the publisher had it made from the Nestle-Aland text.

The Christian Standard Bible

To update the HCSB's translation and word choices.

A revision of the HCSB by an oversight committee.

The publisher: "optimal equivalence", combining formal and functional equivalence.

Editions

• na28
• ubs5

Nestle-Aland (28th ed.) and the UBS Greek New Testament (5th corrected ed.).

Editions

• bhs

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (the publisher gives the 4th edition).

The committee made further improvements to the 2017 text in January 2020.

The Jerusalem Bible

To bring into English the French Bible de Jérusalem (1956) of the Dominican Biblical School, with its full introductions and notes.

Most books were drafted from the Hebrew or Greek and compared with the French; a few were drafted from the French and then checked word for word against the Hebrew or Aramaic by the general editor.

R. L. Thomas (1990): "While the JB is one of the freest of the free translations, it is not so free as to be called a paraphrase" (J. P. Lewis had called it rather paraphrastic). J. P. M. Walsh (1989) finds in it a "paraphrastic tendency, glossing over textual difficulties, rearrangement of word order". Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts it under "extensive use of dynamic equivalence or paraphrase or both".

Drafted from the Greek; which printed edition is not stated in our sources.

Drafted from the Hebrew, often departing from the Masoretic text for the ancient versions. Which printed edition is not stated in our sources.

J. R. R. Tolkien is listed among its collaborators, though he later wrote that he had been consulted only on a few points of style and translated only Jonah.

The New American Bible

OT in parts 1952–1969; complete 1970; NT revised 1986

Pope Pius XII's encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu (1943) encouraged translation from the original languages; in 1944 the American bishops asked for one.

Editors-in-chief over twenty-five years, with scholars of other churches taking part as Vatican II encouraged.

The sources disagree, and the 1970 text differs from the 1986 New Testament. Francis Gignac, who chaired the 1986 revision, wrote that the 1970 New Testament "was one of dynamic rather than formal equivalence", and J. P. M. Walsh (1989), discussing its Genesis, says its translators proceeded "according to the principle of dynamic equivalence". The 1986 New Testament preface says its editors "moved in the direction of a formal-equivalence approach". R. L. Thomas (1990) measured its Romans among the "literal translations". Wikipedia's list, citing Thomas, puts the NAB (1970, revised 1986 and 1991) under "moderate use of both formal and dynamic equivalence", which is where we place it.

Editions

• na25
• ubs1

Nestle-Aland (25th ed., 1963), with help from the UBS Greek New Testament (1966); the 1986 revision used UBS 3rd ed. (1975).

The received Hebrew text of the best-known editions, corrected in Samuel from the Qumran Cave 4 manuscripts. The preface does not name the printed edition.

Its Psalms were translated not from the Masoretic text but from the Hebrew text behind the Church's new Latin Psalter of 1944–45.

In the New Testament Tyndale's version is the basis of Coverdale's, and to a lesser extent in the Pentateuch and Jonah.

The Pentateuch and New Testament are Tyndale's with little variation; the historical books are almost certainly his unpublished work.

Ezra to Malachi and the Apocrypha are taken from Coverdale.

Cromwell and Cranmer, anxious to see Matthew's Bible superseded, invited Coverdale "to undertake a complete revision of the whole".

Coverdale based his revision on Tyndale's work and his own earlier version.

The Geneva revisers took the Great Bible as their basis in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament their basis was Matthew's Bible, that is, Tyndale.

"The basis of the new version was to be the authorized Great Bible"; the Bishops' Bible then superseded it as the official version.

In both Testaments the revisers made use of the Geneva Bible.

The translators' first rule: "The Bishop's Bible was to be taken as the basis."

Named in the translators' rules as a version to use where it agrees better with the text; Kenyon: "The foundations of the Authorized Version were laid by Tyndale."

Named in the translators' rules as a version to use where it agrees better with the text.

Named in the translators' rules (as "Whitchurch's") as a version to use where it agrees better with the text.

Named in the translators' rules; Kenyon counts the Genevan scholars among those who contributed most to it.

The King James translators used the Rheims–Douay; many of the KJV's Latin-derived words came from it.

Challoner revised the Douay–Rheims so heavily that Cardinal Wiseman said it could no longer fairly be called by that name.

Its alterations run toward the King James wording; Newman found it nearer the Protestant version than the Douay in phraseology.

A revision of the Authorized Version, "to introduce as few alterations as possible" consistently with faithfulness.

An American edition of the Revised Version with the American committee's preferences in the text.

The preface: "an authorized revision of the American Standard Version, published in 1901".

The RSV with 66 changes in the New Testament and the deuterocanonical books placed as in Catholic Bibles.

The Lockman Foundation set out to preserve the ASV's values by bringing in newer textual discoveries "and by rendering it into more current English"; it calls the work a new translation project on the ASV's principles.

A revision of the King James Version that keeps the readings presumed to underlie it.

The preface: "an authorized revision of the Revised Standard Version, published in 1952".

The ESV preface names "the 1971 RSV text" as "the starting point for our work".

The 1967 preface: "The basic text used for this paraphrase is the American Standard Version of 1901."

Ninety scholars were commissioned in 1989 to revise The Living Bible; the result was translated from the Hebrew and Greek, so it is shown as drawing on its parent rather than revising it.

"A major revision" of the NEB, begun in 1974, "standing firmly in the tradition established by the New English Bible".

"The Christian Standard Bible is a revision of the HCSB."

As each part of the NAB Old Testament appeared (1952–1969), Catholic publishers printed it in place of the matching part of Challoner's Old Testament.

Jerome's Latin Vulgate

Jerome revised the Old Latin Gospels against Greek manuscripts, and translated the books of the Hebrew canon from the Hebrew (the Psalter in the Vulgate is his revision from the Greek Septuagint). This entry is the Vulgate as copied by hand through the Middle Ages and in its early printings, before the official Clementine edition. Codex Amiatinus is the earliest complete Latin Bible to survive.

The Complutensian Polyglot

The first printed Greek New Testament, in six volumes with the Old Testament in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. It was printed before Erasmus's edition but held back, so Erasmus's came out first. Our sources give 1520 (with Leo X's sanction) and 1522 for its actual release. Erasmus used it in his 1527 edition, Stephanus in 1550, and the 1881 revisers judged it one of the King James translators' guides.

Erasmus's Greek New Testament

Prepared in haste between September 1515 and March 1516 from the handful of late manuscripts at Basel. For Revelation his one manuscript lacked the end, so he supplied the last six verses by translating from the Latin. He left out the Johannine Comma in 1516 and 1519 and printed it in 1522. Every later Textus Receptus edition rests on his text, and Tyndale translated from it.

Bomberg's Second Rabbinic Bible, edited by Jacob ben Chayyim

The first edition of the Rabbinic Bible with the Masorah; Ginsburg says it "finally settled the Massoretic text" as later printed. Bomberg paid for manuscripts of the Masorah to be sought "in all the countries". For centuries it was the received Hebrew text: the King James translators' Hebrew Bibles carried it, and Kittel's first two editions (1906, 1913) were based on it.

Stephanus's Greek New Testament (the 1550 "Royal edition" and 1551)

The 1550 edition follows Erasmus closely and was the first Greek text with a critical apparatus: readings of the Complutensian and of fifteen manuscripts, mostly late Byzantine copies. One of them was Codex Bezae. The 1551 edition added the verse numbers still used today. Kenyon calls the 1550 text the one reprinted, with very slight changes, for the next three hundred years. It prints the Johannine Comma, which had entered with Erasmus's 1522 edition and kept its place in the Textus Receptus.

Beza's Greek New Testament

Beza's text is Stephanus's 1551 with fewer than a hundred changes. He owned Codex Bezae (and Codex Claromontanus) but made little use of Bezae. The TBS counts the 1598 edition, with Stephanus 1550 and 1551, as the Greek basis of the King James New Testament; the RSV preface names the 1589 edition. Like Stephanus's text it carries the Johannine Comma from Erasmus's 1522 edition.

The Clementine Vulgate

The authorized edition of the Vulgate. It hastily replaced the Sixtine edition of 1590, whose revisers had made much use of Codex Amiatinus, and it was recognized from the start that it would need revising. Challoner revised the Douay–Rheims against it.

The Textus Receptus (Received Text)

The preface of the Elzevirs' 1633 edition, by Daniel Heinsius, spoke of the "received" text (textum ... receptum), and the name stuck. The editions differ only slightly among themselves. They stand in the Byzantine tradition of the medieval manuscripts, though the Textus Receptus differs from the Byzantine majority text in about 1,838 places.

Tischendorf's eighth edition (Editio octava critica maior)

A text based mainly on Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, the manuscript Tischendorf had found. It had a full apparatus of the manuscripts, versions and early Fathers. It remained the standard source for variant readings, and was one of the three editions behind Nestle's first text of 1898.

Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek

Published in May 1881, the same month as the Revised New Testament. They grouped the witnesses into families. They set aside the later mass (which they called "Syrian") because no reading peculiar to it is found in any writer before Chrysostom. They followed the "Neutral" text headed by Vaticanus, with Sinaiticus second.

Palmer, The Greek Testament with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers

The revisers did not set out to make a continuous Greek text. They chose readings one by one, and Palmer printed the Greek they followed as a companion to the Revised Version. Their "ancient authorities" included Greek manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries. Kenyon writes that the Revised Version was largely shaped by Westcott and Hort, whose text rests on Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

Scrivener's Textus Receptus (the Greek text followed in the Authorized Version)

No single printed edition matches the King James New Testament. Scrivener therefore started from Beza's 1598 text and changed it wherever the translators followed another reading, after checking eighteen Textus Receptus editions. He was a leading critic of his day who did not accept Westcott and Hort's theories. The Trinitarian Bible Society still publishes his text.

Rahlfs, Septuaginta

The standard hand edition of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament used by the early church. Hanhart's revision corrected the text and apparatus in more than a thousand places. No Bible in this chart was translated from it.

Kittel, Biblia Hebraica, 3rd edition (BHK)

This edition dropped the Ben Chayyim text and printed the Leningrad Codex of 1008 instead. Paul Kahle had arranged the codex's loan from St. Petersburg to Leipzig. From the 1951 printing on, readings of the Qumran Isaiah scroll and Habakkuk commentary were added in a third apparatus. The NEB and the GNB name it.

Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graece, 17th edition

Eberhard Nestle's text of 1898 followed the majority of three 19th-century editions (Tischendorf, Westcott–Hort, and Weymouth, replaced by Weiss from 1901). The text of the 17th edition differed from the 1901 text in only about a dozen places, and it stayed the same through the 25th edition. The RSV New Testament usually followed it.

Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graece, 23rd edition

The same text as the 17th edition, with a growing apparatus. Kurt Aland had worked on the apparatus since the 21st edition of 1952. This edition added the readings of P66. The NASB followed it "in most instances" until its 1995 update.

Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 25th edition

Aland was the first to check the text and apparatus against the manuscripts themselves, and with this edition the series took the name "Nestle-Aland". The text was still the Nestle text of the 17th edition. The 1970 NAB New Testament followed it.

Tasker, The Greek New Testament, being the Text Translated in the New English Bible

The NEB translators chose among the variants passage by passage rather than follow one edition, so its Greek is an eclectic text. Questions about their unusual renderings led Tasker to publish the Greek they had translated, with notes on the variant readings. Our sources do not say which manuscripts the translators leaned on.

The Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies), 1st edition

Produced for the use of translators. Its text was a tentative revision of the Nestle text. The NAB and the NIV used it.

The Greek New Testament (UBS), 2nd edition

The first edition's text with a few important changes. The NIV translators took the first and second editions as their starting point.

The Greek New Testament (UBS), 3rd edition

A substantially new text, changed in more than 500 places from the first edition, mostly on Kurt Aland's suggestion. The 20th-century manuscript finds, especially the early papyri, called for a new main text. Nestle-Aland's 26th edition (1979) printed the same text, and the two have shared one text ever since. The GNB and the NRSV were made from it.

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS)

The fourth Biblia Hebraica, again printing the Leningrad Codex as it stands. Its apparatus took in the Qumran texts published by then. The NKJV, NRSV, ESV, NLT, HCSB and CSB name it.

Hodges and Farstad, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text

The first printed Majority Text. It prints the majority readings of the medieval Byzantine manuscripts, taken from von Soden's data. It differs from the Received Text in about a thousand translatable places, among them 1 John 5:7 and Acts 8:37, where it leaves the disputed words out. The NKJV footnotes cite it as "M".

Robinson and Pierpont, The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform

A second Majority Text, also built from von Soden's Byzantine data. It differs slightly from Hodges–Farstad because it keeps only the readings von Soden classed as the Byzantine "K" text. The 2005 edition is slightly revised.

The Greek New Testament (UBS), 4th revised edition

The third edition's text without change, with a thoroughly revised apparatus. The NLT and the HCSB name it.

Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th edition

The same text as the 26th edition and the UBS editions, with the apparatus again extensively revised. The NLT and the HCSB name it.

Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ)

The fifth Biblia Hebraica, planned in twenty fascicles, about half published so far. It again prints the Leningrad Codex, this time with its full Masorah, and collates the Qumran and Judean Desert texts in full. No Bible in this chart was translated from it.

Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th edition

The apparatus was revised again, and the results of the Editio Critica Maior were brought in. This changed the text itself, mainly in the Catholic Letters. The ESV (current text) and the CSB name it.

The Greek New Testament (UBS), 5th revised edition

The UBS companion to Nestle-Aland 28, sharing its text. The ESV (current text) and the CSB name it.

The Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

In 1979, by the archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, in a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom, just southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Two tiny rolled silver amulets engraved with a form of the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26.

No Bible in this chart rests on them. They show the words of the blessing in use hundreds of years before the oldest known copy of any biblical manuscript.

The Nash Papyrus

2nd century BC (Albright's dating)

Cambridge University Library (Or.233)

Bought from an Egyptian antiquities dealer by W. L. Nash, who gave it to the Library in 1903.

The Ten Commandments, in a form mixing Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, followed by the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5).

No Bible in this chart uses it. When it was found it was hailed as the oldest Hebrew manuscript of any kind.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, with the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ)

Before AD 70; the Great Isaiah Scroll about 125 BC

The Great Isaiah Scroll and the first scrolls are in the Shrine of the Book, Jerusalem, built in 1965 to house them; the other finds are in the care of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

A Bedouin shepherd found the first scrolls in a cave near Qumran in 1947. Ten more caves were found by 1956. The Great Isaiah Scroll was one of the first seven scrolls; Yigael Yadin bought it for the State of Israel in 1954.

Remains of about 900 manuscripts, among them copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther. The Isaiah scroll, 54 columns, is complete apart from small damaged places.

They gave Hebrew texts a thousand years older than any known before 1947, and in general they confirmed the care of the Masoretic copyists. The RSV adopted thirteen readings from the Isaiah scroll. From 1951 Kittel's Biblia Hebraica printed Qumran readings, and BHS and BHQ took them into their apparatus. The NAB corrected Samuel from the Cave 4 manuscripts.

Papyrus 52 (the Rylands fragment of John)

2nd century; Roberts (1935) placed it in the first half of the century, and that precision has since been questioned

The John Rylands Library, Manchester (P.Ryl. 3.457)

Bought in Egypt by Bernard Grenfell in 1920; published by Colin Roberts in 1935.

A scrap of a codex leaf with John 18:31–33 on one side and 18:37–38 on the other.

No Bible in this chart rests on it. Its importance is its date: it is generally held to be the oldest surviving copy of any part of the New Testament.

Papyrus 66 (Papyrus Bodmer II)

The Bodmer Library (Bibliotheca Bodmeriana), Cologny, Geneva

Acquired by the Bodmer Library about 1956.

The Gospel of John: chapters 1–14 nearly complete, the rest in substantial fragments.

Nestle's 23rd edition (1957), the Greek the NASB followed, added its readings. It does not contain the story of the adulteress (John 7:53–8:11).

Papyrus 75 (Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV; Hanna Papyrus 1)

The Vatican Apostolic Library, since January 2007

Formerly in the Bodmer Library at Cologny; the Hanna family and the Solidarity Association gave it to the Vatican Library in 2007.

About half of Luke and half of John, in that order, including the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:1–4.

The Vatican Library calls it one of the most important sources for reconstructing the text of the Gospels. It lacks the story of the adulteress and Luke 22:43–44.

The Chester Beatty biblical papyri (P45, P46, P47)

3rd century (P45 and P46 early 3rd, P47 late 3rd)

Chester Beatty, Dublin; Kenyon (1936) records 30 leaves of P46 at the University of Michigan.

Found in Egypt about 1930, reportedly in a Coptic graveyard; the find was announced by Kenyon in The Times on 17 November 1931.

P45: parts of the four Gospels and Acts, the earliest undeniable four-Gospel book. P46: 86 leaves of Paul's letters, the earliest surviving collection of them. P47: part of Revelation.

Kenyon wrote that they "carried back the evidences of our faith by a century". P45 lacks Acts 8:37.

Codex Vaticanus (B)

The Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 1209), there since at least 1481

Long kept in the Vatican and nearly closed to scholars. Tischendorf's edition of 1867 was the first reliable one.

Nearly the whole Greek Bible. It has lost most of Genesis (1:1–46:28), Psalms 105:27–137:6 (Greek numbering; 106:27–138:6 in English Bibles), and in the New Testament Hebrews 9:14 to the end, the Pastoral Epistles, Philemon and Revelation.

The chief authority of Westcott and Hort, and with Sinaiticus the base of Tischendorf's eighth edition, so it stands behind the RV and ASV (through the revisers' Greek) and the later critical texts. The Sixtine Septuagint of 1587 was based mainly on it. It ends Mark at 16:8 and lacks the story of the adulteress.

Codex Sinaiticus (א)

British Library (347 leaves); Leipzig University Library (43 leaves); National Library of Russia (parts of six leaves); St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (further leaves found in 1975).

At St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. Tischendorf took 43 leaves in 1844 and saw the 347 leaves in 1859. He took them to Russia, and an act of donation to the Tsar was signed in 1869. The Soviet government sold them to the British Museum in 1933.

About half of the Greek Old Testament, the whole New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

With Vaticanus, the base of Tischendorf's eighth edition and of Westcott and Hort. It ends Mark at 16:8 and lacks the story of the adulteress, the Johannine Comma, Acts 8:37 and the doxology of Matthew 6:13. Its first hand includes Luke 22:43–44.

Codex Bezae (D)

End of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century

Cambridge University Library

Probably at the monastery of St. Irenaeus in Lyons until the 16th century, then taken to the Council of Trent in 1546. After the sack of Lyons it came to Theodore Beza, who gave it to Cambridge in 1581.

The Gospels (in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark) and Acts, in Greek and Latin on facing pages, with a Latin fragment of 3 John.

Stephanus cited it in 1550, in the first Greek New Testament with an apparatus, and Beza owned it, though both made little use of it. It is the oldest manuscript that contains the story of the adulteress and the longer ending of Mark. It is the chief Greek witness of the "Western" text.

Codex Alexandrinus (A)

British Library (Royal MS 1 D V–VIII)

Cyril Lucar brought it from Egypt to Constantinople in 1621. He offered it in 1625 as a gift for James I, and Charles I received it in 1627. George II gave it to the British Museum in 1757.

The Greek Old and New Testaments nearly complete, with the Epistles of Clement; parts of Matthew, John and 2 Corinthians are lost.

It reached England in 1627, sixteen years after the King James Version, so the translators never saw it. Its arrival began the search for manuscripts that led to the critical texts. It has Mark 16:9–20 but lacks Acts 8:37 and Luke 22:43–44.

Codex Amiatinus

Copied about AD 700; taken from England in 715 or 716

The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence

Made at Wearmouth–Jarrow in Northumbria, one of three great Bibles Abbot Ceolfrith had copied. He set out to take it to the Pope but died on the way. It came to the abbey of Monte Amiata and later to the Laurentian Library. De Rossi and Hort showed it was English.

The whole Latin Bible in Jerome's Vulgate, the earliest complete Latin Bible to survive.

The revisers of the Sixtine Vulgate of 1590 made much use of it. It lacks the Johannine Comma, which was not in Jerome's Vulgate.

The Cairo Genizah

Fragments of many dates; the oldest biblical ones are from before the 9th century AD

Divided mainly among libraries in St. Petersburg, London, Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester

In 1896–97, in the walled-up storeroom (genizah) of a synagogue in Old Cairo, when the synagogue was rebuilt.

About 200,000 manuscript fragments, among them parts of the Hebrew Bible and most of the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus.

No Bible in this chart rests on it directly. It showed earlier stages of the Masoretic text and of Hebrew vowel-pointing than were known before.

The Aleppo Codex

The Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Jerusalem; it was given to the Ben-Zvi Institute in 1958

Kept for about five centuries in the Central Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria. The synagogue was burned in the anti-Jewish riots of 1947 (Bruce, 1964, gives 1948). The codex resurfaced in Israel in 1958 with roughly 40% missing, including most of the Torah.

The Hebrew Bible with vowels, accents and Masorah, written in Tiberias. Aaron ben Asher is believed to have added the points and notes himself.

Maimonides relied on it as the standard text. In 1964 Bruce reported a Hebrew University critical edition in preparation with it as the base text. No Bible in this chart was translated from it.

The Leningrad Codex (B 19ᴬ)

The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg (EBP. I B 19a)

From the collection of the Karaite collector Abraham Firkovich, who left no record of where he got it. It was taken to Odessa in 1838 and has been in the Imperial (now National) Library in St. Petersburg since 1863. Paul Kahle studied it and arranged its loan to Leipzig for Kittel's Biblia Hebraica.

The whole Hebrew Bible with vowels, accents and Masorah: the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible.

It is the base text of BHK (1937), BHS and BHQ. Through BHK it stands behind the NEB and GNB; through BHS behind the NKJV, NRSV, ESV, NLT, HCSB and CSB.

The Byzantine manuscripts (the medieval majority)

Mostly minuscules of the 10th century and later

Scattered through the libraries and monasteries of Europe and the Near East

Gathered and listed by scholars from 1627 on. By 1830 over a thousand New Testament manuscripts were known, and well over 5,000 are known today.

The Byzantine text, the form that came to prevail throughout the Greek church.

The Textus Receptus was printed from a handful of them. The Majority Text editions of Hodges–Farstad (1982) and Robinson–Pierpont (1991) print the readings of the many, and the NKJV footnotes give those readings. The Byzantine majority contains Mark 16:9–20, the story of the adulteress, Luke 22:43–44 and the doxology of Matthew 6:13. It does not contain the Johannine Comma or Acts 8:37.

The Basel manuscripts Erasmus used

Late medieval: the Gospels codex he relied on (GA 2) and the codex GA 1 are both dated to the 12th century

The Gospels codex is in Basel University Library (AN IV 1); our sources do not give the present homes of the others.

The manuscripts at hand in Basel in 1515. Erasmus borrowed the Gospels codex from the Basel Dominicans, who had it from the bequest of John of Ragusa, and marked it up for the printer.

Six or seven late Byzantine copies covering the New Testament. His only Revelation lacked the last six verses, and one copy of Acts had Acts 8:37 only in the margin.

They are the base of Erasmus's text of 1516, and so of the whole Textus Receptus line: Tyndale, the Tudor Bibles and the King James Version. He back-translated Revelation 22:16–21 from the Latin into Greek. He took Acts 8:37 into the text from that margin.

The Vatican manuscripts lent for the Complutensian Polyglot

Not stated in our sources

Not stated in our sources; they were lent from the Vatican.

Cardinal Ximenes thanked Pope Leo X for lending him Vatican manuscripts for the Polyglot.

Greek manuscripts of the Bible, not identified in our sources; traces of them are discernible in the Greek text.

They lie behind the Complutensian Greek text, which Erasmus drew on in 1527 and Stephanus in 1550, and which the 1881 revisers counted among the King James translators' guides. Ximenes did not use any of the manuscripts now thought best.

The Masoretic manuscripts gathered for Bomberg

Jacob ben Chayyim wrote that Bomberg sent messengers "into all the countries" to find manuscripts of the Masorah, and paid for the books and the search.

Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible and its Masorah; our sources do not identify them.

From them ben Chayyim edited the Second Rabbinic Bible of 1524–25. That text was the Hebrew of the King James Old Testament and of Kittel's first two editions.

Codex Montfortianus (minuscule 61)

Early 16th century; many critics think it was written at Oxford about 1520

It was owned in turn by Froy (or Roy), a Franciscan at Oxford, Thomas Clement, William Clark, Thomas Montfort (hence the name) and James Ussher, and came to Trinity College, Dublin.

The Greek New Testament, with the Johannine Comma in a form that follows the Latin.

It is generally taken to be the Greek manuscript that led Erasmus to print the Johannine Comma in his third edition of 1522. From there the Comma passed into the Textus Receptus and the King James Version (1 John 5:7).

The books as their writers first wrote them: the Old Testament in Hebrew, with some passages in Aramaic (in Daniel and Ezra), and the New Testament in Greek.

The case for the King James text at full strength: the Received Text follows, for the most part, the Greek manuscripts "in widespread use for centuries", "the traditional text of the Greek-speaking churches", and the Byzantine copies it agrees with are the great majority of the well over 5,000 Greek manuscripts known. Its defenders hold, with the Westminster Confession, that God by his "singular care and providence" kept the text "pure in all ages". The answer: the earliest manuscripts generally preserve the original wording most closely, and theirs was no local Egyptian text, for the ancient Latin and Syriac versions and Fathers who lived outside Egypt often agree with them against the later copies. That is why most modern translations follow the critical text, as even the preface to the New King James Version grants: for about a century most "have followed a Critical Text". Each card shows the King James and American Standard wording side by side, the manuscripts on each side, and our conclusion. The case for the King James reading comes first, then the answer. The careful study that removes some readings also confirms others beyond question. As the textual critic S. P. Tregelles wrote in 1854, "no point of orthodox truth is weakened".

The three witnesses in heaven (the Johannine Comma) (1 John 5:7-8)

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one.

For the words: no Greek manuscript before the 14th century has them in the text. They are in nine Greek manuscripts in all, five of them only in a margin added by a later hand. Codex Montfortianus (61), of the early 16th century, is the one that brought them into print. In Latin, Priscillian quotes them in the 4th century, a few Old Latin witnesses have them, and the later Vulgate and the Clementine Vulgate carry them. Against: every other Greek manuscript, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus among them, and the Byzantine majority. No Greek Father quotes them; the first Greek trace is a translation of the Latin acts of the Lateran Council of 1215. Jerome's Vulgate as he made it (Codex Amiatinus) lacks them. Erasmus left them out in 1516 and 1519 because his Greek manuscripts did not have them.

Philip and the Ethiopian's confession (Acts 8:37)

And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

For the verse: Irenaeus quotes part of it in the late 2nd century, and Cyprian and other Latin Fathers have it. It is in Old Latin manuscripts and later Vulgate copies, in Codex E (the earliest Greek manuscript with it, 6th century), in many minuscules, and in the margin of one manuscript Erasmus used. Against: P45, P74, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, C, 33, 81 and 614, the Vulgate, the Peshitta Syriac, the Sahidic Coptic and the Ethiopic. The Byzantine text lacks it, as does the Hodges–Farstad Majority Text.

The last twelve verses of Mark (Mark 16:9-20)

Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

For the verses: all Greek manuscripts but two, among them Alexandrinus, C, Bezae (the oldest to contain them; only verses 9–15 survive in its original hand) and W. Irenaeus and the Diatessaron are the earliest patristic witnesses. Against: the two oldest Greek manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, end at 16:8; Vaticanus leaves a column blank after it. The Old Latin codex Bobiensis, the Sinaitic Syriac, about a hundred Armenian manuscripts and the two oldest Georgian ones also lack them. Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the verses. Eusebius and Jerome say they were absent from almost all the Greek copies known to them. Metzger lists other endings found in some manuscripts, among them a shorter one.

The woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11)

And every man went unto his own house. Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

[And they went every man unto his own house: but Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and having set her in the midst, they say unto him, Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her? And this they said, trying him, that they might have whereof to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst. And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, Woman, where are they? did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more.

The ASV prints this passage in brackets.

For the passage: Codex Bezae (about AD 400, the oldest manuscript with it) and many later uncials, the great mass of later manuscripts (the NKJV note says over 900 of John), some Old Latin copies and Jerome's Vulgate. Jerome knew copies both with it and without it; Augustine suggested some had removed it so as not to seem to excuse sin. Against: P66, P75, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, L, N, T, W and other early witnesses, the oldest Syriac and the Coptic versions. Where it does appear it wanders: after John 7:36, 7:44 or 21:25, or after Luke 21:38. Many copies mark it with asterisks or obeli.

The angel and the sweat like drops of blood (Luke 22:43-44)

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

And there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.

For the verses: the first hand of Sinaiticus, Bezae, L, Ψ, the early fragment 0171, family 1, the Byzantine majority, Old Latin, the Vulgate, and the Curetonian, Peshitta and Harklean Syriac. Justin, Irenaeus and Hippolytus in the second and third centuries, and many later Fathers, cite them. Against: P69 and P75, a corrector of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, N, R, T, W, the Sinaitic Syriac, and the Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic. Clement and Origen lack them; Hilary and Jerome knew copies without them. Other copies mark them with asterisks or obeli, and family 13 and several lectionaries place them after Matthew 26:39.

"For thine is the kingdom": the end of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:13)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For the doxology: the great majority of Greek manuscripts and the Byzantine text, Codex Washingtonianus (W, late 4th or early 5th century), Greek lectionaries and liturgies, and Chrysostom. The Didache (2nd century) ends the prayer with a shorter doxology ("for thine is the power and the glory for ever"). Against: the earliest manuscripts of Matthew, among them Sinaiticus and Vaticanus; Bezae; the leading manuscript of family 1; most Old Latin witnesses (only four have it, two in full); the Vulgate; and several Coptic witnesses. The expositions of the Lord's Prayer by Tertullian, Origen and Cyprian do not treat it. Where it appears, its wording varies.

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