An Uncatalogued Fragment of Acts in Bulgaria

Recently at the NT Textual Criticism discussion-group on Facebook, Georgi Parpulov announced the existence of an manuscript containing text from Acts 9:31-10:5 which has not been assigned a Gregory-Aland identification number.  Let's take a closer look at this fragment, which is in the Bachkovo Monastery.

Parpulov assigns it to the 1100s.  Its text is thoroughly Byzantine, agreeing with the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform in thirteen out of thirteen legible (to me) variation-units.  It has one unusual omission, in 9:33, where the words ἐπὶ κραββάτῳ are absent.    

Meet GA 2425 - A Fragment of Second Timothy and Titus

GA 2425 is one of the manuscripts that were considered "irrelevant" by Aland and Aland on the basis of its primarily Byzantine text.  But let's get to know it anyway. It contains Second Timothy 3:6-Titus 1:3, along with a colophon of Second Timothy and a summary of Titus.

In Second Timothy 4:3, 6, 7, 14, 15, an d 16, 2425 supports Byzantine readings, but in 4:13 it supports φαιλόνην instead of φελόνην.  

There is a lectionary apparatus in the margins, and arche and telos symbols embedded in the text.

The colophon of Second Timothy includes a stichoi-count of 152.  The hypothesis of Titus occupies nearly a full page.  

The renowned passage in which all Scripture is affirmed to be inspired by God appears exactly as it appears in the Byzantine Text and the Textus Receptus, .

Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἔλεγχον, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ, with one final consonant not written.  

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Second Timothy 3:16 in GA 2425

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Strange Bedfellows in Acts 4:12

     The Textus Receptus – the base-text of the New Testament in the King James Version – usually is precisely the same as the Byzantine Text, the New Testament text used by Greek-reading churches for over a thousand years, and represented in over 85% of Greek manuscripts (at least in Matthew-Jude).  But occasionally – 1,005 times, not counting differences involving the spelling of nomina sacra – the Textus Receptus has a reading that is not the same as what is printed in the 2005 Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform or the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text, and agrees instead with the mainly Alexandrian Text found in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece compilation.  Acts 4:12 contains such a variant-unit.

Καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἄλλῳ οὐδενὶ ἡ σωτηρία οὐτὲ γὰρ ὄνομά ἐστιν ἕτερον ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν τὸ δεδομένον ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἐν ᾧ δεῖ σωθῆναι ἡμᾶς 

The TR and the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation both read  οὐδὲ instead of οὐτὲ, but the more significant agreement is that both include the words ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν, which are absent from the Byzantine Text, resulting in the absence of the words “under heaven” in the majority-based World English Bible.  Zooming in on this part of the verse we see a remarkable variety of readings after γὰρ and before τὸ δεδομένον (nomina sacra contractions are not noted here):

ἐστιν ἕτερον ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν:  03 05 1505 2147

ἕτερον ἐστιν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν:  02 08 044 33 104 1175 1739

ἐστιν ἕτερον:  056 330 547

ἕτερον ἐστιν:  69 (ἐστι) 330

1611 reads ἕτερον ἐστι τὸ δεδομένον ἐν ἀνθρώποις ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν

Codex Sinaiticus has a unique word-order:   ἕτερον ὄνομά ἐστιν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν.

Codex Vaticanus agrees with the TR but reads ὐμᾶς instead of ἡμᾶς at the end of the verse.

Unraveling the likely mechanisms that led to each rival reading would be an interesting exercise and provide a basis for a family tree of witnesses, but here let’s be content to defend the original reading and account for the shorter Byzantine reading.  Internal probability commends Καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἄλλῳ οὐδενὶ ἡ σωτηρία οὐτὲ γὰρ ὄνομά ἐστιν ἕτερον ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν τὸ δεδομένον ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἐν ᾧ δεῖ σωθῆναι ἡμᾶς.  The words ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν were dropped accidentally when an early scribe’s line of sight drifted from -ον in ἕτερον to -ον in οὐρανὸν.    

GA 2878 and Its Textual Anomalies

GA 2878 is a Gospels fragment from the 1100s that resides in the Dunham Bible Museum of Houston Baptist University.  It survives as a single leaf containing text from Luke 23:7-25.  Eusebian Canon/Section numbers in its margin show that it is no a lectionary. Its text is Byzantine, agreeing with the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform or the Hodges-Pierpont Majority Text with three exceptions:

23:8 - After εξ ικανου, 2878 reads χρονων, agreeing with H M N W Π Ψ f¹.  The textual contest here is interesting:  

P75 01* 03 T 579:  ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων θέλων ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν

02 Δ Byz:  θέλων ἐξ ἱκανοῦ ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν

05:  θέλων ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων

2878 H M N W Π f¹:  θέλων ἐξ ἱκανοῦ χρόνοῦ ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν

157:  θέλων ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν

019:  ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν

Internal probabilities favor the idea that both the Alexandrian and Western forms are later than the Byzantine reading, inasmuch as χρόνων or χρόνοῦ would be a natural augmentation of Luke’s statement, but there is no ready reason why it would be omitted if initially present (unless it was dropped via parablepsis, -ῶν –ων, in the entire Byzantine transmission-line and then re-entered). 

23:12 - After εν αυτη, 2878 reads ωρα και ημερα (579 reads ωρα.) -  a scribal expansion making the expression superfluously complete.

23:25 – After Απέλυσεν δε, 2878 reads αυτοις, a natural specification agreeing with M Π and the Textus Receptus.  

It can be viewed at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.   

Rising Star: What's Nelson Hsieh Think? (Part One)

Nelson Hsieh

"James, you handsome rogue," I wondered, "Regarding New Testament textual criticism, what school of thought is represented by the new guy, Nelson Hsieh, the Assistant Professor of New Testament at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary?"  I decided to find out, so here is the first part of an interview with Dr. Hsieh on an assortment of issues.

Q:  The foundational premise of Hort’s approach, and his motive for rejecting all distinctly Byzantine readings, was his theory of a Lucianic recension.  Peter Gurry insists that virtually nobody adheres to that theory anymore.  So, regarding the Gospels-text only, where and how did the Byzantine Text originate?

         

Hsieh:  I’m not fully convinced that the Lucianic recension theory has been 100% refuted. The testimony of Jerome certainly suggests that Lucian had some sort of editorial hand among Gospel manuscripts. And the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint is quite well-established and the characteristics of the Septuagint Lucianic recension certainly match many of the characteristics of the New Testament Byzantine text; see Bruce M. Metzger, “Lucian and the Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” NTS 8 (1962): 189–203; Kurt Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” TJ 8 (1987): 131–44.

 Furthermore, we probably shouldn’t create a false dichotomy where, on one side, there is a recension in the strict sense (a large-scale editorial effort to edit a text according to predetermined principles) and, on the other side, there is no editing or revision at all. Maybe Lucian made some small revisions in the fourth century in just the Gospels (since Jerome speaks about Lucian in the context of the Gospels), and not necessarily a large-scale recension of the entire New Testament.

Certainly some Byzantine readings are early as shown by Harry Sturz with alignments between the papyri and later Byzantine readings; see Harry A. Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (Nelson, 1984) and also David Alan Black, “A Sturzian Solution to the Problem of ‘Original Text’ as Illustrated by Eph 1:1, Matt 5:22, and John 3:13,” in Can We Recover the Original Text of the New Testament?, ed. Abidan Paul Shah and David Alan Black (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2023), 67–86. 

The papyri were not available to Westcott & Hort, so they obviously couldn’t see examples of Byzantine-papyri agreements. And the church fathers often show us that Byzantine readings are early, even if we don’t possess any early Greek manuscript witnesses for a Byzantine reading (e.g. with the Long Ending of Mark being found in Irenaeus). But a few isolated early Byzantine readings do not mean that the Byzantine Text as a whole is early.

Maybe the answer about origin is a combination of several factors: Lucian’s revisions to the Gospels, early scribal interpolations (e.g. the Long Ending of Mark in the second century, and Pericope of the Adulteress in the third century), and later scribal revisions/smoothing out of the text — which eventually were supplemented by later editorial efforts (like the Harklean Syriac version and von Soden’s K^r group) leading to a fairly standardized late Byzantine Majority text in the 13th century onwards (as Klaus Wachtel argues for the Catholic Epistles). But we can’t be certain. And I don’t see why Lucian has to be tossed out entirely; he could have had a small part in the origin of the Byzantine Textform.

Q:  Considering the likelihood that users of Scripture in languages other than Greek would like to observe that the the text in their language was based on Greek, when a Greek text was used at a scriptorium as the basis for a version, did that particular form of the Greek text get locked into place?

Hsieh:  It is hard to see why a version must have been “locked into place” by an initial Greek exemplar. On subsequent copying, it would be unsurprising for scribes to check against whatever Greek manuscripts were available, which could have differed from the initial Greek exemplar. 

And we have clear examples where versions are corrected/updated against different Greek exemplars (Old Latin vs. Vulgate, and Old Syriac vs. Peshitta). Any “locking in” probably had more to do with liturgical use and/or ecclesiastical authority like with the Peshitta as liturgical standard for the Syriac church, and with the Vulgate for the Latin/Western church.

Q:  In Acts 27:37, 03 and an early layer of the Sahidic version both say that “about 76” souls were aboard the ship.  F. F. Bruce, and Dean John Burgon before him, surmised how this variant came into existence from the usual “276.” Considering how unlikely it is that two independent scribes made the same quirky mistake, was 03’s exemplar (or ancestor) the basis for the Sahidic version of Acts?

Hsieh:  To draw a connection between 03’s exemplar and the Sahidic version of Acts, we would need far more evidence than a single reading, so I wouldn’t make any claim until we could look at more instances of 03-Sahidic agreements that disagree with the rest of the tradition. This is not something I’ve researched before, so I can’t say anymore unless someone already has a list of such agreements.

Q:  In the book of Revelation, what reading do you consider the most unstable in the Nestle-Aland compilation? 

Hsieh:  Probably Revelation 5:9: “You redeemed to God by your blood,” which follows the singular reading in Codex Alexandrinus that omits the pronoun “us,” so there is no object for the verb

“redeem.” ECM Revelation rightly goes with the rest of the manuscript tradition in including the pronoun “us.” The variant occurs at the end of a column in Codex Alexandrinus, so it is easy to understand the scribe of Alexandrinus accidently omitting the pronoun.

Q:  There is a longstanding philosophical debate that overlaps with the text-critical contest between the Byzantine Textform and the Nestle-Aland compilation, orbiting the question, To what is the ordinary Christian obligated to submit to:  the text as issued by the initial producers of each book of the New Testament, or the text as approved and disseminated by the church?.  Which side do you favor?

Hsieh:  Of course, we don’t have the initial/original text regardless of whether one is a Byzantine Textform or critical text advocate, so it’s not possible for an ordinary Christian to submit to a text that we do not possess. We only have an approximation of the initial/original text (whether Byzantine Textform or critical text – both are approximations). I am an evangelical and a Baptist, so obviously I wouldn’t favor a Roman Catholic approach where the biblical text is approved and disseminated by the “church.”

I would say that the ordinary Christian submits to the Word of God that (in God’s providence) is available to them. So a tenth century monk who only has access to one Byzantine text manuscript submits to the biblical text available to him, while a Christian in the twenty-first century submits to the biblical text available – whether a translation, or a Greek critical text. 

But more important is how significant the differences are between the Nestle-Aland editions and the Byzantine Textform. I have looked at all the differences between Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine Textform and Nestle-Aland 27 (in RP’s lower apparatus), and I will say that there is not really any textual difference that would significantly affect doctrine or practice for the ordinary Christian. For example, the Byzantine text has four more references to fasting (1 Cor 7:5; Matt 17:21; Mark 9:29; Acts 10:30) than NA27, but I doubt that this would increase (or decrease) the practice of fasting among ordinary Christians. A person’s theological beliefs or denomination would probably have more influence on one’s practice of fasting than which biblical text was used. 

Johannes Karavidopoulos, the only Eastern Orthodox scholar on the UBS4/NA27 editorial committee, said during committee meetings: “I fought especially for New Testament verses which are very familiar to the Greek Orthodox audience because of their liturgical use (e.g., Mark 9:29) . . . But I did not succeed in many cases.” (see Peter J. Gurry, “ETC Interview with John Karavidopoulos,” Evangelical Textual Criticism (blog), September 22, 2015, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2015/09/etc-interview-with-john-karavidopoulos.html). Karavidopoulos has passed away, but he would probably be pleased to see the THGNT and ECM Mark (and therefore NA29) adopting the Byzantine reading with fasting in Mark 9:29.

Other examples – the doctrine of the Trinity does not need the Johannine Comma to be supported and believed. Without the Pericope of the Adulteress, we do lose a beautiful story about Jesus’s mercy towards a marginalized woman and his critique of the religious leaders – but such themes are prevalent throughout the rest of the Gospels. Without Luke 23:34a (“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”), we do lose a magnificent saying of Jesus from the cross. But other passages in the New Testament teach about loving our enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:35) and about the ignorance of the Jews in condemning Jesus to death (Acts 3:17; 13:27), so the essential teaching of Luke 23:34a is still found elsewhere in the New Testament, even if the text is judged to be a later interpolation.

Q:  The conjectural emendation in NA28 in Second Peter 3:10 that effectively reverses the meaning of the sentence printed in previous edition: do you support it?

Hsieh: No, I disagree with the NA28’s conjecture – although I suppose it hinges more on the meaning of εὑρεθήσεται (can it mean “exposed” in ESV or “laid bare” in NIV-1984?). Metzger and others cannot make sense of εὑρεθήσεται – how can the earth “be found” after the eschatological burning up of all things? 

But an intelligible meaning is possible: Jörg Frey suggests that in the context of apocalyptic literature, the verb can have the sense of “being brought to judgment,” so that there is no need for a conjecture (what Frey calls “an act of desperation” on the part of the ECM). See Jörg Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, trans. Kathleen Ess (Baylor University Press, 2018), 409-11. 

And there is an additional argument in favor of viewing εὑρεθήσεται as judgment: it’s not only the physical earth (γῆ) being exposed, but the earth and its works (τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα) being exposed, so that mankind is in view and not just the physical earth.

NA27 / THGNT’s reading εὑρεθήσεται seems to best represent the original text. The external evidence is early and good (01, 03, 025, 1739txt; P72 indirectly) and it’s easier to understand a change from εὑρεθήσεται to κατακαήσεται based on harmonization than the other way around. In other words, I think that the Byzantine reading κατακαήσεται (“be burned up”) is probably a harmonization to earlier in the verse: στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσεται (“the elements being burned up will be dissolved”) and verse 12 also: στοιχεῖα καυσούμενα τήκεται (“the elements being burned up will melt”).

However, I do look forward to hearing Peter Gurry’s paper on this issue at SBL in November 2026, where he still insists that conjecture is still necessary. In his SBL paper abstract, he says: “a near consensus has developed among modern commentators and translators that the original text is εὑρεθήσεται (“will be found”). This shift relies on a lexical interpretation where the verb means “laid bare” (NIV) or “disclosed” (NRSVue). This paper challenges this consensus based on a survey of over 850 uses of the verb, demonstrating that it cannot sustain such a meaning in this context. Consequently, conjectural emendation remains a legitimate and even necessary solution.”

Q:  Michael Holmes’ benign conjectural emendation in the SBL-GNT in First Corinthians 6:5:  do you support it?

Hsieh: On principle, I am against conjectural emendations, but they are certainly interesting in revealing exegetical difficulties and attempts to solve such difficulties. Erasmus (in his Annotations on 1 Corinthians) noticed the grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5 (διακρῖναι ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ) – how is it possible to judge between one brother? We would either expect the plural ἀδελφῶν (“judge between brothers”), or an additional phrase like καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ (“judge between a brother and a brother”), but no Greek manuscript attests to either possibility. According to the INTF’s Database of Conjectures, Theodore Beza conjectures the plural ἀδελφῶν, while Zuntz, Weiss, and Grotius conjecture various additional phrases that add a second individual. Also see Jan Krans, Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, NTTS 35 (Brill, 2006), 180-81, and Jeffrey Kloha, “1 Corinthians 6:5: A Proposal,” NovT 46 (2004): 132-42.

The Latin Book of Armagh (Vetus Latina 61; Oxford Vulgate D) supports Beza’s conjecture of the plural “brothers.” [“Ad verecundiam vestram dico. Sic non est inter vos sapiens quisquam qui possit iudicare inter fratrem suum?” - JSJ]  The second type of conjecture adding an additional phrase is supported by the Syriac Peshitta and five Latin manuscripts – Codices Augiensis, Boernerianus, Sarisburiensis, a recent addition to Toletanus, and a correction to Ulmensis, but the evidence is not so easy to interpret; see the discussion of these Latin manuscripts in Gunther Zuntz, “The Critic Correcting the Author,” Philologus 99 (1955): 295-303. On patristic evidence for either the plural or a longer reading, see Kloha, 139-41.

Holmes and the SBLGNT’s conjecture at 1 Cor 6:5 are almost certainly dependent on Zuntz, who suggests that these versional witnesses do not go back to the original text of 1 Corinthians, but are conjectures/variants arising within the Syriac and Latin tradition, demonstrating attempts to make the text more clear and “correct.” Zuntz also suggests that the omission of an additional phrase (καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ) arose in Paul’s autograph since no Greek manuscript attests to an addition, and the omission was not a scribal error in copying.

To avoid conjecture, one could also better explain the grammar of 1 Cor 6:5. Johannes Weiss (Der erste Korintherbrief [Ruprecht: 1910], 150) and BDAG, 57, provide some examples to alleviate the grammatical difficulty by suggesting Paul is using an abbreviated expression (Gen 16:5, ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ; Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) IX.8.64, ἀνὰμέσον Ἑλλήνων; JosAs 28:6, ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ ὑμῶν; Sir 25:18). But only Sirach 25:18 is a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5 with a singular object of the preposition: ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν (v.l. τοῦ) πλησίον αὐτοῦ, although there is a variant with the article τῶν. If τῶν is the original text (as adopted in the Göttingen Septuagint), then it is not a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5. The other examples demonstrate that two objects are needed (Gen 16:5; JosAs 28:6), or a plural (SEG IX.8.64).

On the whole – I would agree with Zuntz that the Latin and Syriac readings were probably conjectures/variants that arose within those versions rather than witnesses to a Greek variant or to the original Greek text. It is especially revealing that Codices Boernerianus and Augiensis are both Greek-Latin diglots, yet the Greek sides do not match the additional text on the Latin sides in 1 Cor 6:5. However, I’m not so comfortable with Zuntz’s conjecture and explanation; perhaps additional grammatical study will yield more and better examples that can alleviate the grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5.

 

Continued soon in Part Two!

 

New Testament H&H Resources (Homiletics and Hermeneutics)

Five stars 
$8.88 on Amazon

“James, what resources do you recommend to a literate English reader who wants to interpret the Gospels accurately and preach the gospel effectively like the apostles?”

I recommend my book Reaching and Teaching through Preaching.  Several volumes by distinguished preachers of the 1800s are also very worthwhile, and completely free by following the embedded links here:

On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons - John Broadus

Homiletics, or The Theory of Preaching - Alexandre R. Vinet  

Sacred Rhetoric: Or, a Course of Lectures on Preaching - Robert L. Dabney

Lectures to My Students - Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  

The Ministry of the Word - William M. Taylor

For anyone - not just men who stand in pulpits - who desires to handle accurately the worth of truth, these free resources are also available:

Hermeneutics - David Roberts Dungan

Introduction to the Exegetical Study of the Scriptures of the New Testament - Patrick Fairbairn
(Printed edition on Amazon)

Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments  - Milton S. Terry

Sacred Hermeneutics Developed and Applied - Samuel Davidson

The Elements of Biblical Interpretation - Leicester Ambrose Sawyer 

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Volume 1) - James Orr, editor

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Volume 2) - James Orr, editor

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Volume 3) - James Orr, editor

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Volume 4) - James Orr, editor

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Volume 5) - James Orr, editor

A Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books of the New Testament - George Salmon

The People's New Testament - B. W. Johnson

A Guide to Bible Study - John William McGarvey

New Testament Commentary, Volume I: Matthew and Mark - John William McGarvey

Analysis of the New Testament: Volume I – The Gospels and Acts - Robert Milligan

Historical Geography of the Bible - D. O. Teasley

Commentary on the Gospel of Luke - George Bliss

A Commentary on the Gospel of John - David Lipscomb

A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles - John William McGarvey

Many more downloadable resources are available at the Restoration Library.

 

Revisiting the Fiasco called The Passion Translation

Mike Winger and Minor Prophets have been make a very thorough examination -- more like a dissection -- of Brian Simmon’s writing published under the name "The Passion Translation."  Here's a repetition of what I wrote about it in 2018.  

            Those who have viewed a video of Brian Simmons’ appearance on the television program That’s Supernatural! will already be aware of Brian Simmons’ description of his call to translate the Bible.  He claimed the following:

            ● Jesus told him to translate the Bible,
            ● Jesus told him he would help Brian translate the Bible,
            ● Jesus promised to provide secrets about the Hebrew language, and
            ● Brian received downloads when Jesus breathed on him.

Brian Simmons

This sort of testimony is taken seriously by many members of the New Apostolic Reformation, a loose network of congregations characterized by charismatic doctrine.  (If you can recollect the “Toronto Blessing” and the “Brownsville Revival,” you may get some idea of the NAR’s  theological roots.)  The NAR’s leaders affirm that the church today should be led, not by elders and deacons, but by people holding the offices of apostle and prophet (whether male or female).   The NAR also teaches that prophets receive new revelation from God which supplements the written Word of God.  They also put an emphasis on what they consider to be miraculous gifts, such as the reception of knowledge that is naturally unattainable, supernatural healings (including raising the dead – Simmons himself claims to been instrumental in the resurrection of a dead baby), speaking in tongues, and other phenomena (one example described by Simmons is the time he walked into a grocery store and everyone he met collapsed onto the floor). 

Charismatic doctrines are advocated throughout The Passion Translation, because it is not just a translation; it is more like a Charismatic Study Bible with its own running commentary in the form of Simmons’ abundant notes and book-introductions (which in some cases are longer than the books they accompany).  To an extent, TPT resembles some medieval manuscripts in which the Scripture-text is framed on every page by a lot of commentary – with the exception that whereas the medieval commentary-material tended to restate earlier patristic comments, The Passion Translation’s notes – often more lengthy than the books they accompany – consistently promote the teachings of the New Apostolic Reformation.

            One does not get far into the New Testament before it becomes apparent what one is facing in Simmons’ work.  In a note attached to Matthew 1:17, Simmons explains why, in Matthew’s genealogy, there are 41, rather than 42, generations.  Is Matthew simply counting the last unit of generations inclusively?  No; Simmons does not offer such mundane possibilities; the missing generation, he explains, is the church:  “Jesus gave birth to the forty-second generation when he died on the cross, for out of his side blood and water flowed.  Blood and water come forth at birth.  The first Adam “birthed” his wife out of his side, and so Jesus gave birth to his bride from his wounded side.” 

            This sort of thing is pervasive in the notes of The Passion Translation.  Some interpretations that Simmons offers are merely his own allegorical notions – for example, he comments on Mary’s words in John 2:2-3, “Interpreting Mary’s words for today we could say, “Religion has failed, it has run out of wine.””  Others are adamant endorsements of the teachings of the New Apostolic Reformation network. 

Perfectly ordinary and legitimate comments appear too – but some of Simmons’ notes only make sense if the reader really, really, wants them to make sense; for instance, in a note to John 2:20, where the Jewish leaders mention that it had taken 46 years to build the temple, Simmons comments, “Our bodies (temples) have forty-six chromosomes in every cell.” 

Another example:  Simmons’ note for Mark 1:9 – a straightforward statement that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to be baptized by John in the Jordan river – is as follows:  “It is possible to translate the Aramaic as “Then one day Jesus came from victorious revelation” to be baptized by John.  The word Nazareth can mean “victorious one,” and the word Galilee can be translated “the place of revelation.”  Simmons’ ability to squeeze metaphorical meanings out of plain statements in this way knows no bounds.  Many of the notes are like this, offering spiritual lessons that, good or bad, were never in the minds of the New Testament authors. 

            If the doctrinal bias of the notes were the only problem with Simmons’ work, TPT would be no worse than a Charismatic Study Bible or commentary-set.  But in many passages, Simmons’ theological views have colored the translation.  In sync with the NAR’s custom of giving leadership roles to women (including the office of apostle), Simmons has taken inexcusable liberties with some passages that pertain to the role of women and wives:

● First Corinthians 14:34 has been mangled:

            “The woman should be respectfully silent during the evaluation of prophecy in the meetings.  They are not allowed to interrupt, but are to be in a support role, as in fact the law teaches.”  The italicized phrase “during the evaluation of prophecy in the meetings” is just something Simmons threw in there.  And a lengthy note attached to 14:35 begins as follows:  “One interpretation of this passage is that Paul is quoting from a letter written by the Corinthians to him.  They were the ones saying a woman should remain silent and Paul is responding to their questions.  In other words, they were imposing a rule in the church that Paul refutes in v. 36.”

            ● Ephesians 5:22 is also mangled.  Instead of saying, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” Simmons translates the end of verse 21 as “be supportive of each other in love,” and then proceeds to rewrite verse 22 to say, “For wives, this means being devoted to your husbands like you are tenderly devoted to our Lord.”  This is quite politically correct, but it does not correspond to what Paul wrote.  

            ● First Timothy 2:11-12 is hopelessly adulterated in Simmons’ work:  “Let the women who are new converts be willing to learn with all submission to their leaders and not speak out of turn.  I don’t advocate that the newly converted women be the teachers in the church, assuming authority over the men, but to live in peace.”  Simmons attempts to excuse his additions by claiming, in prolonged notes, that he is merely making clear what was implicit in the early church, but this is pure subterfuge; Paul explains the basis for his position in the following verses.  Simmons has blended his commentary into the text of Scripture. 

The NAR believes that the office of apostle should be occupied in the present time.  Accordingly, in Matthew 10:2, Simmons has added the word “first” – “Now, these are the names of the first twelve apostles” – although there is nothing to support the word “first” in the Greek text.    

            So have no illusions about the nature of The Passion Translation:  it is not just a loose translation.  Its notes, which are many – the TPT New Testament is more annotation than translation – constitute a commentary designed to promote the doctrines of the NAR, and its text has been tweaked to decrease the extent to which a formal rendering of the text would challenge NAR beliefs. 

Brian Simmons may believe with full sincerity that the NAR’s doctrines are correct – but that does not excuse the many points in The Passion Translation where he has tampered with the text in such a way as to make it say things that the original text does not really say.

So far I have only described The Passion Translation’s origins and its doctrinal bias.  The remaining distinctive feature of Simmons’ work – its unusual New Testament base-text – is in some ways more concerning.   

Simmons draws his competence into question when he makes statements such as this one (from the book-introduction to Matthew):  “In AD 170 Eusebius quoted Irenaeus as saying, “Matthew published his gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul in Rome were preaching and founding the church” (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica III. 24:5-6 and V. 8, 2.).”  The problem is that Eusebius wrote in the early 300s; Irenaeus, not Eusebius, is the writer who wrote in the 170s.  

            Nor does it help Simmons’ credibility when one reads, in a note on John 3:13, his claim that “Most Greek manuscripts read “the Son of Man who came from heaven.””  This is completely false; most Greek manuscripts support the reading, “the Son of Man who is in heaven.”  Similarly Simmons claims, in a note on Mark 9:29, that “Many reliable Greek texts leave out “fasting,”” whereas in real life only a few Greek manuscripts omit this word.

Some folks might conclude that such simple mistakes imply that Jesus was not helping Simmons write his notes, and that Simmons’ claim about receiving downloads from heaven is either a delusion or chicanery.  But in the NAR, just as prophets who make false predictions are still considered prophets, translators and commentators get to make elementary chronological errors and still be taken seriously.     

            Now let’s take a closer look at the New Testament base-text that Simmons used for TPT. 

            Simmons’ notes refer repeatedly to “Hebrew Matthew,” and this text is cited in his notes over a hundred times.  “Hebrew Matthew,” however, is nothing more than Shem-Tob (as Simmons himself affirms in his note on Matthew 2:6) – a late medieval text assembled by Judaic opponents of Christianity in the 1300s, mainly reworking the meaning of the Vulgate text of that time, with unusual readings shared by the earlier Liège Harmony (from the late 1200s), a harmonization of the four Gospels written in the Middle Dutch dialect, in which some Diatessaronic readings are embedded. 

            What Simmons treats as if it is the original Hebrew text of Matthew (and greater in authority than all Greek manuscripts) is actually a medieval text used by opponents of the gospel, and its unique features, other than echoes of the Diatessaron and a few stray Old Latin readings, are not ancient at all.  We are looking here at a text that post-dates Charlemagne.  Unfortunately, when Simmons made TPT, he was apparently convinced that Shem-Tob is a very ancient text.  That false assumption is in play throughout his work.

            Another false assumption seems to be in play as well:  the idea that the Peshitta – a Syriac translation, probably made in the late 300s – is from the first century rather than the fourth century.   The phrase “As translated from the Aramaic” appears in Simmons’ notes over 400 times.  Simmons has somehow convinced himself that the Peshitta is better than the Greek text in hundreds of passages.  A close study of Simmons’ notes indicates that he believes that the Gospel of Matthew was initially written in Aramaic (the sentence in which Simmons put Eusebius in the year 170 is part of Simmons’ defense of this belief).  This is the only plausible explanation for the following renderings in Simmons’ translation of Matthew:

            ● Matthew 5:4a – “What delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord!” –   “As translated from the Hebrew Matthew,” Simmons explains in a note, defending his decision to set aside the Greek text, which means, “Blessed are those who mourn.”       

            ● Matthew 8:6, 8:9, 8:13 – “son” – This is, in the Aramaic sources Simmons has relied upon, an attempted harmonization to the similar account in John 4:47-53.  The Greek text, as Simmons admits in his notes, means “servant.”

            ● Matthew 12:12 – “it’s always proper to do miracles” – The Greek text, as Simmons admits in his notes, only refers to doing good; there is no reference to miracles.    

            ● Matthew 19:16a – “Then a teenager approached Jesus and bowed before him” – this harmonization based on Mark 10:17 is not based on Greek manuscripts, but was “translated from the Hebrew Matthew,” i.e., the medieval Shem-Tob text.

            ● Matthew 19:16b – “and bowed before him, saying, Wonderful teacher” – Simmons, rather than translate the Greek text, translated the word tawa “from the Aramaic.”

            ● Matthew 19:24 (and Mark 10:25 and Luke 18:25) – “In fact, it’s easier to stuff a heavy rope through the eye of a needle than it is for the wealthy to enter into God’s kingdom realm!”  Simmons explains why he had led away the camel:  “This could be an instance of the Aramaic text being misread by the Greek translators as “camel” instead of “rope.”” 

            ● Matthew 20:29 – “As Jesus approached Jericho” – The Greek text means just the opposite, “As Jesus left Jericho.”  Simmons’ note displays his openness to the idea that the Shem-Tob text existed in the first century.

            ● Matthew 21:37 – “Perhaps with my own son standing before them they will be ashamed of what they’ve done.” – This paraphrase has been allowed to usurp the Greek text, which simply means, “They will respect my son.”

            ● Matthew 27:9 – “This fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah” – Simmons flatly rejects the Greek text which refers to the prophet Jeremiah, stating, “The Greek manuscripts incorrectly identify the prophecy as from Jeremiah.”  Rather than perceive a loose thematic parallel to passages in Jeremiah, Simmons has set aside the Greek text and translated from the medieval Shem-Tob.

            ● Matthew 27:43b – “let’s see if it’s true, and see if God really wants to rescue his ‘favorite son’!” – This is a drastic departure from the Greek text, in which Jesus’ detractors finish the verse by saying, “for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

                       

This sort of thing is not limited to the text of Matthew.  Simmons departs from the Greek text  on many occasions, and in almost every book of the New Testament – even in Second Peter, Third John, Jude, and Revelation – books which were not even initially part of the Peshitta. 

For example, in Second Peter 1:4, Simmons has set aside the “us” found in the Greek text (ἡμῖν) and replaced it with “you.”  In Jude verse 9, Simmons rendered Michael the archangel’s words as “”The Lord Yahweh rebuke you,” although the Greek text (Κύριος) only justifies the word “Lord.”

            And in the book of Revelation, Simmons has replaced Jesus’ familiar words, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” with “I am the Aleph and the Tav” in 1:8, and again in 21:6, and again in 22:13.  Other departures from the Greek text occur in Revelation 6:9, 7:17, 11:7 (Simmons:  “the beast that comes up from the sea” – Greek text:  “the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit” (ἀβύσσου)), 11:15, 15:3, and 21:2.                           

            And there is a yet more disturbing aspect to Simmons’ work.  Contrary to the impression given at The Passion Translation’s website, which explicitly states that Simmons used the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation, and which also explicitly states that The Passion Translation follows the practice of excluding passages such as Matthew 17:21, 18:11, Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, Mark 15:28, and Acts 8:37, all of those verses are in the text of the copy of The Passion Translation that I received.  It is quite obvious that Simmons’ New Testament base-text diverges from the Nestle-Aland compilation at many points. 

It is equally obvious that Simmons did not consistently follow the Byzantine Text, for he turns Amos into an ancestor of Christ in Matthew 1:10, and does not describe Jesus as Mary’s firstborn son in Matthew 1:25, and in Mark 1:2 he attributes a prophecy to Isaiah (although in his annotation on Mark 1:2, Simmons states, “This line is a quotation from Ex. 23:20 and Mal. 3:1”).  What was the determining factor in his textual decisions? 

It appears that where the Nestle-Aland compilation and the Byzantine Text disagree, the Aramaic text often cast a deciding vote – and, as we have seen, in some cases, it was allowed to outweigh them both.  But what Aramaic, or Syriac, text was Simmons using?  For just as there are different compilations of the Greek text, there are different compilations of the Peshitta, and there are also the Harklean Syriac, the Philoxenian Syriac, and the Palestinian Aramaic to consider. 

            A modicum of online research into this question led me to the website of Andrew Chapman, who showed concisely but clearly that Simmons has utilized – among other resources – the work of Victor N. Alexander. 

 

Victor Alexander's
English translation of
the Aramaic text

            I will spare you, reader, the details of Andrew Chapman’s investigations, and cut to the chase.  (You can read about some of them at http://theriveroflife.com/2017/03/23/brian-simmons-claims-to-be-translating-from-the-aramaic-the-ten-cases-in-summary/ .)  It seems apparent that Simmons has been relying on English translations of the Peshitta, rather than directly consulting Aramaic sources.  This seems irrefutable when one looks at the anomalies in the translation made by Victor Alexander, and sees the same, or very similar, anomalies in Simmons’ workjl.  Here are a few:

            ● Galatians 1:4a – Simmons:  “He’s the Anointed Messiah who offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins!”  Alexander:  “He who sacrificed himself on behalf of our sins.”  (The Greek text simply says that he gave himself for our sins; the explicit reference to sacrifice-offering implies a link between Alexander’s translation and Simmons.)

            ● Galatians 2:10 – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):  “that I would be devoted to the poor and needy”  Alexander:  “That we may devote ourselves to the needy alone.”  (The Greek text refers to remembering the poor; the shared reference to being devoted to the poor implies a link between Alexander’s work and Simmons.  This passage has been altered and presently refers to remembering the poor and needy.) 

            ● Galatians 3:3b – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):  “Why then would you so foolishly turn from living in the Spirit to becoming slaves again to your flesh?”  Alexander:   “Did you become so foolish that while before, the Spirit abided in you, you have now become the slaves of the flesh?”  (The Greek text refers to finishing in the flesh; the shared reference to becoming slaves implies a link between Alexander’s work and Simmons.  This passage has been altered in TPT and presently loosely conforms to the Greek text.

            ● Galatians 3:19 – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):   “It remained in force until the Joyous Expectation was born to fulfill the promises given to Abraham.”  Simmons  included a note to explain the unusual rendering:  “The Joyous Expectation is translated literally from the Aramaic.”  Consulting Alexander’s translation, Chapman saw no such rendering, but in a footnote there is a reference to the phrase, “to whom were directed the joyous expectations.”  (Again, TPT has been improved in this passage.  What does this imply about the validity of that deleted note?)

(Dependence upon Victor Alexander’s work also explains Simmons’ mangling of Ephesians 5:22; inasmuch as Alexander put “be devoted to your husbands” in Ephesians 5:22.) 

            The thing to see here is Chapman’s data implies that Simmons’ “downloads” have required revision and correction due in part to his dependence, not upon supernatural revelation, but upon a flawed English translation of the Syriac New Testament.  On one hand, revision is a natural step in translation-work; on the other hand, these particular corrected renderings reveal that there has obviously been quite a heavy dependence upon English resources, which is a different impression than one is likely to get from The Passion Translation’s website and promotional materials.     

            Simmons’ use of Victor Alexander’s translation – particularly in light of the many passages in TPT where the Aramaic text usurps the Greek text of the New Testament – is extremely problematic.  This should be evident to anyone who is aware of who Victor N. Alexander is.  In addition to having translated parts of the Peshitta into English, Victor Alexander directed the film The Red Queen, which might motivate anyone to think twice about relying on his work for any sacred purpose. 

            In addition, Victor Alexander has expressed some anomalous views: 
            ● “The original language of the Scriptures was not Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.”

            ● “My translation has produced the best version of the New Testament.”

            ● “All the articles on the Internet regarding the Original Scriptures are inaccurate.”

            ● “All the Western theological seminaries are a joke.”

            ● In his translation, “Thousands of passages have been clarified.”

            ● In his translation, “Major concepts have been restored for the first time.”
            ● And:  “It’s finally possible to interpret the Scriptures correctly and reconcile the tenets of the five major religions: Western Christianity, Modern Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. It's now possible to return to one conception of what the Scriptures are all about.”

Toxic syncretism could hardly make itself more obvious. 

Surely Simmons rejects Alexander’s opinions, and undoubtedly Simmons would be shocked if he ever were to watch even a snippet of Alexander’s surreal films – and yet it seems undeniable that he has relied on Alexander’s translation of the Peshitta while preparing The Passion Translation.  A complete repudiation of everything based on Alexander’s work, it seems to me, is necessary before the English Scripture-text in TPT can be considered in any way a legitimate translation.  All of the passages in which the Shem-Tob text and the Peshitta have usurped the Greek text need to be repaired.

I do not mean that without the bits that have no Greek support, the TPT New Testament would be a good translation; there are plenty of passages I have not mentioned in which Simmons has unnecessarily resorted to paraphrase.  But purging TPT of its deviations from the Greek text of the New Testament would be a good and necessary first step toward making its Scripture-text a legitimate translation. 

Here are some other reviews and critiques of The Passion Translation:

Ruslan KD - THIS Popular Bible Translation is DECEIVING Christian Celebrities (Added in 2024)

What's Wrong With The Passion "Translation" (by Andrew Wilson)

Endorsements for The Passion Translation

George Athas Reviews TPT Song of Songs

The Passion "Translation" of Romans:  Problems and Questions (by Lionel Windsor)

The Passion Translation:  the Bible of Bethel and NAR (by Sara Boyd)

A New Apostolic Reformation Bible:  The Passion Translation (from 2013, at The Berean Call)

Know who made your Bible translation and who compiled its base-text.

Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this post to find additional resources.

Quotations attributed in this review to The Passion Translation are from The Passion Translation®.  Copyright © 2017, 2018 by BroadStreet Publishing ® Group, LLC.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.