Seven Interesting Variants in Jude

           Today we venture beyond the four Gospels again to briefly investigate seven  interesting variants in the one-chapter book of Jude.  The Greek text of Jude has been studied with exceptional thoroughness:  2006 saw the publication of Dr. Tommy Wasserman’s book The Epistle of Jude:  Its Text and Transmission (still available on Amazon for $50), in which one can find a list of 560 manuscripts of Jude – each of which was collated in the course of Wasserman’s research, plus his compilation of the text of Jude, a phenomenally detailed textual apparatus, and a meticulously detailed textual commentary (105 pages; compare to 4 pages covering Jude in Metzger’s  Textual Commentary on the GNT for UBS).  

● In Jude verse 3, there is a contest, mainly between κοινῆς σωτηρίας (favored by a majority of manuscripts) and κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας.  Although the latter was adopted in Nestle-Aland (and by Tregelles and Souter – but not by Scholz,), it is not easy to discern why any scribe whose exemplar had the longer reading here would omit ἡμῶν.  The sentence is easier to understand with ἡμῶν included – which is a point in favor of the shorter reading.     

          But there are couple of other horses in the race.  Κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας has the support of P72, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, 1739, 2200 et al; κοινῆς σωτηρίας is supported by 018 020 025 049 and hundreds of minuscules, but what does À say?  Something very different:  κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας και ζωης – that is, “our common salvation and life.”  (This reading also turns up in 044!)  And nestled in the text of some members of the cluster of manuscripts known as the Harklean Group (a.k.a. family 2138 – MSS 206, 429, 522, 614, 630, 1292, 1505, 1611, 1799, 1890, 2138, 2200, 2412, and 2495 – but especially 2138) are the readings κοινῆς ἡμῶν ζωης (1611 2138) and κοινῆς υμῶν ζωης (1505 2495).  Putting À’s reading alongside the others, it looks very, very much like a conflation of the readings in B and in family 2138.  

          In which case, in order for the conflation to have been made in À’s text, the Harklean Group’s text of this passage had to already exist before À was made, even though the Greek manuscripts which attest to it are medieval.  This is an instructive demonstration of how precarious it is to assume that the readings in later manuscripts must themselves be later.

● In Jude verse 4, after δεσπότην, most manuscripts (including 018 020 044 049) include the word θεον, or ΘΝ.  The major Alexandrian MSS, and 1739, and the Vulgate, support the non-inclusion of this word.  θεον could be omitted accidentally, via simple parablepsis (see the Comment-section for some data about this from Matthew Rose!) but it is easy to see why it would be added:  without the word θεον, there is one individual who is being denied by the false teachers Jude is opposing:  “our only Ruler and Lord Jesus Christ.”  With θεον included, two persons are being denied, as it says in the KJV:  “our only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (δεσπότην has been translated as the “Lord” before “God;” κύριον is the “Lord” before “Jesus Christ”).  The reading with θεον, despite its majority support, looks very much like a scribal tweak of what was initially intended to refer to a single person –  “the only Ruler, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The decision to reject θεον here as non-original goes back, among textual  critics, as least as far back as J. A. Bengel (in Gnomon V, p. 164).

● In Jude verse 5, there is an ongoing debate about whether Jude said that Jesus saved the people out of Egypt, or that the Lord saved people out of Egypt.  Wasserman adopted κύριος; as did Hort (commenting that “the best attested reading Ἰησοῠς can only be a blunder”), Tregelles, Souter, and most editions of the Nestle-Aland compilation.  But the 28th edition has adopted Ἰησοῠς.  Ἰησοῠς was also the reading adopted into the base-text of the ESV, CSB, and NET.  It was also favored by the translator Grenfell Penn in his 1836 translation – although he rendered it somewhat uniquely, so as to make the verse refer not to Jesus, but Joshua.  (These two names in Greek are identical).

          Contracted as nomina sacra, the competing variants are ΚΣ (“Lord”) and Ὁ ΙΣ (“Jesus”), or, if the article is considered secondary, ΚΣ and ΙΣ.   Setting aside a question about the arrangement of the phrases in this verse (a question which is extraordinarily complex), and focusing on the simpler question of which word at this point is original, it is initially difficult to resist the appeal of  Ἰησοῠς.  Not only is it supported by Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, 1739, 1881, the Vulgate and the Sahidic version, but, from a utilitarian perspective, it conveys an apologetically convenient point about the pre-existence of Jesus.  (This doctrine is also expressed in what is probably the earliest manuscript of Jude, P72, which reads ΘΣ ΧΡΣ (“God Christ”), but nobody seems to find this singular reading plausible.) 

          Ἰησοῠς was the reading in the 1966 edition of the UBS GNT, and a note in Metzger’s Textual Commentary shows that he and Allen Wikgren pressed for its adoption.  Years ago, I too favored the reading ΙΣ – but upon further consideration, ΚΣ commends itself as original.  I would argue that an early scribe felt that κύριος was too ambiguous (does it refer to the Father, or to the Son?) and, prompted by a tendency to see a typological pattern of the pre-existent Christ in the career of Joshua (expressed, for example, in the early composition The Epistle of Barnabas, ch. 12), replaced ΚΣ with ΙΣ – the same kind of interpretive scribal change seen in P72.  Also, it would be extraordinary for Jude, coming from the same household as Jesus of Nazareth, to attribute His actions in the days of Moses to “Jesus.”

●● Two variants in Jude verse 22, though not as famous as the one in verse 5, have an interesting history:  Tregelles, back in 1865, read the verse as καὶ οὓς μὲν ἐλέγχετε διακρινομένους.   This yields a meaning that is different from what is found in almost all English versions in print today:  instead of something like “and have mercy on those who are doubting,” Tregelles’ text of verse 22 (followed perfectly here in the Tyndale House GNT) means something more like, “And refute those who cause disputes.”  Tregelles rejected ἐλεατε and ελεειτε – the first of which has early attestation (À B), and the second of which is supported by very many copies (including 020 049  056 1175) – in favor of ἐλέγχετε, which is attested by A C* 33, 1739 1611 1739 1881, the Vulgate, and the Harklean Syriac version.  

          Tregelles (along with Hort, Souter, and the editors of Nestle-Aland/UBS) also rejected the Byzantine reading διακρινομένοι in favor of διακρινομένους, which seems to fit Jude better stylistically, although it is rather difficult to define a writer’s style with a single chapter as the only basis of comparison.

          If Tregelles was correct, then most English New Testaments are based on a form of verse 22 that renders a sense that the original text did not convey.  (In the ASV, CSB, CEV, EHV, ESV, KJV, MEV, NASB, NET, NIV, NKJV, NLT, and NRSV, the verse refers to having compassion.)  This is a difficult variant, or set of variants, but I think the balance of evidence favors both of Tregelles’ decisions here – and this ought to be considered a bright bold star in the Tyndale House GNT. 

 ● At the beginning of Jude verse 25, most manuscripts, including 020 049 056 1175, along with most lectionaries, refer to μόνω σοφῶ Θεῷ (“the only wise God”).  The reading adopted in the Nestle-Aland compilation, supported by À A B C, does not have σοφῶ, which Metzger regarded as “an obvious interpolation derived from Ro 16.27.”  

    A counter-argument in favor of the majority reading, though, consists of three points:  (1) σοφῶ could be accidentally dropped via parablepsis, (2) μόνω σοφῶ Θεῷ is the more difficult reading, capable of raising the question of whether there is another deity who is not wise (Θεῷ is omitted in Romans in a smattering of copies, and transposed in Claromontanus), and (3) it seems unlikely that a scribe copying the book of Jude would think there was a need to harmonize Jude’s final verse here with Romans 14:26 (which is where μόνω σοφῶ Θεῷ appears in most copies of Romans) but not continue the harmonization by adding something about Jesus Christ – which bring us to today’s last variant under consideration.      

● Near the end of Jude verse 25, the phrase διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν (“through Jesus Christ our Lord”) – or, with contracted nomina sacra, διὰ ΙΥ ΧΥ τοῦ ΚΥ ἡμῶν – is not included in most manuscripts.   Its inclusion, however, is supported by À B A C and an array of less weighty witnesses including 020 044 33 81 323 1505 1611 1881 and the Vulgate and the Harklean Syriac.  The phrase was accidentally omitted by an early scribe whose line of sight drifted from the ἡμῶν that appears immediately before this phrase to the ἡμῶν at the end of the phrase.    

 

Mark 6:22 - Whose Daughter Danced?

             The first phrase in Mark 6:22 says different things depending on which version is read:  

                   

Mark 6:22 (NET):  “When his daughter Herodias³⁴ came in and danced . . .”
Mark 6:22 (NRSV):  “When his daughter Herodias^q came in and danced . . .”
Mark 6:22 (NIV):  “When the daughter of^a Herodias came in and danced . . .”

Mark 6:22 (CSB®):  “When Herodias’ own daughter^p came in and danced . . .”
Mark 6:22 (ESV):  “For when Herodias’ daughter came in and danced . . .”

Mark 6:22 (KJV):  “And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced . . .”

Whose daughter danced for Herod?  Was it his own daughter, or the daughter of Herodias?  The first-century historian Josephus reports (in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18)) that Herodias’ daughter was named Salome and that she was Herod’s grand-niece, not his daughter.  Matthew 14:6 affirms that she was Herodias’ daughter. 

          Not only was the dancer not Herod’s physical daughter; she was not Herod’s daughter under Mosaic Law, either:  her mother Herodias, after marrying Herod II (the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne II), had divorced him, and – against Jewish Law – married his brother, Herod Antipas.  As Josephus stated:  “Herodias took it upon herself to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod Antipas.”  It was because of this violation of Jewish law that John the Baptist, according to Matthew 14:3-4 and Mark 6:17-18, had spoken out against the unlawful marriage – with the result that Herod Antipas had John the Baptist imprisoned.

           With that background in mind, we come to the textual problem.  As the superscripted numbers and letters in the NET, NRSV, NIV, and CSB suggest, the difference in these translations’ rendering of Mark 6:22 is due to a difference in manuscripts.  The footnotes in the NRSV, the NIV, and CSB are (as usual) too vague to do much more than confuse their readers.  

            Quite a bit more data is found in the NET’s textual note, in which the annotator explains that the NET’s editors chose to have their translation say that the dancer was Herod’s daughter despite the “historical difficulties” that it involves.  Or to put it another way:  even though Matthew says that Herodias was the dancer’s mother, the NET’s editors chose to adopt the reading in which Mark says otherwise, because it is the most difficult reading – difficult, because it is erroneous – and thus the reading which copyists were most likely to alter.

          (By the way:  what are the odds that the similarity between Metzger’s references to “historical and contextual difficulties” and “external attestation” in his comment on this variant-unit, and the NET annotator’s references to “historical difficulties” and “external attestation,” rather than being sheer coincidence, is the result of the NET’s annotator attempting to summarize Metzger’s comments?  Rather high I think.)

          Let’s take a look at the rival variants that are found in Mark 6:22:

● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος – “his daughter Herodias” – is supported by À B D L Δ 238 and 565. 

● τῆς θυγατρὸς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος – “the daughter of Herodias” – is supported by family 1, 15 minuscules, and by four Old Latin manuscripts (aur, b, c, and f – that is, VL 15 (Codex Aureus Holmiensis, copied c. 775), VL 4 (Codex Veronensis, copied at the end of the 400s), VL 6 (Codex Colbertinus, copied in the 1100s), and VL 10 (Codex Brixianus, copied in the 500s)).  Allied with them, according to the textual apparatus in the fourth edition of the UBS Greek New Testament, are the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, the Peshitta, the Palestinian Aramaic version, the Sahidic version, the Bohairic version, the Gothic version, the Armenian version, the Old Georgian version, and the Ethiopic version.    

● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος – “the daughter of Herodias herself” or “the daughter of this same Herodias” – is supported by about 99% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark, including Codices A C K M N U Γ Θ Π fam-13, 33, 157, 579, 700, 892, 1010, 1195, 1241, 1424, and 2474.  Allied with this mainly (but by no means exclusively) Byzantine army of witnesses are the Harklean Syriac (produced in 616), the Vulgate (produced in 383), and Old Latin manuscripts a, d, ff², i, l, q, and r¹ – that is, VL 3 (Codex Vercellensis, copied in the late 300s), VL 5 (the Latin section of Codex Bezae, copied in the 400s or 500s), VL 8 (Codex Corbeiensis Secundus, copied in the 400s), VL 17 (Codex Vindobonensis, copied in the late 400s), VL 11 (Codex Rehdigeranus, copied in the early 700s),  Codex Monacensis, copied in the 500s or 600s), and VL 14 (Codex Usserianus Primus, copied c. 600). 

● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος – “her daughter Herodias” – is supported by Codex W and a smattering of minuscules. 

The Byzantine reading, supported by a very wide
array of evidence, including hundreds of Greek MSS.

It should be noted that the second reading (“the daughter of Herodias”) and the third reading (“the daughter of Herodias herself”) mean basically the same thing.  Both refer to the dancer as the daughter of Herodias.  Only the first reading says that the dancer was the daughter of Herod – a claim that appears to contradict both Matthew 14:6 and Josephus’ statements.  In other words, by adopting this reading, the Nestle-Aland/UBS editors appear to have placed an erroneous statement into the text.

Why, then, did the editors of the current edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation adopt a reading which makes Mark appear to contradict his fellow-evangelist Matthew and the historical data from Josephus?  Because textual critics tend to accept the principle that the more difficult a reading is, the more likely it is to be original – which means in this case that the first reading is more likely to be original because it is the variant that copyists would be most likely to attempt to adjust.   That, at least, was the reasoning at the conclusion of the NET’s defense of the reading:  “It most likely gave rise to the other readings as scribes sought to correct it.”   (So much for the annotator’s “embarrassment of riches,” when he declares that at this point in the text, 99.9% of the coins in the treasury are most likely counterfeit!)

The "his daughter" variant in Codex 037.

Neverthless, Metzger, instead of promoting the reading with αὐτου on internal grounds, stated that the UBS Committee narrowly decided in its favor due to the external evidence, stating in his Textual Commentary, “A majority of the Committee decided, somewhat reluctantly, that the reading with αὐτου [i.e., the first reading], despite the historical and contextual difficulties, must be adopted on the strength of its external attestation.”  This illustrates that “reasoned eclectic” approach of the UBS editors is, to a very large extent, eclectic in name only, favoring the joint testimony of a very small team of manuscripts over virtually everything else.    

    

The Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament, however, reads τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος (“the daughter of Herodias herself”), and its apparatus does not even include an entry to alert readers of the existence that a textual contest exists at this point.  Many other compilations of the Greek New Testament agree with the reading in the Tyndale House edition at this point, including not only the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, but also the Greek New Testament compilations prepared by J. M. A. Scholz (1829), by Karl Lachmann (1831), by J. M. S. Baljon (1898), by Eberhard Nestle (1904), by Alexander Souter (1910), and the 1969 edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation.

In addition, when we compare the four rival readings side-by-side –

            ● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος

            ● τῆς θυγατρὸς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος

            ● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος

            ● τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος

– it becomes clear that the second and fourth readings can be explained as the effects of momentary carelessness on the part of copyists whose exemplars contained the third reading:  the second reading was produced by a copyist who accidentally omitted αὐτῆς when his line of sight drifted from the ς at the end of θυγατρὸς, and the fourth reading was produced by a copyist who accidentally omitted τῆς when his line of sight drifted from the ς at the end of αὐτῆς to the ς at the end of τῆς.  Thus all of the witnesses for the second, third, and fourth reading may be considered allies which favor τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος, directly or indirectly.

Yet the NET’s annotator claims that this is not adequate external support.  Whatever approach is reflected by such claims, it is not really eclecticism.

Some clarity about the reliability of the main witnesses for the reading with αὐτου (“his”) in 6:22 may be gained by considering some of their readings in nearby passages. 

■ In 6:17, the copyist of Codex Vaticanus did not include the words τὴν γυναῖκα (the words are added in the margin by a corrector). 

■ In 6:22b, À B C* L Δ and 33 and a smattering of minuscules read ἤρεσεν instead of καὶ ἀρεσάσης which is supported by all other Greek manuscripts.  The editors of the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation preferred the Alexandrian reading here – and in doing so, they rejected the testimony of Papyrus 45, the earliest manuscript of this part of the Gospel of Mark.  Although P45 is extensively damaged in chapter 6, this reading is preserved.  This constitutes an agreement between the Byzantine Text and the earliest manuscript of this part of Mark.    

■ In 6:22c, the words in the opening phrase are transposed and slightly different in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, C* L and Δ – ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς εἶπεν – instead of the usual εἶπεν ὁ βασιλεὺς.  These manuscripts disagree with the word-order in the earliest manuscript, Papyrus 45, in which ν [the final surviving letter of εἶπεν] ὁ Ἡρώδης was written before Ἡρώδης was corrected (above the line) to βασιλεὺς.        

          In all three of these variant-units, the SBL-GNT, compiled by Michael Holmes, supports the Byzantine reading.  So does the Tyndale House GNT.  The SBLGNT also reads τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος (the daughter of Herodias herself).   Clearly not everyone is convinced that the Alexandrian witnesses are especially reliable in this particular passage.

         

          Having established that the support for τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος is extremely limited, and that the supportive manuscripts seem to be less reliable than usual elsewhere in the verse, let’s turn to a couple of issues concerning the internal evidence. 

First, how would copyists start with τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος and end up with τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος?  Such a transition is not difficult if an early copyist had an exemplar with the reading found in Codex W (τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος), and, with Herod prominent in his mind as the focus of the previous verse, inattentively wrote αὐτου instead of αὐτῆς.  The few subsequent copyists who preserved the resultant reading τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος rationalized that Mark must have used the term “daughter” to refer to a step-daughter, and that the dancer, like several members of Herod’s extended family, shared a name with another family-member. 

Second, is it plausible that Mark wrote τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος?  The answer is firmly no.  Introducing the dancer as Herod’s daughter, fully aware that she was Herodias’ daughter (as Mark affirms in 6:24), immediately after explaining that Herod’s marriage to Herodias was not valid, would be like saying that a man and a woman were committing adultery, and then saying that the woman’s daughter was nevertheless the daughter of the adulterer – and that she happened to have the same name as the adulteress.  It is extremely unlikely that Mark would ever drop such a statement upon his readers without explanation; it is much more likely that an early copyist made a simple mistake, which a small number of disciplined copyists perpetuated.

Third, how would copyists be likely to adjust the text if they found τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτου Ἡρῳδιάδος in their exemplars and considered such a statement (that the dancer was Herod’s daughter, and that she was named Herodias) historically erroneous?  Their first resort would be to conform the Markan text to the parallel-passage in Matthew 14:6 – but such a conformation to ἡ θυγάτηρ τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος does not seem to have been attempted by any copyists.  The only obvious scribal recklessness in Matthew 14:6 is displayed in Codex Bezae, where the text reads αὐτου (“his”) instead of τῆς, and Ἡρῳδιὰς instead of Ἡρῳδιάδος. 

          These three considerations in unison attest that the Byzantine reading at this point in Mark 6:22 is original, and that the Alexandrian reading is a mistake, albeit not quite so nonsensical that every copyist would recognize it as such.  (It might be worth mentioning the possibility, however speculative, that in an ancient exemplar, αὐτου was omitted from verse 21 after μεγιστᾶσιν (an omission attested by Codex Bezae and by MSS 1 and 1582), and after the missing word was supplied in the margin nearby, it was misinterpreted as if it was intended to replace the similar word in verse 22 rather than supplement verse 21.)            

Presently, readers of the CSB and NIV only encounter the English echo of a scribal mistake in Mark 6:22 in their Bible’s footnotes, and ESV-readers do not encounter it at all.  But as long as these three versions are subject to constant revision, there is a very real possibility that in a future edition of the ESV or CSB or NIV, the English text of Mark 6:22 may be changed to resemble the errant text found in the NET and NRSV, corresponding to the errant text in the Nestle-Aland compilation.                                                    

                                     

Quotations designated NET are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2016 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.

Quotations designated NIV are from the NIV New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide. 

Quotations designated NRSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Quotations designated ESV are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

Quotations designated CSB® are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

   

Want to Learn New Testament Greek?

            There are many free resources available online for people who wish to gain the ability to read the New Testament in the language in which it was written.  Here are some resources that should be considered by those who want to learn (or re-learn) how to read the Greek New Testament.

(1)  Dr. Bill Mounce offers many resources for learning New Testament Greek.  These range from Kids’ Greek to a 35-part introductory course.

(2)  Daily Dose of Greek, overseen by Dr. Rob Plummer of Southern Seminary (Louisville Kentucky), offers a 26-part course of videos about New Testament Greek, plus additional videos on related subjects. 

(3)  LearnGreekFree is a 13-part video-course taught by D. Eric Williams.

Dr. Ted Hildebrandt
of Gordon College.

(4)  Mastering New Testament Greek with Ted Hildebrandt offers 28 introductory lessons, supplemented by PowerPoint presentations, audio files, and more.   

   

(5)  Morling College (in Sydney, Australia) offers a free online course in New Testament Greek. 

(6)  Rick Aschmann’s Greek Charts – all 56 pages of them! – illustrating Greek vocabulary, grammar, etc., are very informative. 

(7)  The late Rod Decker (founder of the NT Resources website) prepared a simple list of Greek words every student should learn.  The first 28 pages of his book Reading Koine Greek are also available online.

(8) The Online Greek Bible makes available several compilations – not only the Nestle-Aland text but also the Textus Receptus, the compilations of Tischendorf and Westcott & Hort, and the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.  The Byzantine Textform is also available in print in a special edition for beginning readers.

(9)  Learn Koine Greek consists of a series of 43 lessons with audio files, compiled by Roy Davison.   

(10)  LaParola offers multiple editions of the Greek New Testament (including the Byzantine Textform), and has some useful search-features.

BOOKS: 

The Robinson-Pierpont
Byzantine Textform
is available in print
and in multiple
online venues.

(11)  H. P. V. Nunn’s Elements of New Testament Greek, published in 1914, remains an excellent introduction.  An answer-key to the exercises in Nunn’s primer is also available. 

(12)  Harold Greenlee’s A Concise Exegetical Grammar of New Testament Greek is available as a free download from Asbury Seminary’s website.

(13)  J. Gresham Machen’s New Testament Greek for Beginners, published in 1923, is still a very useful textbook.  It is among the resources made available by the International College of the Bible.

(14) Alexander Souter’s A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, published in 1917, is very handy.  Souter, a textual critic, included some terms that are found in textual variants in the Western Text.