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Novum Testamentum Graece

The Novum Testamentum Graece is the most commonly used text edition of the Greek New Testament. New editions have been appearing regularly since 1898. This series of editions is known as the Nestle-Aland, named after the famous Nestle and Aland who were responsible for the first editions.

The Nestle-Aland Method

At this point in time, between 5 500 and 6 000 manuscripts of text from the New Testament are known. There is a great deal of variation between these manuscripts. In fact there is no single verse in the New Testament that is precisely the same in all manuscripts in which it appears. Through the centuries, copiers have intentionally or unintentionally adjusted the text. The Nestle-Aland tries to reconstruct the ancient text on the basis of all the textual variants.

A Critical Edition

Text editions such as the Nestle-Aland are called critical editions. Such editions provide a reconstruction of each verse. The notes then indicate the manuscripts on the basis of which this text has been selected. (In the specialist jargon, these notes are called the “critical apparatus”.) So there is no single manuscript which presents the entire text as given in the Nestle-Aland.

Editions through the Years

The first edition of Novum Testamentum Graece was published by Eberhard Nestle in 1898. It was prepared on the basis of the text editions of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Weymouth. If two or more of the editions agreed with each other, he adopted the text into the main text. He gave variants in the critical apparatus.
New editions were published for a century. More and more sources were used and the method became more and more refined. The Nestle-Aland is still being published. The 28th edition was published in 2012.

Significance for Bible Translations

The Nestle-Aland text editions have always been very important, both for the study of the New Testament and for the translation of the Bible. That is still the case. The Nestle-Aland is the most commonly used basic text in the world for translations from the New Testament. That is true of most well-known translations in English and other languages. Most translators take the most recent edition of Nestle-Aland as a starting point for their translations of the New Testament.

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