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MAURICE A. ROBINSON began studying Greek in 1965, and NT textual criticism in 1966. His original training followed the perspective of reasoned eclecticism, which he continued to study and practice for nearly a decade.
Specialized study in the field of textual criticism took place from 1971-77 under Kenneth W. Clark, then emeritus of Duke University. During this time he received the degrees of Master of Divinity (1973) and Master of Theology (1975) from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,Wake Forest, North Carolina. In 1982, he was awarded the Ph.D. in NT textual criticism by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Texas, with his dissertation entitled Scribal Habits among Manuscripts of the Apocalypse.
As a result of his studies under Clark, he was slowly led to shift his position from reasoned eclecticism to Byzantine-priority,and in 1976 joined with William Pierpont in the quest to establish an accurate Byzantine text and viable underlying theory.Since that time, he has presented many papers and articles dealing with NT textual criticism at various venues.
Robinson is currently Senior Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,Wake Forest, North Carolina.
WILLIAM G. PIERPONT began
studying the Greek New Testament in
1932, and was trained in the Westcott-
Hort theory and method at Friends
University, Wichita, Kansas. The closer
examination of the manuscripts and
theoretical perspectives underlying that
approach led him into a life-long study
of NT textual criticism that in the
mid-1960s resulted in his support and
defense of the Byzantine Textform.
Pierpont worked for over 40 years as a research engineer at Beech Aircraft in Wichita. Even while employed at Beech, Pierpont was able not only to conduct an intensive study of Greek NT textual criticism, but also to acquire a reading and speaking knowledge of more than two dozen world languages, including Polish and Mandarin Chinese. Following his retirement, Pierpont devoted the remainder of his life to text-critical and related investigative work.
William Pierpont went to be with the Lord on 20 February 2003, after he had jointly approved the final text and most of the prefatory material for this edition.
The 2005 Robinson Pierpont Byzantine Priority New Testament in the Original Greek
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Deluxe Hardcover Edition PDF Version of Text The New Testament in the Original Greek - Byzantine Textform 2005 (large file) |
THE NEW TESTAMENT was written in Koine Greek during the first centuryAD. From the time of its original revelation, handwritten copies continually were prepared in order to maintain and preserve that original text into the modern era. All copies made prior to the invention of movable-type printing were made by hand, resulting in various scribal alterations, most of these being of a minor nature. Although the autographs no longer exist, and no two manuscript copies are completely identical, sufficient evidence exists from which one can produce an accurate representation of the original text by comparing and evaluating the overall manuscript consensus. Robinson and Pierpont have taken the utmost care in preparing that text for this edition. Various other methods for restoration of the original NT text have fallen short of their goal, in part due to methodological subjectivity,and in part to a presuppositional bias against the claims of the Byzantine Textform. The texts created under such a bias tend to be based on only a handful of favored manuscripts, and fail to consider all transmissional factors in the preservation of the original text. As a result, the modern eclectic texts tend to preserve more of a caricature than the essence of the originals. In contrast, Robinson and Pierpont have applied many of the same methods of textual criticism to their task, but without the anti- Byzantine bias. Their method of "reasoned transmissionalism" is based on the wider scope of manuscript transmission throughout history. |
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12/02 - added Chilton Book Publishing Link, PDF Files.
Will be adding updated/corrected text files as soon as available.
Last updated December 02, 2006