The Greek New Testament: A Reader’s Edition, rev. ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025)

I am thrilled to have an advanced copy of the revised Greek New Testament: A Reader’s Edition and, to cut to the chase at the beginning of this review, it is a must have for students of the Greek New Testament, especially those who have yet to master its vocabulary. To this end, like the previous edition of the reader, every Greek word that appears 30 times or less, except proper nouns, are glossed at the bottom of the page. Moreover, the editors of the revised reader “often” provide the morphological parsing of Greek verbs “even if these words occur more than 30 times” (VIII).

The definitions of the glosses are taken from the Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the Greek New Testament that Barclay M. Newman compiled. They are contextually appropriate and thus nuanced for the passage one is reading. When a word whose contextual definition differs markedly from other New Testament occurrences, the editors provide the broader meaning as well and, when there is uncertainty about the exact definition of a word, they give alternate definitions in the gloss. When a word or combination of them form an idiomatic expression, the editors provide the definition of that expression in the gloss, too. For words that appear 30 times or more in the Greek New Testament, the editors have placed their definitions in an appendix.

These features allow beginning and even advanced students of the New Testament to read the Greek text more easily (especially the complicated vocabulary of Hebrews, Acts of the Apostles, and 1 Peter), which is noble, laudable, and a great service to the Church and to the academy: bravo!

What is more, there are four major changes and thus improvements to the new edition of the reader. First and foremost, it is printed with a different font that is much easier to read than the font of the previous edition (see the pictures above and below).

Second, its text is the sixth edition of the UBS Greek New Testament and the twenty-ninth of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, both of which are still in preparation as I write this review. One major change to these editions, which is reflected in the revised reader, is that they follow the Greek text as reconstructed by an international team of textual critics working on a project called Editio Critica Maior, the goal of which is to produce an entirely new edition of the Greek New Testament that considers and evaluates all available manuscripts, ancient translations of the New Testament, and patristic quotations. To date, this team of scholars has finished preparing the Greek texts of St. Mark’s Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles, and Revelation. Therefore, the text of the revised reader reflects textual changes and updates to these New Testament books. 

Third, which is also the biggest change from the first edition of the reader, the editors have altered the sequence of the twenty-seven books. The new reader deviates from today’s common order to the order in the ancient Greek manuscript tradition as evidenced by Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus. Thus, the New Testament books are ordered as follows: the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles (less Hebrews), the Pauline Corpus (with Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians), and Revelation.

The last change to the revised reader is that instead of italicizing Old Testament quotations, the editors have placed them in a bold font, which, in my opinion makes them easier to read.

In short, the revised Greek New Testament: A Reader’s Edition is a wonderful tool for the study of the New Testament, and whether you are a beginning or advanced student, you should purchase your copy today!

I am grateful to Hendrickson Publishing for the advanced, gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it.