The New Revised Version Project

Vision

The Revised Version of the English Bible (1885) and its American cousin, the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901 have exerted significant influence over modern English Bible translation. Several modern English translations are based either directly or indirectly on the ASV, including the Revised Standard Version (RSV), the World English Bible (WEB), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the English Standard Version (ESV). The RV/ASV translations are still relevant today for the following reasons:

1. They are relevant due to their historical importance.
2. The RV/ASV remain (debatably) the most “accurate” translations in terms of maintaining a word-for-word correspondence with the Greek text.
3. Both translations are free of copyright, and readily available in Bible study software.

In spite of the prevalence of the ASV translation online and in Bible study software, it has not benefited from a complete transition into the digital world. Specifically, the Greek text which lies behind the RV and ASV has never appeared in digital form. As a result, it is not avaialable to search or analyze in comparison with other Greek texts.

The vision for this project is to complete this transition into the digital world by providing an accurate rendition of the Greek text behind the RV/ASV.

Project Goals

• Create draft Unicode and Beta Code transcriptions of the main text of Edwin Palmer's The Greek New Testament.¹ This edition is the only printed continuous text that represents the Greek readings behind the RV/ASV translations (Completed October 2022).
• Proofread and correct the drafts; add morphological tags and Strong's numbers (Underway; expected completion December 2023).
• Create an English New Testament that reflects how the Revised Version would read if the Revisers had translated from the Byzantine Greek text (the Byzantine Revised Version) (Underway; expected completion December 2023).
• Combine this English New Testament (the Byzantine Revised Version) with the RV Old Testament to make a complete digital Bible.
• Collate the Palmer Greek text against F.H.A. Scrivener's Textus Receptus, Samuel P. Tregelles' Greek New Testament, the Westcott-Hort New Testament, and the Robinson-Pierpont 2018 Byzantine Textform, showing all variants between them.
• Create a modernized English translation of the Byzantine Revised Version, called the New Revised Version.

Footnotes

1. Palmer, Edwin (1882). The Greek New Testament: With the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. Oxford, Clarendon Press. ↩