In this interview, Aaron Lee sits down with Daniel K. Eng to discuss the makings of The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge, Guided Annotating Edition. Daniel highlights the genesis of the book idea, and the various uses it would serve for a beginner Greek student as well as someone who wants to maintain the Greek they’ve already learned.
You can watch the interview below, on our YouTube page, or listen to it on podcasts.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Aaron Lee: Hi everyone, this is Aaron for SOLA Network. I am here today with Dr. Daniel K. Eng. I want to talk about this today. This is The Greek New Testament: Guided Annotating Edition, published by Crossway. And Dr. Daniel K. Eng played a huge part in this. Dr. Daniel, can you please introduce yourself and your work to our audience? Let us know what this is all about, exactly.
Daniel K. Eng: Sure. Hi, everyone. I teach New Testament and Hermeneutics at Western Seminary. I live in Portland, Oregon. This book is a guided annotating Greek New Testament. And this, in short, is what I wish I had when I was learning Greek.
And so, one thing I realized when I was working on my PhD and practicing Greek was what, actually this was, I was doing this for a while actually. I would take my Bible software, and I would actually print out the Greek text. And I would make it double space and have a wide margin so that I could practice by writing in my notes, circling things, and having my interlinear notes in translation. And I realized something I said, I wish they published something like this.
And so when I was working on my PhD, I was living at Tyndale house, which is in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is not affiliated with the university. But a lot of folks do their research there. And so I was doing my research at Tyndale House. Tyndale House is a Bible research community. And it’s located in the city of Cambridge. And there are people who come through to do Bible research, they it’s their, their goal is to have the best Biblical Studies library in the world. And so people come for a week or month or a year, and they research the Bible. So a lot of books and articles that served the church are written there. And just like I said, Tyndale house serves the church. Everybody there is committed to serving Jesus Christ. And so it was just a really great environment.
Now, they have staff who work on different projects. And so they’re actually putting out publications as well. One of their big projects is the Greek New Testament. And this is a Greek New Testament that they’re putting out with their Textual Criticism approach. Now one of the things that we need to understand is that the Bible is originally written in Greek and Hebrew: the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. And so what we have are manuscripts and we say manuscripts, it means that a man wrote it, right? So what we have is on papyrus, or on vellum, like leather, animal leather, we have manuscripts of the Bible, and we have, we have many of them. And the great thing is that we have so many copies of the Bible, that is actually the most reliable, ancient texts. It blows everything out of the water in terms of how reliable it is compared to things like Julius Caesar, or Aristotle.
And so through studying these manuscripts, we’re able to come up with a Greek New Testament that reflects the best of these manuscripts. And so, I’ll explain a bit later about textual variants. We’ll talk about that in the book. So this is actually the new Greek New Testament is actually the project of Tyndale House. And so they’ve come out with this and they published it. And so when I saw that I said, hey, I have this idea. Why don’t we have a lot of white space for people to write their notes and things like that, along with the Greek text. We actually have rare vocabulary at the bottom of each page and Aaron, you can actually show everyone this.
Aaron Lee: Let me show you guys this right here.
Daniel K. Eng: There you see the white space, the space in the margins. But there’s also vocabulary with their definitions at the bottom. And so what this is, is it’s a reader’s edition, where instead of having a dictionary next to you, and looking everything up, you can just glance down and keep going.
And so what I wanted to do was have one volume, where someone can bring it with them as a journal, and write down their notes and translation, and so on. So somebody who’s studied the first year of Greek, would be able to use this. They would be able to translate, they would write their notes, and so on. And so the vocabulary at the bottom, actually, is everything that they haven’t learned.
And so usually, in the first year Greek students learn about 300 vocabulary words, which actually makes up about 80% of the New Testament. And so, and that’s actually pretty good four out of five words, right? And so the rest of their vocabulary is actually listed for them at the bottom. So if they remember the vocabulary words, and they can just glance down from the rest, they can actually move pretty quickly.
Now, what I proposed was to have a group of scholars, everyone who loves the church, write introductions and just like a study Bible, there’s introductions to each New Testament book. And it’s actually talking about the Greek texts in there. So for example, Paul likes to use these kinds of constructions, or Peter likes to have this kind of imagery, look for this look for this kind of sentence here.
And so imagine having wise guides, who are scholars of that particular book of the Bible, be able to walk people through and say, hey, these are the distinctions of this New Testament author. And so all three of those things kind of make this book unique.
It takes the place of three books, it takes the place of a Greek New Testament, it takes the place of a dictionary, and a journal. So for one volume now, you know, Aaron, you’re lifting up, it is four and a half pounds. It is hefty, one volume, it’s a book for sure, yes, it is one volume. And so you can bring it right to the entire New Testament, you bring it around, and you have all your notes with you, you have your dictionary with you everything. And so I’m hoping that a student who has been studying Greek, should be able to use this and bring it to a coffee shop, bring it wherever they can, and be able to have everything with them.
Also, I want to serve people who did study Greek, and want to continue practicing it. And so that might mean a pastor who is preaching, who went to seminary, and is trying to keep it sharp. It could be somebody who is a layperson who has studied Greek and is still keeping it going. And so I want to serve the church that way. So that we can continue having accurate teaching in our churches and ministries. Yeah.
Aaron Lee: That was great. I appreciate you for making it understandable at a layman’s level, but also appropriate for those who are actually going to be using this in a real way. The book itself is beautifully done. Like you said, it’s a journal, and this is something where you can actually take it around, it’s not going to get beat up. But you can take it around and actually use it. Like you said at a coffee shop, you can take it to church, you can take it to your study. Yeah,you can transport it around without having it having problems. And you’re right, the space on here is generous. So you can make your markings.
Now, you mentioned that. You mentioned the introductions to the book. And I found those to be pretty crucial. Actually. Introductions are written in English, by the way, they’re not written in Greek. And I found it to be super insightful, because like what you said, it takes all that you need to know, puts it right there right in front of you. So that way, when you actually start digging into it, it’s already right there in front of your mind. You’re not like reading the text, and then okay, well, let me read the note on that note. It’s all there. Right at the beginning.
Dr. Daniel, I want to ask you, you mentioned that you did this at Tyndale, right? What is the process for something like this? How are you putting this together? Like, what are you looking at in order to make this now you already told me that this is what you wish you had when you were in seminary, right? Like you would print out stuff and so yeah, how did all that come together in making this book, your background, but then also you like looking at different resources? What was the entire process like? I want to hear about it.
Daniel K. Eng: So I really wanted to have this resource for people who are studying and trying to keep their Greek going. And this is all in the name of having teaching that is accurate, where we’re looking at the Bible, and we’re making sure that we are teaching and preaching well. I invited 19 other scholars, people who I know some of them are, some of them are senior scholars, some of them were like me, kind of Junior Scholars.
But everybody loves the church and actually wanted to make it so that there’s a good mix of men and women, people in different places, also people of different denominations. And so but everybody has a high view of Scripture says that the scripture has the highest authority, and they all love the church. And so they’re not just top scholars, but they’re also followers of Jesus. And so I wanted to make sure that we do that, because we’re doing this out of worship, we’re doing this, because God is worth it, and we want to make sure that we teach the Bible well.
And so we invited 19 Other scholars. I wrote the introduction on James, and then I edited the whole thing. So we invited 19 Other scholars to write their introductions. We actually asked them, Hey, could you include a list of vocabulary words that someone would want to learn if they want to be better at that particular book? So I said, Okay, if you want to learn Philippians, here’s 40 vocabulary words that go beyond your, you know, your 300 vocabulary words that would make you be able to read Philippians faster and better.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, I love that feature.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah. And so then then, then there’s that introduction, like I said, about the distinctives of that particular New Testament book. And then actually, at the end, there’s two things. The first thing is that there’s a chart, or an essay that talks about the differences between the industry standard, which is the Nestle-Aland, or United Bible Society Greek New Testament, and the Tyndale House Greek New Testament. Now, because they have different processes to get there. And then this has to do with all the manuscripts that we have. And I love it because they have different processes to get there, there’s going to be a few differences. And so a lot of people ask me when they hear about the Tyndale house, Greek New Testament that hey, hey, what are the differences? And so I’m here to tell you, I’m here to tell you that you can really trust your English translations, because they’re built on the best Greek manuscripts. So there are some differences between the manuscripts.
But for the vast majority, they’re actually very similar to each other. Now, once in a while, we actually see some differences between the manuscripts, and that’s what we call textual variants. But the vast majority of the textual variants are actually things like spelling, like a word is different words where one letter is different, and so on. And none of them affect a major doctrine of the Christian faith.
So I want everybody to be confident that the best Greek and Hebrew scholars have worked on your English translation. And what we’re putting out, especially those major translations that were that we you that you can imagine, we’re talking about, and what we’re putting out, we are confident that this is the best evidence that we have.
And so we’re getting actually better and better, we’re getting more and more accurate, as we see more and more manuscripts come out. And like I said, we have vastly, many, many more manuscripts than any other ancient document. And so I want us to be confident that we have the word of God. And it is accurate.
But I want to highlight once in a while there is a difference. And so in Romans 5:1, for example, it says this, I’m going to give you my English translation. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s what many of us are familiar with, okay. There is a difference of one Greek letter that would make it “therefore just as we’ve been justified by faith, let us have peace with the Lord Jesus Christ.” Do you see how that changes it from a declaration into an encouragement exhortation? Okay. And people start thinking about Oh, that’s interesting, right? That’s probably the most significant difference that we’re actually going to show and then we’re actually showing in the, in these charts. But like I said, people want to know so that’s in there as well.
Aaron Lee: I love the confidence that we can have in Scripture being God’s word. And I also love the emphasis that we can look at the minutiae and that that is important also, because it’s God’s word. I see it all as kind of working together o impact the church, like you said.
I want to ask you, and maybe we can end it with this one too. How do you feel after working on a project like this? Like, what’s your heart saying, after working so closely with God’s word, doing something at this level? For his people and for God, you know, treating scripture like this? Yeah, I want to know what it’s like.
Daniel K. Eng: Well, let me tell you, the first thing I want to tell you is that I learned so much working with these scholars, like these are top scholars who love the church and love the Scriptures. And they really out of their expertise, but also out of their love for Christ, really put together a very, like a stellar, stellar book. And their and their contributions are also valuable, and reading through and editing them. I was so encouraged through that, so I learned a lot from them. And I was encouraged by everyone’s expertise and love for Christ.
And so I’m grateful that I had the opportunity and the privilege to do this. I realized, as James says, that as a teacher, I will incur a harsher judgment. And so this is part of being is part of stewarding that and saying, Hey, I am going to be careful with the Word of God. We should always be careful with the Word of God. But let us not let us not shy away from trying to serve the church this way.
And so, yeah, grateful, grateful for the opportunity to do this. I’m glad that I have the ability. And so this is really, this has really served the church in a unique way. Because what happens is that we’re able to do things that most people can’t. And so what we do is we say, Okay, here’s our guide for you to read this. But we’re trusting and praying, that as the people who are reading this and using this will be teaching other people that more and more people will be discipled through the word in an accurate way. So I’m grateful that I could be part of it.
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