Monday, August 09, 2010

Byzantine Reader's Edition Is Out!

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I am pleased to announce that a new GNT reader's edition is out: The Greek New Testament For Beginning Readers: Byzantine Textform by Maurice A. Robinson, William G. Pierpont and John Jeffrey Dobson has been published by VTR Publications. ISBN 978-3-941750-24-1

From the preface written by Dodson:
The very existence of other “Reader’s Editions” of the Greek New Testament has demonstrated the usefulness of this approach. This of course raises the question: Why, then, is another Reader’s Edition needed for the Greek New Testament, and what more can it offer? First, The Greek New Testament For Beginning Readers: Byzantine Textform is the only Reader’s Edition that is based upon the Byzantine Textform (which agrees some ninety-four percent of the time with other Greek New Testament editions). Further, it is the only Reader’s Edition that offers Greek-to-English definitions for every word in the Greek New Testament, as well as parsing information for every verbal form therein. This includes footnoted coverage for uncommon words, along with coverage in the appendices for words commonly committed to memory during the first year of study (words occurring fifty times or more).

Also of significance, The Greek New Testament For Beginning Readers: Byzantine Textformis the only Reader’s Edition that resides in the public domain, thus providing complete flexibility in academic and educational environments regarding how the text and lexical/parsing data are quoted and utilized. Finally, this edition combines some of the best features of other editions: a readable font similar to that used in modern beginning Greek grammars, English section headings that divide the text into recognizable, less intimidating segments, and word frequency counts to help readers decide which vocabulary words deserve further memorization.

Apparently, the US/Canada list price is lower ($35) than the European Euro price, with further discounts through Amazon or other outlets.

8 comments

  1. Excellent.

    So . . . is there going to be a Kindle edition?

    Yours in Christ,

    James Snapp, Jr.

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  2. If Kindle can read PDFs, then yes, such already exists. Myself, I prefer hard copy anytime over electronic.

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  3. I just ordered one. Can someone tell me what is a "reader's edition?" It stands to reason to me that any edition would be read.

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  4. KM:
    The recent "readers' editions" of the GNT by Zondervan and UBS have footnotes giving glosses for words that beginning Greek students are less likely to know. That way, they provide some help, but not as much and not as intrusive as the help of an interlinear or a diglot edition.

    The description at Amazon for this Byzantine readers' edition says that it has similar features to those:
    "Footnotes containing brief definitions of words occurring less than fifty times • Word frequency counts to help the reader decide if a word should be memorized • Footnotes showing how to parse all verbs occurring less than fifty times • An alphabetized list of all other verb forms with parsing information • A lexicon showing proper names and all words occurring fifty times or more "

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  5. After using Robinson's Reader for a few weeks...
    Pro's:
    1. The glosses are much better than the UBS Reader.
    2. I really appreciate the inclusion of word count; could even be better if they incorporated Sakae Kubo's word count style.

    Con's:
    1. The binding is a major issue, IMHO. This is not a stitched edition, like the UBS and others; it is what is called a "perfect" binding, I think. It is flexible now; but the glue will probably harden and/or the pages will fall out in time. I hope I'm wrong. Because it is not stitched it cannot be rebound. (Maybe that's a good thing, since the goal is to wean away from the Reader, anyway.)
    2. The look isn't "clean"; it comes off as cluttered. Probably because of the expanded glosses; which I much prefer to the "context" glosses of the UBS.
    -David Wheeler

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  6. I just got a copy and read through Hebrews. The glosses are better than Zondervan's and much better than UBS. Dodson includes lots of interesting info. It's good to see the the BT text getting some resources to help to help readers.

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  7. Is the font size easily readable? Are the pages reasonably thick? I'm too clumsy for super thin pages. :D

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