1. First the Greek manuscripts were hand-copied one to the next
The books of the New Testament were written in Greek. In His wisdom, God did not think it necessary to preserve for us the original copy of these books. Instead, we have thousands of handwritten copies—Greek manuscripts and papyrus fragments produced from the second century up to the invention of the printing press in the 1400s. There is far more manuscript evidence for the New Testament documents than for any other document of ancient history. We also have ancient translations of the New Testament and quotations of New Testament verses in ancient writings. These date from the second to the sixth century and beyond. These and other sources form the raw material from which our Greek New Testament is constructed.
2. Then Greek New Testaments were produced on the printing press
Soon after the invention of the printing press, Greek New Testaments began to appear. Among others were those of Erasmus (1527), Stephanus (1551), and Beza (1598). In fact, Robert Stephanus in the fourth edition of his Greek New Testament published in 1551 is the one who first added the chapter and verse numbers we still use. These Greek texts were the sources used to produce English translations like the King James Version in 1611.
In 1633, the Greek text behind the KJV began to be called the “Textus Receptus”— the received or standard Greek text. It remained the standard Greek text for 250 years, although other Greek texts continued to be produced. Even today, some still prefer to follow this time-honored text, or one similar to it. But the situation changed as a result of the great manuscript discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries. These resulted in new Greek texts incorporating this important new manuscript evidence. Most modern translations are based upon one of these updated Greek texts.
3. Today’s Greek New Testament
Today’s standard Greek text was prepared by a committee of scholars and is used worldwide by Protestants and Catholics, liberals and conservatives, scholars and pastors (though other Greek texts do exist and are favored by some scholars). Except for punctuation, the Disciples’ Literal New Testament and the New Testament TransLine follow this Greek text exactly. Not because anyone considers this Greek text the final word on the subject. But so that the starting point of this translation is clear to everyone and the variants can be clearly seen and understood.
This Greek New Testament is printed in two formats, which differ only in the footnotes. The first is published by the United Bible Societies and is called The Greek New Testament. The Fourth Revised Edition (UBS4) was published in 1993. The second is published by the German Bible Society and is called the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. The 27th edition (NA27) was published in 1993.