Godbey Translation of the New Testament

The Godbey New Testament is a distinct Greek-based rendering of the New Testament that circulated in early American holiness circles. Its scope is limited to the New Testament, and it was made from the Greek, taking the Greek New Testament as its base text rather than working from an earlier English version. In approach it is literal and holiness-oriented, and it is classed as a fresh translation rather than a revision, placing it among the independent English versions that appeared alongside the more widely used revisions of the period. Among its distinctive features is the use of distinctive doctrinal vocabulary, reflecting the concerns of the holiness movement, a strand of Wesleyan teaching that grew out of nineteenth-century American Methodism and emphasized entire sanctification. Like other single-translator New Testaments of its era, it was intended chiefly for readers within its own tradition rather than for general liturgical use.