English Majority Text Version

The English Majority Text Version is a modern English rendering of the New Testament, translated specifically from the Byzantine, or Majority Text, Greek tradition. Its scope is limited to the New Testament, and it is translated from Greek, with the Byzantine/Majority Text Greek New Testament serving as its base text. In approach it is a fresh translation rather than a revision of an earlier English version, following a formal philosophy tied to a specific manuscript tradition. The Majority Text represents the reading of the greater number of surviving Greek manuscripts, most of them later copies used in the Greek-speaking church, and it stands apart from the eclectic critical texts that underlie most twentieth-century English translations, which give greater weight to a smaller group of early manuscripts. The version's primary distinctiveness therefore lies in its textual base rather than in its translation style, and it is generally consulted by readers interested in that textual tradition.