My advice would be to use any edition of the Greek New Testament that comes to hand. There may be some, and I did some poking around online looking, but I haven’t found any. The absence of confessional differences in the text of the Greek New Testament is one of the reasons that it’s hard to find an edition that has been given ecclesiastical approval. It’s not like there’s a "Catholic Greek New Testament" versus a "Protestant Greek New Testament." The differences concern mostly minor manuscript variations that are neither Catholic nor Protestant.įor this reason, Catholic scholars tend to use the same editions of the Greek New Testament as Protestant scholars, notably the Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies text, which is considered one of the better critical editions, though the differences between this and other editions are very small and would not be of concern to a person just learning the language. There really isn’t that much difference between different editions of the Greek New Testament, and what differences there are tend not to cut across confessional lines. Not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses, as far as I know, have had the chutzpah to alter the original Greek text (though they have laced it up with erroneous glosses). There is a general moral requirement that one not read material that would be damaging to one’s faith or morals, but I am unware of any editions of the Greek New Testament that would do that. It is the publisher of the volume, not the reader, who has the responsibility to make sure that the needed approval is gathered (assuming it’s a Catholic publisher to begin with Catholics are not bound by canon law).įor a reader, there is no prohibition on reading material that has not been granted ecclesiastical approval. With the permission of the conference of bishops, Catholic members of the Christian faithful in collaboration with separated brothers and sisters can prepare and publish translations of the sacred scriptures provided with appropriate annotations.Īs you can see, the canon places the legal burden on the publisher of a book of sacred scripture. For the publication of their translations into the vernacular, it is also required that they be approved by the same authority and provided with necessary and sufficient annotations. Books of the sacred scriptures cannot be published unless the Apostolic See or the conference of bishops has approved them. What are the Church’s regulations for reading/studying non-approved editions of Holy Scripture? Canon 825, §1 seems to indicate that it’s not permitted, but I’m not sure.Īh, actually the canon you cite does not prohibit reading or studying such Scriptures.
However, so far as I know, there are no editions of the Greek New Testament currently available that have ecclesiastical approval.
Good for you! I recommend William Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek as a starting point. I’m thinking of studying Greek in order to read the New Testament in its original language. So I thought I’d ask you a question I’ve been having trouble getting answered elsewhere. I’ve been reading your blog occasionally and have noticed that you seem to be knowledgeable in a variety of areas (not just in apologetics),