1550 STEPHANUS NEW TESTAMENT (TR1550)

1550 Stephanus New Testament (TR1550) ( TR stands for Textus Receptus) refers to an edition of the New Testament that was published by Robert Estienne (also known as Robert Stephanus) in the year 1550. Robert Estienne was a renowned printer and scholar who made significant contributions to the field of biblical studies. His edition of the New Testament is known for its division of the text into verses, which has become widely adopted in modern translations of the Bible. The 1550 Stephanus edition is highly regarded among scholars and continues to be referenced and studied in the field of biblical textual criticism.

Of the four Greek New Testaments that Robert Estienne (a.k.a. Stephanus) published in the sixteenth century (1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551), the first three editions of his "Novum Testamentum" were published in Paris, the fourth in Geneva. 

The third edition of 1550 was affectionately known as Editio Regia, because of the magnificent Greek font and large folio size of the codex. Not only the most handsome, the 1550 Stephanus is also the most important of his texts. This was the first published Greek New Testament to have a textual apparatus. 

Stephanus examined 15 manuscripts and listed several of their readings in the margins of his Editio Regia. Stephanus’s fourth edition was the first to have verse divisions in it, a feature that Stephanus invented to help the reader more easily compare the two Latin translations and the Greek that are found in the fourth edition. Though the text of the third and fourth editions was virtually identical, the fourth became the basis for the Geneva Bible, the first Bible translation to have verse divisions. The 1550 Stephanus also became the standard text to be used as a collating base for countless collations of Greek New Testament manuscripts.

Books of Bible - Structure

 

Bible Timeline 2.0

 

Development of NT Canon

 

Bible Books in Major Traditions

 

The Temple Tax

 
Coins of at least three different nations were used in everyday life in Judea during the NT era. The NT text uses the names of Greek coins, Roman coins, and Jewish coins. The original readers of the NT were presumably very familiar with all of these terms and also knew their relative values.
 
The challenge for the translator is to use English terms for the various coins that will convey for modern readers the same intuitive sense of meaning. A case in point is the incident in Matt 17:24-27, in which Jesus sent Peter to find a coin (in a fish’s mouth!) to pay the Temple tax.
 
Matthew–the former tax collector–is the only Gospel writer to tell about this incident. And in the space of four verses, he uses the names of two Greek coins. In 17:24 he twice uses the term didrachma, which means simply a two-drachma coin. (The drachma was the Greek coin more or less equivalent to the Roman denarius, and both coins represent the daily wage for a laborer.) This is the only use of didrachma in the NT, and it is used to refer to the annual tax required for the upkeep of the Temple.  In Exodus 30:13-16, its predecessor–the tax for the care of the Tabernacle–is presented (in ancient Hebrew terminology) as a tax of “half a shekel.”
 
Matthew’s readers would intuitively have understood what was meant when the tax collectors came to ask Peter, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the didrachma?” But how should this term be translated into English?
 
A few verses later (Matt 17:27), Jesus tells Peter to go catch a fish, open its mouth, and pull out a stater. This Greek coin–mentioned only here in the NT–is equal to two didrachmas, or four drachmas. And if a didrachma pays the temple tax for one man, a stater is sufficient to pay the tax for both of them.
 
Here’s a list of how some English translations have handled the translation :
 
The NLT, the NKVJ and the NRSV all communicate clearly that the temple tax is in view. The RSV and the ESV, both borrow from Hebrew terminology (half-shekel) to help make the connection with the tax first mentioned in Exodus.   The most literal (word-to-word) renderings are found in the Darby Translation, the DRA and the Disciples’s Literal NT.

English Bible Translations	Matthew 17:24	Matthew 17:27
Darby, 1867	didrachmas	stater
DRA, 1899	didrachmas	stater
Disciples’ Literal NT, 2011	Double-drachmas	stater
NLT, 1996	the Temple tax	a large silver coin
KJV, 1611	tribute money	a piece of money
NKJV, 1982	the temple tax	a piece of money
NASB, 1971	the two-drachma tax	a shekel
RSV, 1952	the half-shekel tax	a shekel
NRSV, 1989	the temple tax	a coin
ESV, 2001	the half-shekel tax	a shekel
NIV, 1978	the two-drachma tax	a four-drachma coin
HCSB, 2004	the double-drachma tax	a coin

The NLT, the NKVJ and the NRSV all communicate clearly that the temple tax is in view. The RSV and the ESV, both borrow from Hebrew terminology (half-shekel) to help make the connection with the tax first mentioned in Exodus.   The most literal (word-to-word) renderings are found in the Darby Translation, the DRA and the Disciples’

Infographic of NT Biblical Israel

 

Bible Timeline

 

Bible Translation : The Emergence of Neo-fundamentalism

Source :
Jeffery Khoo, 2004, The Emergence of Neo-Fundamentalism : One Bible Only ? OR "Yea Hath God Said?", in The Burning Bush Volume10 No1           http://www.febc.edu.sg/VPP7.htm

Books of The Bible : New Testament

	Catholic Protestant Orthodox
	Canonical Gospels
1	Matthew
2	Mark
3	Luke
4	John
	Apostolic History
5	Acts
	Pauline Epistles
6	Romans
7	1 Corinthians
8	2 Corinthians
9	Galatians
10	Ephesians
11	Philippians
12	Colossians
12	1 Thessalonians
14	2 Thessalonians
15	1 Timothy
16	2 Timothy
17	Titus
18	Philemon
	General Epistles
19	Hebrews
20	James
21	1 Peter
22	2 Peter
23	1 John
24	2 John
25	3 John
26	Jude
	Apocalypse
27	Book of Revelation