Review of UBS Greek New Testament Reader

Rick Mansfield put up his review of the UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader’s edition a few days ago. This Greek New Testament (GNT) is based off of the UBS 4th edition, and allows for people with an intermediate knowledge of koine Greek to read through the GNT utilizing a vocabulary apparatus at the bottom, which gives definitions of all the words that appear 30 or less times. All words appearing more than 30 times are found in a dictionary in the back for when you forget a word that you have probably already memorized.

The UBS GNT Reader’s edition stands in contrast to Zondervan’s GNT Reader, which utilizes the Greek behind the NIV (1st edition) and TNIV (2nd edition). Rick shows in his review how the typeface of the UBS is superior to the Zondervan edition, as is the vocabulary apparatus, which gives parsing information for difficult verb forms. In his conclusion, Rick writes:

“Since I teach out of the TNIV, carrying the RGNT2 (which employs a Greek text underlying that version) to church, my primary context for a Greek NT such as these discussed, would have been a great combination. However, because I want a reader’s edition to quickly read the text, I will have to choose the UBSRE to carry on most Sundays. What that means is that both of my copies of the RGNT1 and RGNT2 become relegated to reference works on the shelf, most notably as the Greek texts underlying the NIV and TNIV, respectively and really not much more. This is unfortunate since this is not their primary function.”

If you are a student of New Testament Greek, either of the two readers is a great tool to have, though I would echo Rick’s thoughts and suggest the UBS over Zondervan for readability. The downside is that it is much more expensive.

Rick’s review of the Zondervan GNT Reader 2nd Edition
UBS Greek New Testament a Reader’s Edition [amazon.com link]
A Reader’s Greek New Testament (Zondervan)[amazon.com link]