Reddit reviews EOB: The Eastern Greek Orthodox New Testament: Based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904 with extensive variants

Here is a link to the New Testament on Amazon. It is a new translation based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904. The Orthodox Study Bible is a totally different project.

There is precious little on the internet about whether the Old Testament is in the works or not.

The Ancient Commentary on Scripture Series (published by InterVarsity) has in-depth patristic commentary on individual books of the Bible. It goes verse-by-verse, so it sounds like what you're looking for. If you want patristic/medieval commentary for free, this site is quite good: https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home .

As for Bible translations, Fr. Thomas Hopko once recommended the RSV (plus the apocrypha) for balancing readability and literalness. I myself like the KJV, but the RSV is quite good: Ignatius press publishes a good edition.


Fr. Laurent Cleenewerck, an OCA (?) priest, is working on translating the Bible from the official Greek of the Orthodox Church. He has only finished the New Testament. But you can pair it with Lancelot Brenton's (old) translation of the Septuagint.


For what its worth, Richard Hays has recently published a book explaining figural exegesis (the method for interpreting the bible that the Fathers use), called [Reading Backward] (https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Backwards-Figural-Christology-Fourfold/dp/1481302337/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1500494710&sr=8-3&keywords=richard+hayes).

If you're looking for a solid Orthodox New Testament with study notes; I recommend EOB: The Eastern Greek Orthodox New Testament

https://www.amazon.com/EOB-Orthodox-Testament-Patriarchal-extensive/dp/148191765X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1480517056&sr=8-3&keywords=the+eastern+orthodox+bible

It was in the introduction to the gospel of matthew in this book. Despite the heavily theological appearance, the notes actually widely depart from typical Christian beliefs and are all written by liberal scholars.

I think you probably are going to have to resort to two different translations - one for the Old Testament and then one for the New.

(Advance warning: My recommendations are going to be unconventional).

Old Testament -
If you are really stuck on using something that is based on the Masoretic Text, I would recommend pulling out the stops then and getting the Oxford Jewish Study Bible (4.5 stars on Amazon out of 182 reviews). The essays are very good, in my opinion - from a textual criticism POV - and the editors were very upfront about identifying passages where the original Hebrew is lost or uncertain (e.g. they identify 85 of 150 of the Psalms as having one or more verses with Heb. uncertain.

If you are willing to consider the Septuagint (which even the JPS editors used to fill in some holes), then you might consider either the modern translation in the Orthodox Study Bible (4.5 stars out of 315 reviews on Amazon) or the older Brenton translation (with the Greek and English side-by-side).

For the New Testament, I would recommend either the 2-volume Holy Apostles Convent Orthodox New Testament or the recently published Eastern Orthodox Bible: New Testament. These are very literal translations, with notes comparing differences with others. But, they are based on the 1904 Greek Patriarchal Text, which is very close to the Majority Text, and not the Nestle-Aland Critical Texts that others use. If you like the NA CT, then maybe the Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament would be a good choice. It has English (RSV) and Greek on facing pages, with very detailed footnotes showing the textual variants. The Holy Apostles version has tons of footnotes referencing patristic commentaries (usually written before the 7th or 8th century - at a time when the Church was more or less unified and Rome hadn't gone under Charlemagne yet).

Like I said … a little off the beaten path.

I’m jumping in on this to get opinions on NETS for the OT and this translation of the Patriarchal Recension NT.

OP, to give one answer to your question, NRSVs are easy and cheap to come by with all the deuterocanonicals, but the books won’t be in the right order and the protocanonical translations will be Masoretic-Septuagint hybrids.

There are several Orthodox English translations, although only one that covers the entire Bible - this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Study-Bible-Hardcover-Christianity/dp/0718003594/

Several other (arguably better) Orthodox translations also exist, but only covering parts of the Bible - usually the New Testament. Here is a good one for example:

https://www.amazon.com/EOB-Orthodox-Testament-Patriarchal-extensive/dp/148191765X/