''Editio Regia'' (''Royal edition'') is the third and the most important edition of the Greek New Testament of

Robert Estienne The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

(1503–1559). It is one of the most important representatives of the ''

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant deno ...

'', the first generation of printed editions of the Greek New Testament in history. It was named ''Editio Regia'' because of the beautiful and elegant Greek font it uses, known as the

Grecs du Roi ''Les grecs du roi'' (lit. "the king's greeks") are a celebrated and influential Greek typeface cut by the French punchcutter Claude Garamond between 1541 and 1550. Arthur Tilley calls the books printed from them "among the most finished specim ...

. It was edited by Estienne in 1550 at

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. It is the first Greek Testament that has a

critical apparatus A critical apparatus ( la, apparatus criticus) in textual criticism of primary source material, is an organized system of notations to represent, in a single text, the complex history of that text in a concise form useful to diligent readers and ...

. Estienne entered on the margins of the pages variant readings from 15 Greek manuscripts as well as many readings from the

Complutensian Polyglot The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the name given to the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible. The edition was initiated and financed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436–1517) and published by Complutense University in Alc ...

. He designated all these sources by symbols from α' to ιϛ'. The ''Complutensian Polyglot'' was signified by α'. The critical collation was the new subject, and although Estienne omitted hundreds of important variants from used witnesses, it was a significant early step towards

textual criticism of the New Testament Textual criticism of the New Testament is the identification of textual variants, or different versions of the New Testament, whose goals include identification of transcription errors, analysis of versions, and attempts to reconstruct the origi ...

. The oldest manuscript used in this edition was the

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum D or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 5 (in the von Soden of New Testament manuscript), is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century writ ...

, which had been collated for him, "by friends in Italy" (''secundo exemplar vetustissimum in Italia ab amicis collatum''). The majority of these manuscripts are held in the

National Library of France National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

to the present day. Estienne made only a few changes in the Erasmian

Novum Testamentum ''Novum Testamentum'' is an academic journal covering various aspects of the New Testament. Biblical studies journals Publications established in 1956 Brill Publishers academic journals Quarterly journals English-language journals {{bible-journal ...

: for example, he added verse Luke 17:36, which he took from Codex Bezae. The text of the editions of 1546 (first) and 1549 (second) was a composition of the Complutensian and Erasmian texts. The 1550 (third) edition (the ''Editio Regia'' proper) approaches more closely to the Erasmian fourth and fifth editions. According to John Mill, the first and second editions differ in 67 places, and the third in 284 places. The third edition became for many scholars, especially in England, the normative text of the Greek New Testament. It maintained this position until 1880. The 1551 (fourth) edition used exactly the same text as the third, without a critical apparatus, but the text is divided into numbered verses for the first time in the history of the printed text of Greek New Testament. It was used for the Geneva Bible.

Manuscripts and sources used in ''Editio Regia''

In his preface Estienne said that he had used sixteen manuscripts as his sources. Manuscripts γ', δ', ε', ϛ', ζ', η', ι', ιε' were taken from the King Henry II's Library (Royal Library of France, now Bibliothèque nationale de France). It was suggested by Wettstein that θ' means

Codex Coislinianus Codex Coislinianus designated by Hp or 015 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), α 1022 ( Soden), was named also as ''Codex Euthalianus''. It is a Greek uncial manuscript of the Pauline epistles, dated palaeographically to the 6th century. The t ...

(it came to France ca. 1650, and was not available in time of Estienne).

References

External links

''Editio Regia 1550 in the Internet Archive''

''Editio Regia'' 1550
* The New Testament in the original Greek – 1881 {{Authority control Greek New Testament Early printed Bibles 1550 books 1546 books 1549 books

Manuscripts and sources used in ''Editio Regia''

See also

References

Further reading

External links