# Useful YouTube Channel Evaluating Bible Translations and Textual Criticism



## Taylor (Aug 24, 2021)

I have been listening to R. Grant Jones' YouTube channel recently. I think it is quite excellent. He does some very thorough analysis of the issues which relate to Bible translation and textual criticism. And I have found that he is fairly well balanced. He is not beholden to partisanship, and I think his analysis of various Bible translations and textual issues is fair because of it. The slideshows and charts are very helpful. I thought I would share it here for those who are interested in this type of thing.

Reactions: Like 4 | Informative 1


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## Stephen L Smith (Aug 24, 2021)

Taylor said:


> I have been listening to R. Grant Jones' YouTube channel recently. I think it is quite excellent. He does some very thorough analysis of the issues which relate to Bible translation and textual criticism. And I have found that he is fairly well balanced. He is not beholden to partisanship, and I think his analysis of various Bible translations and textual issues is fair because of it. The slideshows and charts are very helpful. I thought I would share it here for those who are interested in this type of thing.


Thanks Taylor. Prejudice is a funny thing. I had seen his YouTube page before and thought he was KJV only and I ignored his channel. I am not sure why I thought this - I may have confused his name with a KJV only name.

Anyway, now I am more enlightened I'll check it out


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## Logan (Aug 24, 2021)

Stephen L Smith said:


> Thanks Taylor. Prejudice is a funny thing. I had seen his YouTube page before and thought he was KJV only and I ignored his channel. I am not sure why I thought this - I may have confused his name with a KJV only name.


"@Grant Jones" _is_ a pretty sketchy name.

Reactions: Funny 5


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## B.L. (Aug 24, 2021)

I'm a subscriber to his channel. I like his Bible reviews.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Logan (Aug 25, 2021)

Thanks for sharing, lots of thoughtful content there. He had a chart in one of his videos (comparing ESV and NKJV) that I found fascinating. He took 153 translatable NT differences and plotted how many in each translation stemmed from NA28 and how many from the Byzantine text. It skews one way or another for various translations but it's not as "CT vs MT" as I would have thought. His point being that translators make some decisions rather than mechanically following a specific Greek text. For example, I would have assumed the NASB would be far more NA28 than it is. Regardless, this represents a tremendous amount of work.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1


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## Taylor (Aug 25, 2021)

Logan said:


> "@Grant Jones" _is_ a pretty sketchy name.


No joke, when I found this guy, I had to check to see if it was Puritan Board @Grant simply because his YouTube profile picture at the time had a bearded guy with a pipe in his mouth.



Logan said:


> Thanks for sharing, lots of thoughtful content there. He had a chart in one of his videos (comparing ESV and NKJV) that I found fascinating. He took 153 translatable NT differences and plotted how many in each translation stemmed from NA28 and how many from the Byzantine text. It skews one way or another for various translations but it's not as "CT vs MT" as I would have thought. His point being that translators make some decisions rather than mechanically following a specific Greek text. For example, I would have assumed the NASB would be far more NA28 than it is. Regardless, this represents a tremendous amount of work.
> 
> View attachment 8269


You would be interested in his video comparing the NA28, WH, MT, and TR.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## iainduguid (Aug 25, 2021)

Logan said:


> Thanks for sharing, lots of thoughtful content there. He had a chart in one of his videos (comparing ESV and NKJV) that I found fascinating. He took 153 translatable NT differences and plotted how many in each translation stemmed from NA28 and how many from the Byzantine text. It skews one way or another for various translations but it's not as "CT vs MT" as I would have thought. His point being that translators make some decisions rather than mechanically following a specific Greek text. For example, I would have assumed the NASB would be far more NA28 than it is. Regardless, this represents a tremendous amount of work.
> 
> View attachment 8269


This is a point I have tried to reiterate whenever Bible translation is discussed. Scholars never follow NA28 slavishly; they use it as a convenient aggregator of information and then make their own decisions about text critical issues. It isn't always helped by the publicity materials from the publishers themselves that often talk about a text being "based on NA28" as a convenient shorthand for "sympathetic toward using more ancient manuscripts in many (but not all) cases". It would be interesting to see a similar scatter plot for instances of siding with Septuagint against Masoretic Text in the OT.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Taylor (Aug 25, 2021)

iainduguid said:


> It would be interesting to see a similar scatter plot for instances of siding with Septuagint against Masoretic Text in the OT.


He actually does have a line chart (I haven't found a scatter plot yet) showing some of this. It is in one of his videos comparing the NKJV with the ESV:

Reactions: Like 1


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