Center for New Testament Restoration

For many centuries, the underpinnings of the Greek New Testament had been obscured to the average Christian due to incomplete data, restricted access, biased scholarship, financial barriers, and educational obstacles. In order to address these issues, the Center for New Testament Restoration (CNTR) was founded by Alan Bunning in 2013 to provide free and open resources of the Greek New Testament, giving the general public a direct view into the original manuscript evidence so that they can examine the important textual issues for themselves. (The CNTR absorbed the work of the Scientific Greek New Testament Interlinear project, which he had previously founded in 2003.) The CNTR has already achieved many significant accomplishments to advance the field of scientific textual criticism as outlined on the Milestones page. The CNTR data has also been used in the creation of several new critical texts:

With the help of the unfoldingWord Bible translation organization, the BHP Greek New Testament in particular has already been translated into more than 30 different languages, providing Bibles for the first time to people groups all over the world.

All of the CNTR resides in a powerful relational database which includes a number of advanced features that were specifically designed for work in textual criticism, enabling scholars to do research that had never before been possible. Note that none of this was done merely for the sake of academic head knowledge, but that many would ultimately apply the words of Scripture and be born again of the Spirit (John 3:3) by repenting of their sins (Acts 2:38) and receiving Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives (Rom. 10:9-10). A full description of the CNTR project can be found in the Project Overview document and in this short (and slightly out-of-date) introductory video.

The CNTR project is a continual work in progress and various aspects of the CNTR database are at different stages of development, so please contact the CNTR to report any errors or discrepancies that you may find. All of the data on the website is considered to be in a beta stage and therefore is restricted by copyright to prevent errors from being disseminated while it's being developed. When data is ready for public distribution, it is released under an open license and made available for free download in the Resources page.

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