Major Accomplishments

The Center for New Testament Restoration (CNTR) is a leader in the field of scientific textual criticism and has moved the bar of scholarship forward in a number of significant areas. All of the following accomplishments represent firsts in the field, enabling data to be leveraged for future research through the CNTR database. In addition to that, most of the products are also the first to be released under an open license to serve the needs of the global Church.

2025	First objectively defined variants and subvariants for all early witnesses and modern critical texts. This was based on computer-defined variant boundaries that were automatically adjusted based on dependency.
2024	First analytical lexicon/concordance produced for all words in all early witnesses and modern critical texts. There have been other analytical lexicons and other concordances before, but this combined the best features of both, providing better formatting, improved categories, and parsing of variant words.
2023	First apparatus to show all variants in a format that can be collated against any base text, known as the Universal Apparatus (UA). Most apparatuses are tied to a specific base text and only show about 10% of the variants.
2022	First computer-generated Greek New Testament, known as the Statistical Restoration (SR). The SR was based directly on the earliest manuscript evidence using a reasoned eclecticism approach taking into account manuscript reliability, earliness, and diversity of support.
2019	First English interlinear with context-sensitive glosses for all early manuscripts and modern critical texts. These glosses are also linked to the specific sense in the CNTR lexicon. This enabled the average person for the first time to have some understanding of what the variants mean without knowing Greek.
2017	First morphological and lexical parsing of all words in all early manuscripts and modern critical texts. Approximately 30,000 words were in variant readings that had never been parsed before. This process included classifying alternative spellings, misspellings, and errors.
2015	First complete set of metadata compiled for all early witnesses. Library science standards were adhered to in documenting each witness, including proper provenance and links to other databases.
2016	First complete set of transcriptions of all non-continuous quotations of the New Testament (class 2 data) up to 400 AD. Sixty-two of these transcriptions were the first ever to be transcribed electronically and made publicly available.
2014	First accurate Greek text underlying the King James Bible reconstructed, known as the King James Textus Receptus (KJTR). Textus receptus texts such as the 1884 Scrivener or 1550 Stephanus have hundreds of deviations that do not match any King James Bible. The KJTR matches the 1611 King James Bible as well as the 2006 Pure Cambridge Edition following the convention expressed by the added italics of the 1769 editions.
2013	First complete set of transcriptions for all extant manuscripts of the New Testament (class 1 data) up to 400 AD. Thirty-six of these transcriptions were the first ever to be transcribed electronically and made publicly available.
2003	First accurate electronic transcriptions created for the major critical texts. All previously existing copies of these texts obtained from the internet and other Bible programs contained errors (and probably still contain errors).

Future Plans

Lord willing, the CNTR still plans to tackle several major initiatives, as time and resources permit. Please consult the volunteer section if you are willing to help out.

Provide a new comprehensive Koine Greek lexicon including all variant spellings, etymologies, semantic domains, and examples from the New Testament as well as other literature from that time period.
Compile all Greek quotations of the New Testament (class 3 data) attributed to a source (primarily church fathers) dated before the terminus ad quem of 400 AD, but preseved in a later manuscript.
Compile all foreign versions of the New Testament (class 4 data) for extant manuscripts dated before 400 AD.
Extend the website to include all classes of manuscripts of the Old Testament.