Greek Α language forming an independent branch of the Indo-European family. It has had uninterrupted development from the late 3 mill. BCE to the present day, though various stages in that development, including modern Greek, can be distinguished. Greek was widely spoken throughout the Roman Empire (the apostle Paul writes in Greek to the Christians in 1 Rome). After the division of the Roman Empire, Greek remained the official language of the Byzantine or Eastern Empire. Today Greek is spoken by at least 15 million people. It is the official language of Greece, an official language in Cyprus, and a recognized minority language in several countries around the world. Dialectal variations are limited, though for generations there was a vertical division between katharevoussa (literally, “purified”) Greek, used in official and academic circles, and demotiki (“demotic” or “vernacular, literary, popular” Greek). Since 1975, demotiki has been the official form of the language of the Hellenic Republic (Greece). Because of its longevity and history of influencing other languages, Greek, like Latin, is the major source of scientific and medical vocabulary worldwide. The unique place of Greek in the history of the Bible and its translation can best be understood in the light of the demographics of Greece itself where 98% of the population is officially stated to belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. It is therefore not surprising that Orthodox scholars have played a predominant role as Bible translators, though Christians from other traditions have contributed as reviewers and consultants. It should also be noted that most Orthodox biblical scholars are not ordained clergy. The governing body of the Hellenic Bible Society includes Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical (Protestant) members. The Septuagint, the first complete translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, is the most important secondary source for understanding the original biblical text. Greek, in the form known as “koine” or common language, is the language of the New Testament. The NT is thus not a translation as such, though it contains many quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, and many sayings of Jesus and others originally spoken in Aramaic. With the passage of time, changes in the language have caused many NT texts to be easily misunderstood, or not understood at all, by contemporary readers or hearers of the original. The question of translating the Greek NT into a modern form of the same language has therefore at times proved a delicate and even controversial undertaking. The first printed Scripture in modern Greek was a 1547 translation of the Pentateuch published in Constantinople (Istanbul), using Hebrew letters and intended for Jewish readers. Other attempts were made a decade earlier by Ioannikios Kartanos (1536), and a hundred years later by Maximos Kallipolitis (NT 1638). Although never published, the entire Bible was translated in 1928 by the Orthodox monk Ilarion during the liberation struggle of the Greeks against the Ottoman occupation. It was not until 1838 that the first Scripture in modern Greek, the Gospels, was published in Greece. This was followed in 1844 by the complete NT, and in 1851 by the first one-volume Bible. All these, whether published in Athens or in London, were BFBS publications, the main translator being the Athens-based professor Neophytos Vamvas. These versions have proved to be more popular among the very small Protestant population of Greece than among the Orthodox majority. A 1901 translation of Matthew from Codex Vaticanus by Alexander Pallis, published in the newspaper The Acropolis and followed in 1902 by the four Gospels (published in Liverpool), aroused such controversy that further modern translations of Scripture were prohibited by both church and state, a prohibition lifted in 1924. 2 Very gradually, the BFBS has succeeded in shedding its reputation as a Protestant missionary organization. In 1954 the BFBS’s Protestant leanings were in evidence when it published a translation of the Bible by Athanasios Chastoupis and Nikolaos Louvaris, described by the Orthodox as “useful for edification,” that excluded the Deuterocanonicals. In 1967, BFBS published a translation by a team of University of Athens professors, Evangelos Antoniadis, Amilkas Alivizatos, and Gerasimos Konidaris, led by professor Vasilios Vellas. In 1985 (2nd ed. 1989), the NT in demotic Greek, translated by an academic team from Athens and Thessaloniki led by Savvas Agouridis and including George Galitis, John Karavidopoulos, Vasileios Stoyannos, Petros Vassiliadis, and John Galanis, was published by the Hellenic Bible Society—since 1992 a full member of the United Bible Societies. This version, in its 2nd revised edition, eventually received the approval of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant ecclesiastical authorities. In 1997, after 30 years’ work, translation of the entire Bible, including the Deuterocanonicals and incorporating the 1989 2nd revised edition of the NT, was completed by a team including the Orthodox OT scholars Elias Oikonomou, Nikolaos Papadopoulos, Panayotis Simotas, and Nikolaos Olympiou, under the supervision of Vasileios Tsakonas and Miltiadis Konstantinou. The Hellenic Bible Society currently distributes this version, together with the earlier Vamvas (1851) and BFBS (1967) versions. Paul Ellingworth and Petros Vassiliadis 3