1^ Eberhard Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1898); cf. the 16th ed. (1936), 38*; cf. also Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament (2nd ed.; trans. E. F. Rhodes; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 19–20.

2^ Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, eds., The Greek New Testament (New York: American Bible Society; London: British and Foreign Bible Society; Edinburgh: National Bible Society of Scotland; Amsterdam: Netherlands Bible Society; Stuttgart: Württemberg Bible Society, 1966), v.

3^ David C. Parker, “The Development of the Critical Text of the Epistle of James: From Lachmann to the Editio Critica Maior,” in New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis: Festschrift J. Delobel (ed. A. Denaux; BETL 161; Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 2002), 329.

4^ The Holy Bible, New International Version: New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973).

5^ A second edition published by the same editors and publisher in 2007 (reviewed and modified by Gordon Fee) presents the Greek text behind the TNIV translation.

6^ Goodrich and Lukaszewski, A Reader's Greek New Testament, 10 n. 6.

7^ For a brief overview of the editor's methodological and historical perspectives with regard to the practice of New Testament textual criticism, see Michael W. Holmes, “Reconstructing the Text of the New Testament,” in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament (ed. David E. Aune; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 77–89.

8^ Or, to put the matter a bit more precisely, which variant most likely represents the form in which the text first began to be copied and to circulate.

9^ In all, there are fifty-six variation units in the SBLGNT where the editor preferred a reading not found in any of the four primary editions. In thirty-eight of those instances, the editor's preferred reading is also read by WHmarg (30x) and/or Tregmarg (2x) and/or NA (10x).

10^ Occasionally breathings are as much a matter of interpretation as of lexicography. In agreement with a minority of the membership of the UBS Editorial Committee (see Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on The Greek New Testament [London: United Bible Societies, 1971], 616 [a discussion of Phil 3:21 not found in the second edition]), the SBLGNT occasionally prints a rough breathing on forms of αὐτός.

11^ A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed., revised and edited by Frederick William Danker; based on the 6th ed. of Walter Bauer's Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Thus ἁγνεία, not ἁγνία (so WH), or, e.g., in the case of words with movable ς (cf. BDF §21), ἄχρι, μέχρι, and οὕτως are printed throughout, unless BDAG indicates otherwise (ἄχρις, Gal 3:19 and Heb 3:13; μέχρις, Mark 13:30, Gal 4:19, Heb 12:4; οὕτω, Acts 23:11, Phil 3:17, Heb 12:21, Rev 16:18). A rare exception to the guideline is the adoption of νουμηνίας rather than νεομηνίας in Col 2:16.

12^ Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (3rd ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007).

13^ A category that offers, to be sure, numerous opportunities for differences of opinion.

14^ A partial exception occurs at the end of Acts 19, where (in accordance with some editions and many recent translations) a forty-first verse number has been placed in the text, but in brackets ( [41] ), to indicate uncertainty regarding its status.

15^ For example, at the end of Phil 1:18, WH's punctuation was given preference over the NRSV paragraph break, whereas at Phil 2:14 the NRSV paragraphing was followed rather than the WH punctuation (which was changed accordingly).

16^ Brackets have been employed in this edition sparingly—not, one hopes, due to a lack of what Parker nicely terms “wise reticence” in the face of difficult choices (Parker, “Development,” 325), but for positive reasons. These include a widely shared sense that brackets have been somewhat overused in some recent editions (sometimes as what could be perceived as a means of avoiding difficult choices); an opinion that one of an editor's duties is to make choices, particularly in the “hard cases,” so as to offer some degree of guidance to those making use of the resulting text; and a corresponding concern that the availability of brackets biases the decision-making process toward inclusion (one can bracket an included word about which one has some degree of doubt regarding the decision to include it, but one cannot bracket the omission of a word about which one has an equal degree of doubt regarding the decision to exclude it). In all, for better or worse, single brackets appear only six times in the SBLGNT (at Luke 22:19–20; 24:40; 24:51; 24:52; Eph 1:1; Col 1:20).

17^ In general, it closely follows the pattern of the apparatus in Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers (3rd ed.).

18^ This means that the apparatus includes nearly all the variant or alternative readings noted in the margins or notes of most recent major English translations and numerous translations into other languages as well.

19^ For variants involving the verses or parts of verses that WH print between double brackets (⟦⟧), WH is cited in the apparatus between brackets (i.e., ⟦WH⟧).

20^ The introduction has been slightly modified to conform with the formatting of this electronic edition. The text of the New Testament has been updated to the V1.2 text from github.com/LogosBible/SBLGNT.