EDITORS' PREFACE

THE PRESENT EDITION is a restoration of Ivan Panin's translation of the New Testament from the Greek critical text established by a lifetime of work in the investigation of NUMERICS. We will briefly touch on this subject here; the reader will find sufficient introduction to NUMERICS in Panin's own words, namely the PREFACE following this one, and the NOTES at the back.

Panin's The New Testament in the Original Greek Text is a separate work from which he translated this English New Testament even though its publication came twenty years later.

This edition has retained, as closely as possible, the exact wording, ordering, and style that Panin personally and painstakingly set up by hand in monotype at the University Press in Oxford for the printing of the first edition in 1914. Subsequent editions followed in 1935, 1945, 1954, 1966, 1973, 1979, 1990, and 1996, after which it became difficult to obtain an unadulterated copy in print form, leading to the need for the present edition1. The differences in this edition are three:

Reformatting for a larger page size,

The change from “:” to “·” to represent the article ('the') before a word, as explained in item 6 of his Preface,

A few notes added to his notes for clarity and correction; these latter have been put in bold brackets ([note here]) and are clearly denoted and dated as additions,

What has not been changed is Panin’s published book order of the books as follows:2

• The Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

• The Acts

• The Catholic, or General epistles: James; I & II Peter; I, II, & III John; Jude;

• Paul's epistles with Hebrews included: Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I & II Thessalonians, Hebrews, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon;

• Revelation

This edition is neither a scan nor a copy; it is a word-for-word and letter-for-letter transcription of Panin's English translation. As a remarkable attestation to the thoroughness of the original, a mere 21 typographical errors3 were found (two of which were retained for posterity), none of which affected the Text. This edition is taken from the 4th printing (1954 printed in Great Britain, Book Society of Canada) and compared with both his 1914 and 1935 editions. It includes both the Preface and the Preface to the Second Edition found in that copy, the which had also been retained in the subsequent editions printed in Canada.

Panin's mathematics were also perused and, to date, no errors of any kind have been found.

The reason for this level of attention to the text will become plainer as the reader becomes familiar with the unique work that he holds in his hands; both that of the value of Panin's approach, and the level of attention that the holy Text upon which he labored demands.

IVAN PANIN was born in Russia in 1855. A firm agnostic and nihilist, he was exiled for ostensibly participating in plots against his government, forcing his emigration to Germany and eventually to the United States. Here he graduated from Harvard as a Master of Literary Criticism, delivering outstanding lectures at premium venues, which often ran for six hours or more.4 His conversion to Christianity in the late 1880's was an event that produced no small public stir, as his agnostic position was well-known and considered unassailable.5 In 1890, his attention was caught by the first chapter of John, in which the article is used before God in one instance, then left out in the next (“...and the Word was with the God, and the Word was God”). His keen literary and mathematical mind was aroused, and he began to examine the text to see if an underlying pattern contributed this phenomena that arrested his trained eye. By making parallel lists of verses with and without the article, he discovered striking mathematical relationships. Undaunted by the enormity of the task, and passing from curious to incredulous, he went through the same procedure for the word "Christ" and on through several other words, each time finding amazing numeric relationships.

Until his death in 1942, Panin labored continuously, discovering multilayered complex numerical patterns throughout the Greek New Testament—often to the detriment of his health. The overwhelming conclusion drawn from even a fraction of his studies is simple: Were this done intentionally by man, it would have demanded the collaboration of all writers of the Bible—and the condition that all of them be mathematicians of the highest order. It is so complex that no single man could have written in this manner without inspiration. It bears the “watermark” of Divine Authorship; the which watermark, as far as his exhaustive investigation was carried, is not found in any other works, ancient or modern.6

His NOTES, following the text of the New Testament, herein give examples sufficient to introduce the reader to some small part of his methods.

Ivan Panin spent 50 years of his life documenting in detail the numerical designs in the Bible, handwriting 40,000 pages of his computations. Retiring with his wife to a small Canadian farm, he first arranged the words of the original Greek into a concordance which organized and cross-referenced every word, including each letter and its numerical value, into a 1000-page hand-written concordance. This led to a 2000 page concordance of all the variant forms of each Greek word. This was the first 6 of the 50 years.

Eventually, his meticulously created arsenal of reference material included a list of every word of the New Testament, with sixteen columns of numerical information surrounding each word, including multiple aspects of both word and letter value, order, and place—and their relationships to other words. From here he was able to begin a serious examination of the Holy Scriptures, and to attest with some authority as to the validity or spuriousness of variant readings in the Greek Text.7

Where ancient manuscripts differed, the reading chosen was that which consistently displayed the complex numerical patterns, and thus could be considered with this additional evidence to be a copy of the original autograph.

As to critical texts available in his day, Ivan Panin found the Westcott & Hort’s Greek significantly more accurate—according to his numeric test—than any other available at the time. While these two editors were in doubt as to two seemingly equal manuscripts, Panin could choose the one that matched the numerical pattern, which added a unique resource to the repertoire of tools available to the scholar. Note that Panin did not follow Westcott & Hort as it too was riddled with uncertainties and errors.

Some of these are the result of a tendency for marginal notes ('Interpolations') to find their way into the Biblical text. Westcott & Hort identified 15 of these, including the famous last twelve verses of Mark 16 and a portion of John chapter 8. Ivan Panin, in contrast, points out that these two, Mark 16 and John 8, do indeed bear the numerical pattern, and are necessary for the patterns in Mark and John as a whole. Indeed, all but one of the passages considered to be mere additions by Westcott & Hort are instead verified as scripture by Panin—their absence destroys the numeric patterns.

Today, the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece 28th revised Edition represents the latest in textual scholarship as to the selection of the manuscripts closest to the original autographs. Three generations ago, Ivan Panin made—often against the better judgment of the scholars of his day—selections of the manuscripts he concluded were closest to the original autographs. Today, it is singularly remarkable how scholars have consistently moved closer to Ivan Panin’s critical text for 100 years.

Finally, aside from the monumental work involved to produce this translation, the editors and countless others who love this translation can attest to its consistency, faithfulness, and readability. It delivers the power and beauty of the Holy Writ with a simplicity and sincerity that but a handful of English translations—among the hundreds available—can claim.

—Mark Vedder 2019

1There are several electronic copies available of his English Translation in various forms contemporary with the present work, the which have gathered some number of errors throughout, as is to be expected with the nature of the medium.

2Our standard English order traces back to both Jerome (when he translated his Latin Vulgate early 5th century) and to Luther's influence, while Panin's preferred order is to be found in the best early manuscripts, notably the Vaticanus, the Alexandrinus, and the Ephraem. Westcott & Hort also give a review of the subject in their book Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek.

3Three of the errors concerned format, fourteen were a repetition of the article within the text (having both the symbol for the article ('the') and the word written out), and four were scriptural references in his Notes. The present editors were also fortunate to have a copy of his Greek Text for comparison.

4Many of his publications and lectures on literature are available in print today.

5For a valuable account of Panin's own thoughts during this period, the reader would do well to read his introduction to Thoughts, published in 1887. It reflects both his depth of wit as a Literary Critic from which he was passing, and the process of rethinking into which he was passing as Christian. The work is freely available in electronic format at the time of this writing.

6Including, incidentally, the Apocryphal books added by the church at the Counsel of Trent in 1546 in response to Martin Luther's placing them at the end of his Bible as “outside books” in 1534.

7Mere mathematics cannot do this alone. What is wanting in both gainsayers and popularizers alike is a comprehensive understanding of the subject, which by definition can not be limited to a few parlor tricks or impressive examples. Panin found and explored a fabric of relationships that ran consistently through every scripture from beginning to end —and recorded it.