Copyright © Timothy E. Clontz 1999.  All rights reserved.
The Common 
Edition:
New Testament

	The Common Edition is the result of a decade long study of the 
New Testament and numerous English translations in the modern church.  
The goals for this edition are:

1)	To be accurate to the Greek Scriptures and yet highly 
readable,
2)	To  balance traditional wording with modern English, and
3)	To reflect the standard Christian understanding and 
wording of the New Testament.

	The purpose of these goals is to create a standardized New 
Testament for the modern English reader.
	There are two ways to create a standardized text.  The first way 
is to create a text of such surpassing scholarship and expression that it 
practically eliminates the use of other editions for decades or perhaps 
centuries.  The second way is to isolate what the most widely used 
editions have in common, eliminate what they do not have in common, 
and place the results in a single text.
	The King James Version succeeded in both of these two ways.
	Over the past hundred years there have been numerous attempts 
to create a new English standard Bible.  Each of these attempts has 
sought to produce a standardized edition in the first way I have described.  
The Common Edition New Testament follows the second method. 
	A standardized edition of any work seeks a balance between 
extremes.  The most literally accurate version may not be the easiest to 
read.  The most traditionally worded may not be very modern.  
	It cannot have a target audience; what is best for preachers and 
theologians may not be best for the daily devotional reader.
	Finally, a standardized edition cannot be innovative.  One 
reviewer gave me the highest compliment I could receive when he said, 
"there's nothing new about it!"
	I hope that readers will find in these pages exactly what they 
would expect from a standardized edition, and that no matter what 
versions they have used in the past, they will find something familiar 
here.
	
	This initial release into the public domain is intended for free 
distribution.  The text itself is copyrighted, with the following provisions:

1)	The Common Edition: New Testament may be copied and 
distributed in electronic or printed form for free.
2)	It may be bound or downloaded for personal use or for a 
gift.
3)	It may not be sold by anyone other than the editor.
4)	The text may not be altered.
5)	No more than 10,000 words may be included in a document 
published for sale without the express written permission of 
the editor.
6)	No more than 20% of a document published for sale may be 
quoted from this edition without the express written 
permission of the editor.
7)	All distributions of the Common Edition, and all documents 
which quote the Common Edition, must contain the 
following copyright notice:  Common Edition New 
Testament, Copyright © Timothy E. Clontz 1999.  All 
rights reserved.

	If you find a phrase or word which is unclear, or which you 
believe needs review, please email the editor at teclontz@aol.com.

	Although it is not appropriate to dedicate a New Testament to 
any individual, the editor would like to give his gratitude to the many 
people who have labored to preserve this text.  Those who penned the 
autographs often faced ridicule or death.  Nameless monks sleep in the 
dust, who faithfully copied one manuscript to another down through the 
centuries.  By the time of the Reformation, William Tyndale had one 
wish: to make the Christian Bible available in English to the poorest 
farmhand in England.  For this crime he was strangled and burned at the 
stake.
	And then there are those who have simply loved these words 
enough to live by their highest ideals.  Without the goodness of their 
lives no one would believe there to be anything Holy about a Bible.  One 
such godly man was M. D. Barefield, who learned to read as an adult just 
so that he could make this word his own.  My grandfather, Bill Clontz, 
who will always be an example for my family, gradually bought larger 
and larger print Bibles and finally began using the Bible on tape – just to 
keep the Word fresh in his heart.  Such people always stay fresh in the 
hearts of those who have known them, and their love for God is 
contagious.



					Timothy Clontz
					March 14, 1999

