Majority Standard Bible(MSB)
The Berean Standard Bible's Old Testament paired with a New Testament translated fresh from the Byzantine Majority Text.
At a Glance
- Reading Level
- 8-9 (est.)†
- NT Textual Basis
- Majority Text
- Quote Limit
- Unlimited
- Print Edition
- Print edition available: No(Planned 2027)
- Red Letter Edition
- Red letter edition available: No
- Marks OT Quotations in NT
- Marks OT quotations in NT: No
- Italicizes Translator Words
- Italicizes translator-supplied words: No
- Capitalizes Deity Pronouns
- Capitalizes deity pronouns: Yes
- Quotation Marks for Dialogue
- Uses quotation marks for dialogue: Yes
Print edition: There is no official printed edition yet. The publisher plans one for 2027; until then, only print-on-demand paperbacks from small sellers turn up. Where to buy
† An estimate. No publisher or reference list gives a reading level for this translation, so it is judged from its style and its closest relatives.
Overview
The Majority Standard Bible is, in the most literal sense, the BSB's sibling rather than an independent translation: it was produced by the same team — Bible Hub, the Discovery Bible team, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee — using the exact same Old Testament as the Berean Standard Bible. The one difference is the New Testament, which the MSB's editors translated fresh from the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Majority Text rather than the modern Critical Text the BSB's New Testament uses.
The MSB first went online in 2022 as a draft open to public comment, and its editors declared it a stable text in 2025. Like the BSB, it was dedicated to the public domain in April 2023, with no licensing restrictions on copying, quoting, or redistributing it.
The MSB's New Testament footnotes go further than most Majority-Text translations by explicitly documenting where its readings differ from both the modern Critical Text (Nestle-Aland, SBL, and the Editio Critica Maior) and the Textus Receptus behind the KJV — letting a reader see, verse by verse, exactly where all three textual traditions agree and where they part ways.
Outside its New Testament's textual basis, the MSB shares the BSB's translation approach: the same blend of word-for-word and thought-for-thought rendering, the same traditional gender language, and the same broader goal of a free, unrestricted, interlinear-linked translation.
Distinctives
- Shares its entire Old Testament and translation team with the Berean Standard Bible — the two are companion editions, not independent translations, differing only in New Testament textual basis.
- One of very few modern English translations with a New Testament built on the Byzantine Majority Text (Robinson-Pierpont edition) rather than the Critical Text or Textus Receptus.
- Footnotes explicitly track where its readings diverge from both the Critical Text and the Textus Receptus, verse by verse — a level of three-way textual transparency unusual even among Majority-Text translations.
- Fully public domain since April 2023, alongside the BSB.
Good Fit For
- Readers specifically interested in the Byzantine Majority Text tradition who want a genuinely free, modern-English option built on it.
- Comparing against the BSB directly, since the two share everything except New Testament textual basis — a clean way to see what the Majority Text actually changes.
- Anyone who wants a free, unrestricted Majority-Text translation to quote, print, or build tools on top of.
Sample Verse — John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Majority Standard Bible (MSB). Public domain.