What is the Center for Biblical Text and Translation?

The Center exists to improve the quality of editions of the Christian Scriptures in the original languages and to ensure the accuracy and clarity of Bible translations worldwide.

The Center serves the broader evangelical community by providing resources and counsel for those translating the Bible for the church. There are over 2000 languages with little access to the Bible, therefore there is a continual and essential need to ensure an accurate and precise translation of the Bible.

What We Do

The Center will fulfill its mission by:
- Serving as consultants for future revisions and improvements of the Christian Standard Bible
- Conducting detailed research on complex text-critical issues
- Indexing and transcribing ancient manuscripts of the Scriptures
- Writing textual commentary that explains the evidence for variant readings in the ancient manuscripts
- Investigating paratextual features that may help solve text-critical challenges
- Developing tools to assist others in engaging in text-critical research
- Educating and advising Bible translators on questions related to the original text of the Scriptures
- Educating and advising Bible translators on questions related to the grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and correct interpretation of the Scriptures
- Educating and advising Bible translators on the best translation approaches to ensure their accuracy and clarity.

Charles Quarles, Director

Quarles is an experienced pastor, missionary, and theological educator. He served as Senior Pastor of three churches in North Mississippi and East Tennessee for over ten years. He served as a missionary of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in Bucharest Romania from 1999 to 2002. He has served as a professor of New Testament and Greek at Clear Creek Baptist Bible College, the Bucharest Baptist Theological Seminary, the University of Bucharest, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Louisiana College (now Louisiana Christian University). He has served on volunteer mission trips in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tanzania, Turkey, and Cuba.

In addition to many Bible studies, articles in reference works, and reviews, he is the editor or author of a dozen books including The Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (B&H, 2011); The Illustrated Life of Paul (B&H, 2014); A Theology of Matthew (P&R, 2013); Matthew in the Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament series (B&H, 2017); Matthew in the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary series (Lexham, 2023); 40 Questions About the Text and Canon of the New Testament (coauthor, Kregal, 2023); and Jesus as Teacher in the Gospel of Matthew (co-editor, T&T Clark, 2023). He also has a forthcoming devotional commentary on Matthew and a forthcoming book on New Testament textual criticism. He has published research in numerous international journals including New Testament Studies, Novum Testamentum, the Bulletin for Biblical Research, the Bible Translator, and Tyndale Bulletin.

He and his wife Julie have been married since 1989 and have three adult children (Rachael, Hannah, and Joshua) and four grandchildren.

Meet Our Team!

Tyler Craft

Associate Director/Research Associate for New Testament

Lauren Lockhart

Research Associate for New Testament

Jesse Bustamante

Research Associate for Old Testament

Nathan Maroney

Research Associate for Old Testament