The roots of the HCSB can be traced to 1984, when Arthur Farstad, general editor of the
New King James Version of the Bible, began a new
translation project. In 1998, Farstad and
LifeWay Christian Resources (the publishing arm of the
Southern Baptist Convention) came to an agreement that would allow LifeWay to fund and publish the completed work. Farstad died soon after, and leadership of the editorial team was turned over to Dr. Edwin Blum, who had been an integral part of the team. The death of Farstad resulted in a change to the
Koine Greek source text underlying the HCSB, although Farstad had envisioned basing the new translation on the same texts used for the
King James Version and
New King James Version. He followed the Greek Majority Text which he and
Zane C. Hodges had authored. After Farstad's death, the editorial team replaced this text with the consensus Greek New Testament established by twentieth-century scholars. Holman Bible Publishers assembled an international,
interdenominational team of 100 scholars and proofreaders, all of whom were committed to
biblical inerrancy. ==Formats==