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New Testament text-types

Introduction. The origin of our New Testament Scriptures comes largely from one of two Greek manuscript text-type families, either the Byzantine or the Alexandrian text-types. There are other less prominent families as well, such as the Western and Caesarean text types, but translation to the English language has largely come from either the Byzantine or Alexandrian families.

The Byzantine is from where the KJV came from and the Alexandrian is from where most of today's English translations come from. Why do most of today's translations use the Alexandrian tradition? It comes down to history. Modern-day scholars believe the Alexandrian manuscripts are the oldest and, therefore, the most faithful to the original. However, if we go by the volume of surviving manuscripts and the character of the Greek, the Byzantine is far superior.

See A Defense of Byzantine Priority. Duration 47:26. Gives a good introduction of the various text types and the issues involved in selecting the "correct" one.

Alexandrian text-type. The basis of the Alexandrian text-type is largely from two Greek manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.

Codex Vaticanus. This manuscript first appeared in the catalog of the Vatican Library in 1481, but could have been there as early as 1475. The library itself was founded by Pope Nicholas V in 1448. It is reputed to be the oldest New Testament manuscript dating back to the 4th century. Why I say "reputed" is because it has not been scientifically proven to be that old. The dating was done by paleography—that is, by looking at the handwriting and guessing at the age. The Vatican has not allowed it to be scientifically tested for age. "The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus" (Wikipedia). The Bible you are holding, if it is a modern English translation, is likely a Vatican manuscript translation.

Codex Sinaiticus. The other principal manuscript is Codex Sinaiticus. It was initially discovered in a Greek Orthodox monastery (St. Catherine) on Mount Sinai in 1844 and then fully retrieved in 1859. This manuscript is also hailed to be of 4th century origin using paleography. That is, they looked at the handwriting and proclaimed it to be that old. What is unique about Codex Sinaiticus is that it's the most corrected Biblical manuscript in antiquity.

Codex Sinaiticus corrections. Over 27,000 corrections. It has additions and deletions, word substitutions, change in the order of words. It is an extremely unreliable manuscript. "on many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40, words are dropped...letters, words even whole sentences are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately canceled. That gross blunder, whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same word as the clause preceding, occurs no less than 115 times in the New Testament." I'm quoting from the Scrivener who is one of the scholars who used it to create our modern Greek New Testament.

Similar but different. The other characteristic between Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus is that even though they are deemed to be similar, there are in fact over 3,000 (3,036 to be exact) textual variations between the two.

See also

Summary on Alexandrian family. When they say that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are the oldest Greek New Testament manuscripts, don't believe them. There is no scientific proof to that claim. Worst still, the internal evidence are that these two primary manuscripts are corrupted texts, the most heavily edited, poor handwriting, and poor Greek grammar. You will note that the Catholic Church embrace these two documents because they can largely call them their own. When the first English Bible translation using these two manuscripts came out, the Revised Version. of 1881, the Catholic Church declared that "the new version will be the death knell of Protestantism. You see, it has been reported (i.e. theologian Philip Schaff who had strong Catholic leanings) that the Catholic Church will never use the KJV and could not do so without endangering her creed. Most Protestants don't know the strong disdain the Catholic Church has toward the KJV.

Byzantine text-type (see also: Textus-Receptus: Byzantine text-type). Also called the Majority Text (MT) and other names. This is the basis of the KJV and most of the early Protestant bibles including the Luther Bible, the William Tyndale New Testament, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation and others. What distinguishes Byzantine text-type family is volume of supporting Greek manuscripts—about 5,300 Byzantine texts and 24,000 fragments—that's why it's called the Majority Text because there is so much available. The distinct Byzantine readings tend to show a greater tendency toward smooth and well-formed Greek, they display fewer instances of textual variation between parallel Synoptic Gospel passages, and they are less likely to present contradictory or “difficult” issues of exegesis.

Textus Receptus. This term refers to the collection of Byzantine manuscripts first compiled by the Dutch Catholic scholar, priest and monk Desiderius Erasmus, in 1516 which ultimately became the source for the various Protestant translations including the KJV.

King James Bible. The positive side of the KJV is the use of superior Greek manuscripts. It just simply has better source material. The downside of the KJV is the archaic English language. The NKJV which is supposed to be the successor to the KJV is not a true King James Version. It doesn't use the Textus Receptus of the original KJV but an 8% subset of the Majority Text composed by a pro-Alexandrian group headed by Hermann von Soden. The Hebrew source for the Old Testament is also not the same. The title NKJV is really a misnomer. A better title for this version would have been the Thomas Nelson Bible who is the publisher of this bible. (Reference: Does the NKJV use the same texts as the KJV?)

The Case for Byzantine Priority. By Maurice A. Robinson. What it comes down to is history. If the Byzantine textform existed prior to the other textforms, then it takes priority and should be given first and foremost consideration.

EGW on R.V.

  • 22LtMs, Ms 188, 1907, par. 26 [Sermon/Thoughts on Revelation 22; Glendale, California, May 22, 1907]: They come to me, those that are copying my writings, and say, “Now here is the better revised words, and I think I will put that in.” Don’t you change one word, not a word. The revised edition we do not need at all. We have got the word that Christ has spoken Himself and given us. And don’t you in my writings change a word for any revised edition. There will be revised editions, plenty of them, just before the close of this earth’s history, and I want all my workers to understand, and I have got quite a number of them. I want them to understand that they are never to take the revised word, and put it in the place of the plain, simple words just as they are. They think they are improving them, but how do they know but that they may switch off on an idea, and give it less importance than Christ means them to have.

Translation bias. Translation bias is rampant in Bible translations, particularly with respect to the topic of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, no English Bible translation can be trusted. The only option is to learn Greek and study the original sources. In the words of Erasmus, ad fontes ("to the sources"). For most people this is impractical, so finding someone who has learned Biblical Greek will be very helpful.

Online Greek, Interlinear Bibles

Byzantine text-type History

The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine / Majority TextForm.

For over four-fifths of the New Testament, the Greek text is considered 100% certain, regardless of which texttype might be favored by any critic.[6] This undisputed bulk of the text reflects a common preexisting archetype (the autograph), which has universal critical acceptance. In the remaining one-fifth of the Greek New Testament, the Byzantine/Majority Textform represents the pattern of readings found in the Greek manuscripts predominating during the 1000-year Byzantine era.

There are approximately 1500 differences between any Receptus edition and either the present text or that of Hodges-Farstad. Nevertheless, all printed Receptus texts do approximate the Byzantine Textform closely enough (around 98% agreement) to allow a near-identity of reading between any Receptus edition and the majority of all manuscripts.

Majority Text. This statistical fact has led some simply to refer to this Textform as the "Majority Text." This misnomer, however, gives a false impression regarding the amount of agreement to be found among Byzantine manuscripts where places of variation occur. No two Byzantine-era manuscripts are exactly alike, and there are a good number of places where the testimony of the Byzantine-era manuscripts is substantially divided. In such places, the archetypical "Byzantine Textform" must be established from principles other than that of "number" alone.

Textus Receptus. A good summary of: What is the Textus Receptus? (Reference for the following:) There were approximately thirty distinct editions of the Textus Receptus made over the years. Each differs slightly from the others. Numerous men during the past four centuries have produced editions of the Textus Receptus; these editions bear their names and the years in which they were published. These include:

  • the work of Stunica as published in the Complutensian Polyglot (printed in 1514 but not circulated until 1522);
  • the Erasmus editions of 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535;
  • the Colinæus edition of 1534 which was made from the editions of Erasmus and the Complutensian Polyglot.
  • the Stephens editions (produced by Robert Estienne, who is also called Stephanus or Stephens) of 1546, 1549, 1550 and 1551;
  • the nine editions of Theodore Beza, an associate of John Calvin, produced between 1565 and 1604, with a tenth published posthumously in 1611;
  • the Elzevir editions of 1624, 1633 (the edition known for coining the phrase "Textus Receptus") and 1641.

Stephanus is best remembered for his edition of 1550. It followed the Erasmus editions of 1527 and 1535 and was the first edition to include marginal variant readings, which were collated from fourteen manuscripts and the Greek New Testament of the Complutensian Polyglot. It became one of the best known editions of the Textus Receptus. Called the "Royal edition", it was very popular in England and is still published today in the United States in the form of an interlinear which is sometimes referred to as the "Berry" text. This is a misnomer because George Ricker Berry simply added the "Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament" and a chapter entitled "New Testament Synonyms" to the edition of the Stephens 1550 text.

One of the most important editions of the Textus Receptus is the Beza edition of 1598. This edition, in addition to the Stephanus 1550 and 1551 editions, was used as the Greek basis of the Authorised Version of 1611. Beza collated and used numerous Greek manuscripts and printed editions in his work, and incorporated Jerome's Latin Vulgate and his own Latin and Greek text along with textual annotations.

Scrivener vs. Stephanus or Beza texts. There are approximately 190 differences between the Scrivener text and the Beza 1598. There are 283 differences between the Scrivener text and the Stephanus 1550. These differences are minor, and pale into insignificance when compared with the approximately 6,000 differences—many of which are quite substantial—between the Critical Text and the Textus Receptus.

The work of Maurice Robinson

United Bible Societies

The United Bible Societies (UBS) is a global fellowship of around 150 Bible Societies operating in more than 240 countries and territories. It has working hubs in England, Singapore, Nairobi and Miami. The headquarters are located in Swindon, England.

Founded in 1946, the mission of United Bible Societies is to make the Bible available and accessible to everyone who wants it, and to help people engage with its message in meaningful and relevant ways. It has provided nearly three-quarters of the world's full Bible translations and is the world's biggest translator, publisher and distributor of the Bible. Bible Societies carry out their work in partnership with all Christian Churches and many international non-governmental organisations. It has an observer status with the World Council of Churches and collaborates with the Catholic Biblical Federation as well as with several church organisations.

Paratext. UBS developed Paratext, the most important and widely used software for Bible translation. It performs many functions unique to the Bible translation task, and to the process of translating into a language whose writing system is still being developed. The text editor is indexed to the Biblical texts enabling powerful searching and checking from the very beginning of a translation effort. Paratext has many other cutting-edge features including collaboration tools that allow for translators to work from many different locations. Paratext is also integrated with the Digital Bible Library which allows for easy archiving and publishing of biblical texts. Paratext is currently being jointly maintained and developed with SIL International.

The United Bible Societies and Rome. The article details the Roman Catholic Church's history with the UBS. It goes back even before it was organized in 1946.

Dating manuscripts - Forgeries

The problem of dating these manuscripts

  • Paleography. Dating the manuscripts by analyzing the style of handwriting.
  • Forgery. Professional forgery of documents was a common practice throughout history. Particularly when it came to title deeds and charters of exemption. Quote from Britannica (on paleography), "There was fabrication of documents in medieval times on a considerable scale. . . . Monks occasionally descended to falsifications of title deeds and charters of exemption. About 1125 a monk of Soissons on his deathbed confessed to a career of professional forgery for gain and admitted fabricating charters for various monasteries, including Westminster Abbey."
  • Mass spectrometer radiocarbon dating. Can provide dates only for the papyrus or animal matter and not the ink used on it. The results are always given with an approximation of around a century.
  • Manuscripts that have been dated: some Dead Sea scrolls (the oldest being as old as 250 BC), P39 (P.Oxyrhynchus 1780), three NT items, P.Oxyrhynchus 1780 (P39), P.Oxyrhynchus 1353 (Gregory-Aland 0206), the “Wyman fragment” (Gregory-Aland 0220), and a Septuagint manuscript, P.Bodmer XXIV (Rahlfs 2110).
  • More on Carbon-14 Dating of Manuscripts.
  • Archaic Mark (Gregory-Aland 2427): A Story of a Modern Forgery. This manuscript was believed to be the earliest manuscript of Mark going back to the 1300's. Its text was closer to Codex Vaticanus than any other manuscript, which gave it such importance. So much so, that it was regarded as of the highest consideration in the work of modern translations. But chemical analysis of the ink in the illustrations of the manuscript in the 1980s proved it could not have been written earlier than the 19th century. Later textual analysis discovered the source to be a poor copy of Codex Vaticanus written in 1860 by Philipp Buttmann.

Appendix

Further reading

Textus Receptus vs. Majority Text

Bookbinding

Paraphrase Bible versions