YAHWEH's Congregation
At Jefferson
All praise unto our Father YHWH for His bountiful blessings
unto the saints at Victory Community.
Contact Raah Dawid YisraYah via E-Mail at:
thevoiceofvictory@[Link]
[Link]
or send a letter via mail to:
Raah Dawid YisraYah,
717 Miller Rd,
Jefferson, SC 29718, USA.
Let us hear from you,
843-658-6222.
Web Sites:
Main Website [Link]
Live Stream [Link]
Live Video [Link]/live-video/
Sisterhood [Link]
Fellowship [Link]
YouTube [Link]/user/yahvictory
2
The Textus Receptus
Contents:
Introduction 2
The Origin of the Textus Receptus 2
The History of the Textus Receptus 4
The Text of the Textus Receptus 6
Addendum I: The King James Version 8
Addendum II: The "New Textus Receptus" 12
3
Introduction
Textus Receptus, or "Received Text," (abbreviated TR)
is the name we use for the first published Greek text of the
New Testament. For many centuries, it was the standard
text of the Greek Bible. The name arose from the work of
the kinsmen Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir, who said of
their 1633 edition, "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus
receptum" -- "So [the reader] has the text which all now
receive."
The irony is that the Received Text is not actually a
single edition, but a sort of text-type of its own consisting of
hundreds of extremely similar but not identical editions. Nor
do any of its various flavours agree exactly with any extant
text-type or manuscript. Thus the need, when referring to
the Received Text, to specify which received text we refer
to.
If this all sounds complicated, it is because of the
complicated history of the Textus Receptus. Let's take it
from the beginning.
The Origin of the Textus Receptus
Although printing with movable type was in use no later
than 1456, it was many years before a Greek New
Testament was printed. This is not as surprising as it
sounds; the Greek minuscule hand of the late fifteenth
century was extremely complicated, with many diverse
ligatures and custom symbols. Cutting a Greek typeface
required the creation of hundreds of symbols -- far more
than a Latin typeface. Printers probably did not relish the
idea. (It is worth noting that the Complutensian Polyglot
invented a new type of Greek print for its edition.)
It was not until the early sixteenth century that Cardinal
Ximenes decided to embark on a Greek and Latin edition of
the New Testament -- the famous Complutensian Polyglot.
The New Testament volume of this work was printed in 1514
4
-- but it was not published until after 1520. This left a real
opportunity for an enterprising printer who could get out an
edition quickly.
Such a printer was John Froben of Basle. Apparently
having heard of the Complutension edition, he was
determined to beat it into print. Fortunately, he had the
contacts to pull this off.
Froben decided to approach Desiderius Erasmus, one
of the most notable (if rather humanistic) scholars of his
generation. The proposal appears to have been transmitted
on April 17, 1515. Work began in the fall of that year, and
the work was pushed through the press in February of 1516.
For a project that had taken fifty years to get started, the
success of Erasmus's edition (which contained his Greek
text in parallel with his own Latin version) was astonishing.
The first printing soon sold out, and by 1519 a new edition
was required. Three more would follow, each somewhat
improved over the last.
It is sad to report that such a noble undertaking was so
badly handled (all the more so since it became the basis of
Luther's German translation, and later -- with some slight
modifications -- of the English King James Version). The
speed with which the book went through the press meant
that it contained literally thousands of typographical errors.
What is more, the text was hastily and badly edited from a
few late manuscripts (see below, The Text of the Textus
Receptus).
A part of page 336 of Erasmus's Greek Testament, the
first "Textus Receptus."
Shown is a portion of John 18.
The History of the Textus Receptus
Erasmus's first edition was a great success; some 3300
copies of his first two editions were sold. The success of
Erasmus's edition soon called forth new Greek testaments,
all of them based largely on his. The first of these was
5
published by Aldus Manutius in 1518 -- but although it
contained an independent text of the Septuagint (the first
such to be printed), its New Testament text was taken
almost verbatim from Erasmus, including even the
typographical errors. Hence the first truly new publication
was Erasmus's own edition of 1519. This featured almost
the same text as the 1516 edition, but with the majority
(though by no means all!) of the errors of the press
corrected. It also features some new readings, believed by
Scrivener to come from 3eap (XII; classified by von Soden as
e: Kx a: I [K]; c: K).
Erasmus's third edition of 1522 contained one truly
unfortunate innovation: The "Three Heavenly Witnesses" in
1 John 5:7-8. These were derived from the recently-written
Codex 61, and (as the famous story goes) included by
Erasmus "for the sake of his oath." Sadly, they have been
found in almost every TR edition since.
There followed a great welter of editions, all slightly
different (based on such figures as I have seen, it would
appear that editions of the Textus Receptus typically vary at
between one hundred and two hundred places, though very
few of these differences are more than orthographic). None
of these editions were of any particular note (though the
1534 text of Simon Colinæus is sometimes mentioned as
significant, since it included some variant readings). It was
not until 1550 that the next great edition of the Textus
Receptus was published. This was the work of Robert
Stephanus (Estienne), whose third edition became one of
the two "standard" texts of the TR. (Indeed, it is Stephanus's
name that gave rise to the common symbol for the Textus
Receptus.) Stephanus included the variants of over a dozen
manuscripts -- including Codices Bezae (D) and Regius (L)
-- in the margin. In his fourth edition (1551), he also added
the verse numbers which are still used in all modern
editions. The Stephanus edition became the standard
Textus Receptus of Britain, although of course it was not yet
known by that name. (The esteem in which the Textus
Receptus was already held, however, is shown by
Scrivener's report that there are 119 places where all of
Stephanus's manuscripts read against the TR, but
6
Stephanus still chose to print the reading found in previous
TR editions.)
Stephanus's editions were followed by those of
Theodore de Bèza (1519-1605), the Protestant reformer
who succeeded Calvin. These were by no means great
advances over what had gone before; although Beza had
access to the codex which bears his name, as well as the
codex Claromontanus, he seems to have made little if any
use of them. A few of his readings have been accused of
theological bias; the rest seem largely random. Beza's
editions, published between 1565 and 1611, are
remembered more for the sake of their editor (and the fact
that they were used by the translators of the King James
Bible) than for their text.
The next great edition of the Textus Receptus is the
Elzevir text already mentioned in the Introduction. First
published in 1624, with minor changes for the edition of
1633, it had the usual minor variants from Stephanus (of
which Scrivener counted 287), but nothing substantial; the
Elzevirs were printers, not critics.
The Elzevir text, which became the primary TR edition
on the continent, was the last version to be significant for its
text. From this time on, editions were marked more by their
marginal material, as scholars such as Mill, Wettstein, and
later Griesbach began examining and arranging
manuscripts. None of these were able to break away from
the TR, but all pointed the way to texts free of its influence.
Only one more TR edition needs mention here -- the
1873 Oxford edition, which forms the basis of many modern
collations. This edition is no longer available, of course,
though some editions purport to give its readings.
Beginners are reminded once again that not all TR
editions are identical; those collating against a TR must
state very explicitly which edition is being used.
The Text of the Textus Receptus
Erasmus, having little time to prepare his edition, could
only examine manuscripts which came to hand. His haste
7
was so great, in fact, that he did not even write new copies
for the printer; rather, he took existing manuscripts,
corrected them, and submitted those to the printer.
(Erasmus's corrections are still visible in the manuscript 2.)
Nor were the manuscripts which came to hand
particularly valuable. For his basic text he chose 2e, 2ap, and
1r. In addition, he was able to consult 1eap, 4ap, and 7p. Of
these, only 1eap had a text independent of the Byzantine
tradition -- and Erasmus used it relatively little due to the
supposed "corruption" of its text. Erasmus also consulted
the Vulgate, but only from a few late manuscripts.
Even those who favor the Byzantine text cannot be
overly impressed with Erasmus's choice of manuscripts;
they are all rather late (see table):
Von Soden Classification
Manuscript Date
(in modern terms)
1eap XII e: family 1; ap: Ia3
1r XII Andreas
2e XII/XIII Kx (Wisse reports Kmix/Kx)
2ap XII Ib1
4ap XV
7p XI/XII O18
Not only is 1r an Andreas manuscript rather than purely
Byzantine, but it is written in such a way that Erasmus could
not always tell text from commentary and based his reading
on the Vulgate. Also, 1r is defective for the last six verses of
the Apocalypse. To fill out the text, Erasmus made his own
Greek translation from the Latin. He admitted to what he had
done, but the result was a Greek text containing readings
not found in any Greek manuscript -- but which were
faithfully retained through centuries of editions of the Textus
Receptus. This included even certain readings which were
not even correct Greek (Scrivener offers as an example
Rev. 17:4 ).
The result is a text which, although clearly Byzantine, is
not a good or pure representative of the form. It is full of
8
erratic readings -- some "Caesarean" (Scrivener attributes
Matt. 22:28, 23:25, 27:52, 28:3, 4, 19, 20; Mark 7:18, 19, 26,
10:1, 12:22, 15:46; Luke 1:16, 61, 2:43, 9:1, 15, 11:49; John
1:28, 10:8, 13:20 to the influence of 1eap), some "Western" or
Alexandrian (a good example of this is the doxology of
Romans, which Erasmus placed after chapter 16 in
accordance with the Vulgate, rather than after 14 along with
the Byzantine text), some simply wild (as, e.g., the inclusion
of 1 John 5:7-8). Daniel B. Wallace counts 1,838 differences
between the TR and Hodges & Farstad's Byzantine text (see
Wallace's "The Majority Text Theory: History, Methods, and
Critique," in Ehrman & Holmes, The Text of the New
Testament in Contemporary Research, Studies &
Documents, Eerdmans, 1995. The figure is given in note 28
on page 302.) This, it should be noted, is a larger number
than the number of differences between the UBS, Bover,
and Merk texts -- even though these three editions are all
eclectic and based largely on the Alexandrian text-type,
which is much more diverse than the Byzantine text-type.
Thus it will be conceded by all reputable scholars --
even those who favour the Byzantine text -- that the Textus
Receptus, in all its various forms, has no textual authority
whatsoever. Were it not for the fact that it has been in use
for so long as a basis for collations, it could be mercifully
forgotten. What a tragedy, then, that it was the Bible of
Protestant Christendom for close to four centuries!
Addendum I: The King James
Version
Authorized in 1604 and published in 1611, the King
James version naturally is based on the TR. When it was
created, there was no demand for critical editions. (Though
in fact the original KJV contains some textual notes. These,
like the preface, are usually suppressed in modern versions,
making the version that much worse than it is. In addition,
editions of the KJV do not print precisely the same text. But
this is another issue.)
9
Even accepting that the KJV derives from the TR, and
has most of its faults, it is reasonable to ask which TR it is
based on. The usual simplistic answer is Stephanus's or
Beza's. F.H.A. Scrivener, however, who studied the matter
in detail, concluded that it was none of these. Rather, it is a
mixed text, closest to Beza, with Stephanus in second place,
but not clearly affiliated with any edition. (No doubt the
influence of the Vulgate, and of early English translations, is
also felt here.) Scrivener reconstructed the text of the KJV in
1894, finding some 250 differences from Stephanus. Jay P.
Green, however, states that even this edition does not agree
entirely with the KJV, listing differences at Matt. 12:24, 27;
John 8:21, 10:16 (? -- this may be translational); 1 Cor.
14:10, 16:1; compare also Mark 8:14, 9:42; John 8:6; Acts
1:4; 1 John 3:16, where Scrivener includes words found in
the KJV in italics as missing from their primary text.
Since there are people who still, for some benighted
reason, use the King James Bible for Bible study, we
perhaps need to add a few words about its defects (defects
conceded by all legitimate textual critics, plus most people
who know anything about translations). This is not to deny
that it is a brilliant work of English prose; it is a brilliant work
of English prose. But it is not an adequate English Bible.
The first reason is the obvious textual one: It is
translated from the Textus Receptus. There was no good
alternative at the time, but we know now that it is simply a
bad text. This is true event if one accepts the Byzantine text
as original; the TR is not a good representative of that text-
form, and is even worse if one accepts any other text form,
or if one is eclectic.
The Old Testament suffers the same problem -- in some
ways, worse. The Hebrew text had hardly been edited at all
when the KJV was translated. Today, with more Hebrew
manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, various translations,
more ancient commentaries, and a better grasp of textual
criticism, we can establish a much better Hebrew text.
The lack of Hebrew scholarship at the time contributed
to an even greater problem with the Old Testament: The
translators didn't know what it meant. Textual damage
caused some of the cruxes; others arose from ignorance of
10
classical Hebrew. The translators often had to turn to the
translations in LXX or the Vulgate -- which often were just as
messed up as the Hebrew. Today, we have more samples
of ancient Hebrew to give us references for words; we have
knowledge of cognate languages such as Ugaritic and
Akkadian, and we have the tools of linguistics. There are still
unsolved problems in the Old Testament -- but they are far
fewer.
The same is true, to a lesser extent, of the New
Testament. Greek never entirely vanished from the
knowledge of scholars, as Hebrew did, but the language
evolved. At the time the KJV was translated, classical Greek
-- the Greek of Homer and the tragic playwrights -- was
considered the standard. Koine Greek -- the Greek of the
New Testament -- was forgotten; the Byzantine empire had
undergone a sort of Classic Revival. People referred to the
Greek of the New Testament as "the Language of the Holy
Spirit" -- and then sneered at its uncouth forms. Over the
past century and a half, the koine has been rediscovered,
and we know that the New Testament was written in a living,
active language. This doesn't affect our understanding of the
meaning of the New Testament as much as our increased
knowledge of Hebrew affects our understanding of the Old --
but it does affect it somewhat.
In addition, there is the translation style. The KJV was
created by six separate committees, with relatively little joint
effort and a relatively small body of prior work (this was
1604, after all; the committee from Cambridge couldn't just
buzz down to Westminster for the afternoon, e.g.). This
meant that there wasn't much standardization of vocabulary;
a word might be translated two or three or even half a dozen
different ways. Sometimes, of course, this was necessary
(as, e.g. with , "again," "from above" in John 3:3, 7,
31 -- a case where the KJV translators seem, ironically, to
have missed the multivalued meaning). But it is generally
agreed that that KJV used various renderings for solely
stylistic reasons; their translation was meant to be read
aloud. They produced a version that was excellent for these
purposes -- but, in consequence, much less suitable for
detailed study, especially, e.g., of Synoptic parallels, which
11
can look completely different when the KJV renditions are
set side by side.
Plus the committee was under instructions to stay as
close as possible to the previous standard, the so-called
Bishop's Bible, which in turn had been created based on the
Great Bible. And even it was derived largely from Tyndale's
work. The Great Bible had been created some 75 years
earlier, and Tyndale in the decades before that -- not long in
ordinary terms, but this was a time when English was
evolving fast. This heritage means that a number of the
features -- e.g. the use of you/ye/thou/thee/thy/thine -- was
actually incorrect even by the standards of the time, and its
influence came to produce a truly curious effect: "Thou,"
initially the second person singular pronoun, (as opposed to
"ye," the plural form, loosely equivalent to the American
Southernism "y'all") was briefly a form used to address a
social inferior, and then, under the influence of the KJV
itself, treated as a form of address to one deserving of high
dignity. This is genuinely confusing at best.
Finally, the KJV does not print the text in paragraphs,
but rather verse by verse. Readers can see this, but it's one
thing to know it and another to really read the text in that
light.
To be fair, the translators were aware of most of these
problems. The preface, in fact, urges "the Reader... not to
conclude or dogmatize upon this or that peremptorily." The
Old Testament, according to Alister McGrath, contained
6,637 marginal notes, most of them variant readings (more
notes than many modern translations, we should note). But I
have yet to find a recent printing of the KJV which includes
its marginal notes, let alone its preface.
And, of course, since the time of publication, the
language of the KJV -- already somewhat antiquated in its
time, based as it was largely upon Tyndale's translation --
has become entirely archaic.
In an aside, we might note that, at the time of its
publication, the KJV was greeted with something less than
enthusiasm, and for the first few decades of its life, the
Geneva Bible remained the more popular work; the Geneva
edition (unlike the other pre-KJV translations) remained in
12
print for more than thirty years after the KJV was published.
During the Commonwealth period (1649-1660), there was
talk of commissioning another new translation. It wasn't until
the KJV became quite venerable that it somehow assumed
an aura of special value -- even of independent canonicity.
Quite simply, while the King James Bible was a brilliant
work, and a beautiful monument of sixteenth century
English, it is not fit to be used as a Bible in today's world.
Addendum II: The "New TR"
The phrase "The New TR" is sometimes applied to
editions which threaten to dominate the field of textual
criticism. Thus the edition of Westcott & Hort was a sort of
"New TR" in the late nineteenth century, and in the twentieth
century the name is sometimes applied to the United Bible
Societies edition. In terms of number of copies printed this
description of the UBS text may be justified -- no complete
new edition has been issued since its publication -- but no
reputable textual scholar would regard it as the "final word."
Another sort of "New TR" is found in the Majority Text
editions of Hodges & Farstad and Robinson & Pierpont.
These are attempts to create a true Byzantine text (as an
alternative to the TR, which is a very bad Byzantine text),
but they have received relatively little critical attention --
less, probably, than they deserve (though few would
consider them to contain the original text). Thus they cannot
be considered truly "received" texts.
13
14
We praise our Abba YAHWEH for all that He is doing
and the hope that we have in His Son Yahshua MessiYah.
We would like to invite you to see Victory Community,
meet the brothers and sisters, hear YHWH's Word
expounded upon, read messages and many new articles on
our website at [Link]. Raah Dawid
YisraYah can also be heard live on our website
[Link] direct from our Tabernacle here
at Victory Community preaching on Sabbath morning at
11 A.M. and Wednesday teaching service at 7 P.M. EST.
Raah Dawid can be seen on our YouTube channel and on
UStream video at [Link]/live-video/. (All
times are Eastern USA) Visit our website often for current
events as Raah Dawid travels, our updated articles, new
messages, and current broadcast times.
15
