A Brief Look at the
Textus Receptus
by
G. W. and D. E. Anderson
http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/articles/tr-art.asp
In seeking translations for publication, the aim of the
Trinitarian Bible Society is to produce or select versions
of the New Testament "whose textual basis is as close as
possible to the ... Greek Received" text.1 "The Society uses
the form of the Greek text of the New Testament known as the
Textus Receptus or Received Text."2
These statements in the introductory material of the
Trinitarian Bible Society are well known to most of our
supporters. However, questions have arisen over the years
regarding the meaning and purpose of the Society's stance on
the Greek text. We would like to examine some of these
questions, in the hope of helping our supporters understand
better the Society's stand.
What is the importance of the Greek Text?
The question which puzzles some of our supporters is why we
need to concern ourselves with the Greek text at all. We
have the English Authorised Version -- an excellent Bible in
a language understood by millions around the world --
whereas Greek is not a worldwide language and the Greek of
the New Testament is known only to a few scholars.
So
why do we need the Greek text?
God in His providence chose to have the New Testament
written in Greek. As the translators of the Authorised
Version so aptly wrote, the Hebrew text of the Old Testament
and the Greek of the New "are the two golden pipes, or
rather conduits, wherethrough the olive branches empty
themselves into the gold. ... These tongues, therefore, (the
Scriptures, we say, in those tongues,) we set before us to
translate, being the tongues wherein God was pleased to
speak to his Church by his Prophets and Apostles".3 The
Westminster Divines, too, recognised the importance of the
original language texts, stating that it was these texts,
which "being immediately inspired by God, and by his
singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are
therefore authentical",4 are to be translated into other
languages. It is because God moved men to write His New
Covenant Word in Greek that we concern ourselves with the
text in this language.
Is
there only one Greek text?
No. The various books of the New Testament were written
individually and copied to be circulated amongst the
churches of the ancient world. In time God moved men to
combine these books into a single volume, the New Testament.
This volume and its parts were copied and recopied by hand
for centuries. Many manuscripts have been found over the
centuries in areas of the ancient Greek-speaking world, and
a few, less reliable, manuscripts have been discovered in
Alexandria, Egypt.
By the time of the development of the printing press in the
mid-15th century, there were many handwritten manuscripts
available. Over the next centuries, numerous men set about
collecting, combining and comparing the manuscripts in order
to have one complete Greek New Testament text to print. One
of the earliest of these is the text we know of as the
Textus Receptus or Received Text. This work has not stopped,
and today scholars are continuing to collect and collate
manuscripts in an effort to produce what they believe to be
a better Greek text. The most recent of these is the work,
based upon the less reliable manuscripts, published through
the United Bible Societies; this is commonly called the
Critical Text. For a number of reasons, expounded in other
publications of the Society (see below), we reject the
Critical Text and use the Textus Receptus as the basis for
our translation work.
What is the Textus Receptus?
Today the term Textus Receptus is used generically to apply
to all editions of the Greek New Testament which follow the
early printed editions of Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus of
Rotterdam (1469?-1536), a Roman Catholic humanist,
translated the New Testament into Latin and prepared an
edition of the Greek to be printed beside his Latin version
to demonstrate the text from which his Latin came. Erasmus
used six or seven Greek manuscripts (the oldest being from
the 10th century), combining and comparing them in a process
in which he chose the correct readings where there were
variants. On several occasions he followed the Latin and
included some of its readings in his text. This edition was
published in 1516. There was great interest in this Greek
text, and it is the Greek text for which the volume is
remembered. This New Testament was the first published
edition of a Textus Receptus family New Testament.
The term was first used, however, to refer to the edition of
the Greek New Testament published by the Elzevirs in 1633.
The preface to this edition, written by Daniel Heinsius,
includes the Latin phrase "textum ... receptum". Because of
this, the 1633 edition became known as the "Textus Receptus"
or the Received Text. This term has been expanded to include
numerous editions of the Greek New Testament which come from
the same Byzantine textual family representing the majority
of the handwritten Greek manuscripts before the 16th
century.
It needs to be remembered that the editions included in this
family of Greek New Testaments were printed volumes. The
Greek texts which preceded them were all hand-copied
manuscripts which were in turn copied from copies for many
hundreds of years. No two of the well over 5,000 manuscripts
which are known today agree 100% with each other. In other
words, the Textus Receptus was not printed from one
manuscript alone.
How many editions of the Textus Receptus are there?
There were approximately thirty distinct editions of the
Textus Receptus made over the years. Each differs slightly
from the others. There have been over 500 printings.
Why are various editions called 'Erasmus', 'Stephens',
etc.?
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 Colin¦us 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
Stephens 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.
Are the variations between the editions of the Textus
Receptus significant?
No. These variations include spelling, accents and breathing
marks, word order and other minor kinds of differences. As
it is stated in the preface to the Trinitarian Bible Society
edition of the Textus Receptus, "The editions of Stephens,
Beza and the Elzevirs all present substantially the same
text, and the variations are not of great significance and
rarely affect the sense".5
Which edition of the Textus Receptus does the
Trinitarian Bible Society print?
In the latter part of the 19th century, F. H. A. Scrivener
produced an edition of the Greek New Testament which
reflects the Textus Receptus underlying the English
Authorised Version. This edition, published posthumously in
1894, is currently published by the Society.
How does the Scrivener edition differ from the other
editions of the Textus Receptus?
F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-1891) attempted to reproduce as
exactly as possible the Greek text which underlies the
Authorised Version of 1611. However, the AV was not
translated from any one printed edition of the Greek text.
The AV translators relied heavily upon the work of William
Tyndale and other editions of the English Bible. Thus there
were places in which it is unclear what the Greek basis of
the New Testament was. Scrivener in his reconstructed and
edited text used as his starting point the Beza edition of
1598, identifying the places where the English text had
different readings from the Greek. He examined eighteen
editions of the Textus Receptus to find the correct Greek
rendering, and made the changes to his Greek text. When he
finished he had produced an edition of the Greek New
Testament which more closely underlies the text of the AV
than any one edition of the Textus Receptus.
How many differences are found between the Scrivener
text and the Stephanus and 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.
What is the position of the TBS regarding the Textus
Receptus?
As formalized in the amendment to our Constitution in 1992,
it is our aim to "produce or select versions whose textual
basis is as close as possible to the Hebrew Masoretic and
the Greek Received texts underlying both the English
Authorised Version and translations of comparable standing
made from these texts into other European languages at the
time of the Protestant Reformation". This statement
continues our long-held belief in the superiority and
excellence of the Textus Receptus. We look to God to help us
continue this testimony in the coming years of the new
millennium.
Where does this leave us today?
We can have the confident assurance that the Word of God as
it is found in the Textus Receptus New Testament is a
trustworthy representation of the text as originally given.
God has provided that many generations of believers have
printed editions of the Greek text and Bibles translated
from them. For the most part, the Textus Receptus follows
the Greek manuscripts which were in widespread use for
centuries. God continued to preserve His New Testament by
guiding His people to use a text which, although in a
printed form, nevertheless is God's holy Word from eternity.
May Christians reject the modern Greek texts and the
versions which follow them and use the Textus Receptus Greek
New Testament and the Authorised Version, which God has
blessed for many centuries!
________
1 The Constitution of the Society, p. 1.
2 An Introduction to the Society's Principles, p.
3.
3 The Translators to the Reader (London: TBS, 1998),
pp. 24-5.
4 Westminster Confession of Faith 1.8.
5 The New Testament: The Greek Text Underlying the
English Authorised Version of 1611, p. ii.
The Society publishes several articles dealing with the
Koine Greek New Testament, which are available from any of
our offices. These include:
A Textual Key to the New Testament (No. 100)
Why 1 John 5.7-8 is in the Bible (No. 102)
"God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3.16) (No. 103)
What today's Christian needs to know about the Greek New
Testament (No. 104)
Authenticity of the Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel
according to Mark (No. 106)
The Lord Gave the Word (No. 111)
Please visit our International Headquarters or our nearest
Branch for information on other publications of the
Trinitarian Bible Society. We also invite you to view our
other online articles.
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This article was originally published in the Quarterly
Record no. 546, January to March 1999.
Copyright © 1999 Trinitarian Bible Society
http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/articles/tr-art.asp
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