Textus Receptus
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Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is the name given to the first Greek-language text of the New Testament to be printed on a printing press. It was compiled by Dutch Catholic scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus in 1516 for his translation of the Bible into Greek, and later used as the basis for the translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale, for the original Luther Bible, and for most other Reformation-era translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text.
Erasmus' first edition of the Textus Receptus was prepared in haste. Typographical errors attributed to the rush to complete the work, not to mention the new invention (the printing press), abounded in the published text. Erasmus also lacked a complete copy of the book of Revelation and was forced to translate the last six verses back into Greek from the Latin in order to finish his edition.
Frederick Nolan, an eminent historian of the 19th century and a Greek and Latin scholar who researched Egyptian chronology, spent 28 years attempting to trace the Received Text to apostolic origins. He was an ardent advocate of the supremacy of the Textus Receptus over all other editions of the Greek New Testament, and argued that the first editors of the printed Greek New Testament intentionally selected the texts they did because of their superiority and disregarded other texts which represented other text-types because of their inferiority.
- It is not to be conceived that the original editors of the [Greek] New Testament were wholly destitute of plan in selecting those manuscripts, out of which they were to form the text of their printed editions. In the sequel it will appear, that they were not altogether ignorant of two classes of manuscripts; one of which contains the text which we have adopted from them; and the other that text which has been adopted by M. Griesbach.[1]
Regarding Erasmus, Nolan stated:
- Nor let it be conceived in disparagement of the great undertaking of Erasmus, that he was merely fortuitously right. Had he barely undertaken to perpetuate the tradition on which he received the sacred text he would have done as much as could be required of him, and more than sufficient to put to shame the puny efforts of those who have vainly labored to improve upon his design. [. . .] With respect to Manuscripts, it is indisputable that he was acquainted with every variety which is known to us, having distributed them into two principal classes, one of which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript. And he has specified the positive grounds on which he received the one arid rejected the other.[2]
It is now widely accepted by textual scholars that the selection of manuscripts available to Erasmus was quite limited — due partly to his time constraints, partly to geographic isolation before high-speed transit, and partly to the fact that many important texts were as yet undiscovered — being confined to a few late medieval texts that most modern scholars consider to be of dubious quality.[3]
With the third edition of Erasmus' Greek text (1522) the Comma Johanneum was included because a single 13th-century manuscript was found to contain it — though Erasmus expressed doubt as to the authenticity of the passage in his Annotations.
Popular demand for more complete Greek versions of the Bible led to a flurry of authorized and unauthorized editions in the early sixteenth century.
Although sometimes used to refer to other editions, the name "Textus Receptus" has been used in a specific manner to designate only two New Testament Greek versions: one produced by Parisian Robert Stephanus in 1550 and another produced by the Elzevirs in 1624 (reprinted in 1633). The name itself derives from a phrase contained in the publisher's preface to the 1633 edition of the Elzevirs' text, textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, translated "so you hold the text, now received by all." The two words, textum and receptum, were modified from the accusative to the nominative case to render textus receptus.
The majority of textual critical scholars have adopted an eclectic approach to the Greek New Testament, with the most weight given to the earliest extant manuscripts, which are mainly Alexandrian in character, thus breaking with the Textus Receptus in numerous places.
[edit] Notes
- ^ An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament; in which the Greek Manuscripts are newly classed; the Integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated; and the Various Readings traced to their Origin (London, 1815), ch. 1. The sequel mentioned in the text is Nolan's Supplement to an Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament; containing the Vindication of the Principles employed in its Defence (London, 1830).
- ^ ibid., ch. 5
- ^ Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 99.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Brother, Are You Saved? A discourse on Textus Receptus and the origin of scripture by Troy Organ, PhD
- Modern Versions and Ancient Manuscripts, an argument that the most ancient manuscripts are not as good as the TR]
- Details some problems with the various Texti Recepti and the King James Version
- A defense of the Textus Receptus and the King James Version
- God Wrote Only ONE Bible
- Is The King James Version Nearest To The Original Autographs?
- Which Bible Is Preserved Of God?