Hi, I'm David Bercot, and today we're going to be talking about what the early Christian writings reveal about the Textus Receptus and the New Testament text in general. As I'm sure you're aware, the Textus Receptus is the Greek text from which the King James version was translated. Now, I'm going to assume that all of you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, and that all Scripture has been verbally inspired by God. That is, the original writings, which are called autographs, were perfect and inerrant.
That's definitely what I believe. It's also what the early Christians believed. Let me just read you a representative quote from them on this point. The Christian apologist Athenagoras wrote, " We have the prophets as witnesses of the things we comprehend and believe. " These were men who declared things about God and the things of God. They were guided by the Spirit of God. It would be irrational for us to disbelieve the Spirit from God and to give heed to mere human opinions.
For he moved the mouths of the prophets like musical instruments. So I assume that there's no issue about the inspiration of the original scriptures and the inerrancy of the original writings. The issue is, did God inspire every person who made a copy of one of the Bible books to ensure that no mistakes were made in the process of copying it? In other words, we all agree that the book of John was inspired by God and inerrant.
But then when various persons made copies of the book of John to share with their church, did God inspire each of those copies so that the copy they made of the Book of John was exactly like the original. Now if there had been printing presses or copy machines back in those days, we wouldn't have to be dealing with this issue. But there weren't, the copies were made by hand.
A related question that we should also be thinking about, did God inspire every translator who has ever made a translation of the scriptures from the original languages into other languages? See, it doesn't help if every copy that was made was a perfect copy of the original, if every translation that was made was not a perfect translation of the original Greek or Hebrew. And again, if he didn't inspire all the translators, did he inspire some of them?
And if so, can we know for certain which translators he inspired and which ones he didn't? Those are questions just to be thinking about and that we'll address further on in our discussion. But first I want to talk about the New Testament manuscripts themselves. Now by manuscript, we mean a handmade copy of the original. Once you get to the invention of the printing press, then we don't refer to the printed copies as manuscripts.
Because of course the printed copies all read the same as the original type that was put on the press. So when textual critics refer to Greek manuscripts, they're talking only about handwritten manuscripts. When we get to the printing press, then that whole issue ends. Let's first talk about what's called the Byzantine text or the majority text. The Textus Receptus is not the same thing as the Byzantine or Majority Text, but it is a sample of a text within the Majority Text Family.
You see, the various manuscripts within the Majority Text family, they don't all read alike. They read very, very similarly, but there are variations between all of them. And the same thing is true of all of the other text families, like the Alexandrian. In truth, there are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of those 5,000 read exactly alike. No matter whether you're using the majority text, the Alexandrian text, the Western, whatever, no two read exactly alike.
Now, the supporters of the Byzantine text point out that the vast majority of the Greek manuscripts that we have fall within the Byzantine family, and that's why they call it the majority text. And that fact alone makes it definitely worthy of our consideration. Also, some of the characteristics of the Byzantine or majority text are as follows. Number one, it doesn't have as many problem passages as do some of the other text families.
For example, in the parallel accounts in the Gospels, the majority text verses tend to harmonize better than the verses in the Alexandrian. The Byzantine text contains fewer passages that are a bit difficult theologically or that are just hard to understand. In some cases, the grammar is a little bit better in the Byzantine text than say in the Alexandrian. Another characteristic of the Byzantine text is that it's nearly always longer than the Alexandrian.
And those who support the Byzantine texts feel that the copyists who made the Alexandrian text left out different words and verses. So at first glance, the Byzantine text would seem to have everything going for it. The vast majority of Greek manuscripts follow it, and when I say vast majority, about 90% of them. Number two, it has fewer difficult passages, arguably meaning that it's more complete. Now throughout our discussion, I'm going to be referring to the majority text, primarily by the term Byzantine text.
And that's because it is a neutral term. We want to look at the evidence and not use terms that purposely promote one text over another one or purposely disparage another text. So Byzantine is a neutral term, referring to a geographical region, just as does Alexandrian and Western. Now persons who support the King James as being the one true Bible, or at least the most preferable Bible, would all fall in the camp of the Byzantine text or majority text people. The other camp, let's talk about it.
These are the ones who support the critical text. Now the vast majority of textual scholars fall into this camp. Of course, being in the majority doesn't make you correct. Now most textual scholars would categorize all New Testament manuscripts as falling into one of four major families. First, there's the Western Text family. And they believe that the Western Text was used widely in Italy, Gaul, and North Africa.
And the quotations of many of the early Christian writers follow the Western text, such as those of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, who all lived in the west, but likewise the quotations of Tatian who lived in the East. The old Latin versions of the New Testament that were used throughout the west also reflect this Western text. That's why it's been given that geographical designation. Now the textual scholars say that the Western text contains a lot of paraphrasing.
Sentences seem to be freely changed, added, or omitted. They say that the Western text often contains passages that were not part of the original text. Another text family that they recognize is the Alexandrian family of texts. Now most textual scholars today consider the Alexandrian text to be the most faithful in preserving what the New Testament originally said. Now some of the characteristics of the Alexandrian text are its brevity. It is shorter than both the Western text and the Byzantine text.
And it's not nearly as grammatically polished as the Byzantine text. Now the two chief witnesses to the Alexandrian text are the oldest two complete New Testament manuscripts we have. Those are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. These are parchment manuscripts that date back to the middle of the 4th century. That would be around the year 350 AD. Now when I use the term codex, that's CODEX, that means basically a book rather than a scroll.
The early Christians actually had a significant impact on the use of the book form versus the scroll form. Because the copies that they made of the New Testament, at least the ones that we have, are always in the codex or book format that we're used to rather than in the scroll that you have to unroll to read. Now, in addition to these two oldest complete texts that we have, there are numerous papyrus manuscripts that date back as early as the second century, maybe as early as like the year 110 AD.
And these would also reflect the Alexandrian text. But these very early ones would only be of a few passages, a few pages of the New Testament. We don't have the complete New Testament that far back. So this is what we basically come down to. The Byzantine text has going for it, the fact that the majority of Greek manuscripts follow it. I said 90% of them do. The Alexandrian text has going for it that the oldest Greek manuscripts and the oldest papyrus fragments support it.
I said earlier, I prefer to use the term Byzantine text as a neutral term. If we're going to say majority text, then we should also then, in contrast, say the oldest text, if we're going to be fair. The majority text versus the oldest text. But to put them both on a neutral term, let's say the Byzantine text versus the Alexandrian or versus the Western. Now, there's a third text family called the Caesarean. Now, not all scholars even agree that there is such a text family.
It's thought to have originated in Egypt, and some have conjectured that maybe Origen took it with him to Caesarea, because later in his life, he settled in Caesarea. Now, this Caesarean text family was used by Origen, by Eusebius, by Cyril of Jerusalem, and by the church in Armenia. Now it seems to be a mixture of both the Western and the Alexandrian. In other words, some passages follow the Alexandrian, other verses follow the Western.
And then the fourth family, from what these scholars say, is the Byzantine Text family. They say that it's the latest of all of the text family, that the other three are earlier. Scholars also believe that it is a conflated text. That is, they feel that the copyists who made the Byzantine text had in front of them both the Western text and the Alexandrian text. Now let's say for example that the Alexandrian text says that Jesus walked on water.
But if you look in that same passage in the Western text, it says that Christ walked on the water. Well, the Byzantine text will invariably say Jesus Christ walked on the water. In other words, it'll put the two together to make sure nothing is left out. Okay, now what about the fact that 90% of the texts follow the Byzantine text? Why doesn't that sway the various textual scholars? Well, first they point out that these 90% are all manuscripts of a relatively late date. They date from the 9th to the 15th century.
So they say they're of little value in proving how the original New Testament writings read because they're so late in origin. If that's how it had always read, how come the earliest manuscripts don't follow it? So how do scholars explain why the majority of the later texts follow the Byzantine text family?
Well, the view of most textual scholars is that the state church that was ushered in with Constantine was able for the first time to control the copying of Bible manuscripts, and they were able to enforce a uniform text type. I mean, after the Council of Nicaea, the church was organized on a very different basis than what it was in the early centuries. You had bishops and then metropolitans over bishops who had oversight of all of the individual churches.
And you also had the introduction of monasteries where you had copyists, monks that is, who copied these Bible texts under the supervision of the church. And they say that these monks compared the Western and Alexandrian and combined their wording so that nothing would be left out. Also that they smoothed over any grammatical problems or any passages that seemed to conflict, they would make them harmonize. Well, in a nutshell, that's what the two sides hold to.
Before going any further, I think we can reasonably ask the question, well, what differences are we talking about between the Byzantine text and the Alexandrian text? Well, thankfully, we're mainly talking about very minor things. The addition or deletion of a pronoun or various modifying words. Things like that. The vast majority of these differences are very insignificant.
There are, however, a few larger passages that appear in the Western text and in the Byzantine text that are not there in the Alexandrian text. But there's only a few of those. We can count them really on the fingers of one hand. One of them is the last sentence of the Lord's Prayer. In the King James, it says, " For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. " Now that phrase is missing from the earliest Greek manuscripts that we have.
It's also missing in the quotations of both Tertullian and Cyprian who wrote a lot about the Lord's Prayer. Okay, another example would be the passage about the woman who was accused of adultery, and Jesus said, " Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. " That's found in the Byzantine text. It's not found in the Alexandrian text. The last 12 verses of Mark, as they appear in the King James Bible, those are in the Byzantine text, but they're not in the Alexandrian text.
Another example would be verse 4 of John chapter 5, which concerns the pool at Bethesda, where people would go down for healing. And in the Byzantine text, it states that an angel would come down and stir the waters before people would come in and then they would be healed. Now, none of those four affect Christian doctrine in any way whatsoever. So even the larger passages where there are variations, they don't affect Christian doctrine.
Now, there is a unique passage that's in the Textus Receptus that I should talk about. Now I mentioned the Textus Receptus, which is simply Latin for received text, falls within the Byzantine text family. However, it contains a passage that isn't found in most of the Byzantine text manuscripts. It's rather unique to the Textus Receptus. And that's 1 John 5:7, where in the King James it says, " For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
" Now that sentence doesn't appear anywhere in the Alexandrian text or in the Western text, and it doesn't appear in most manuscripts of the Byzantine text either. Now obviously that affects Christian doctrine on the Trinity, but Christians believed in the Trinity long before that passage was even around.
When all of the great arguments were going on about the Trinity in the days of Athanasius, no one quoted that passage, which if they had known about it, they certainly would have, it would have certainly strengthened their hand. So belief in the Trinity doesn't depend upon that passage. Well do the early Christian writing shed any light on this issue? Yes, in fact they do. In fact, they shed quite a lot of light on it.
To me, the main thing that the early Christian writings reveal is that nearly all of the major variances in the New Testament Greek text were around before the year 200. Just for example, let's take the things that I mentioned, these larger items that are in the Byzantine text, but are missing from the Alexandrian text, such as the angel stirring the water at the Pool of Bethesda. Well, Tertullian makes reference to that in one of his writings written about the year 198.
Tatian's Diatessaron, which is a harmony of the Gospels written about the year 160, it includes the last 12 verses of Mark that are in the Byzantine, but not in the Alexandrian text. And Irenaeus quotes from those last 12 verses as well, and he wrote about the year 170 or 180 AD. Eusebius states that Papias, who lived around the year 125 AD, mentions the account of the woman accused of adultery.
And the Didache, written sometime between the year 70 and 125 AD, it includes that ending to the Lord's prayer: " For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. " Amen. So those variations were all around before the year 200. So what does that tell us? Well, back to our original question. Did God inspire every person who made a copy of one of the New Testament books to ensure that no mistakes were made in the process of copying?
Well, the answer is obviously no, because you have variation before the year 200. Well, what about my second question? Did God inspire some of the copyists? And if so, can we know for certain which ones that he inspired? Now, of course, I can hardly say for certain that he didn't inspire any copyists, but I can say for certainty that the early Christians never claimed that he had. So if we claim that he inspired the copyists, then we're making a claim that the people closest to the apostles never made.
And if he had inspired one of the copyists, but not the other ones, the early Christians had no way of knowing which was the inspired and which one wasn't, which was the original, and which was an error. So is it reasonable to think that we, living 1800 or nineteen hundred years later, know something that the Christians who lived right after the apostles didn't know?
And they certainly had access to hundreds of manuscripts that were just one generation or two removed from the apostles that are no longer in existence today. So what the early Christian writings tell us is that we shouldn't be so certain of our position, whichever side we're on, whether we support the critical text or the Byzantine text. We don't have any business making dogmatic claims because the very people who were in a position to make such dogmatic claims never made any.
I mentioned that these variations that are found in the Byzantine text can be found in writings before the year 200. On the other hand, you can find quotations before the year 200 that fit the Alexandrian text. For example, Tertullian wrote a lengthy discussion of the Lord's prayer going passage by passage, and he never mentions Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.
It's in the Didache, but it obviously was not in the Bible that Tertullian used, or Cyprian, or Origen, who also wrote on this subject. I think the bottom line is, we don't really know. And if God felt it was essential that we do know, he would have made certain there wouldn't have been these variations right from the beginning. Now we can make educated guesses as to how the original autograph read based on certain principles of textual criticism, but really they're still just educated guesses.
Well, what about the Byzantine text? What do the early Christian writings reveal? Well, I think anybody who has read the early Christian writings all the way through would have to honestly admit that what people call the majority text was certainly not the majority text during the first 300 years of Christianity. Because if it was, then people would have been quoting from it.
This idea of, well, oh yeah, this was the Bible that was used, and that's why we don't have any early manuscripts, because they were all used and they wore out. Well, okay, that's a reasonable conjecture. But then if that were true, then all of these early Christian writers who lived in various parts of the world, who had no connection with each other other than that they believed in Jesus Christ, then the majority of their quotations would have fit the Byzantine text, but the majority of their quotations do not.
In fact, I have not been able, nor has any textual scholar been able to find even one quotation from the early Christian writers that fits the Byzantine text where that text differs both from the Western and from the Alexandrian. In other words, the early Christian writings would support either the Western or the Alexandrian, but they would not support the Byzantine, which tends to be a conflation of the two. Now again, none of the essentials of Christianity turn on these matters.
These differences didn't bother the early Christians one iota. In fact, Origen seems to be the only person who took the trouble to try to make some comparisons and to try to determine how the original must have read. It was of little concern to most Christians, because it didn't affect the fundamentals of Christianity. And where a certain text family would read a little different on something that would affect a doctrine, never does that doctrine depend upon that verse alone.
It would only be one additional verse if it was in the original, but never does a doctrine turn on just one verse that can be found in one of these texts, but not in another one. Now let's talk about some of the principles of textual criticism that scholars use. Something you should realize is that today's textual scholars don't automatically follow the Alexandrian text, even though they think that as a text family, that it's the most dependable. Instead, what they use is what's referred to as the critical text.
That is, they take the New Testament manuscripts and look at them verse by verse, and then based on various principles, they decide how that verse most likely read in the original. One principle they use is that the most difficult reading is preferable. Now that would seem to go against common sense. It would seem like it should be the other way around.
But their basic rationale is that all of the changes that were made in the various texts were made on purpose, or at least the majority of them were made on purpose. Now that may or may not be true, but given that assumption, then the more difficult rendering is preferable because nobody is going to purposely change a passage that reads very smoothly and make it read more difficultly. An example of that would be in the first chapter of John, where the Alexandrian text refers to Jesus as the only begotten God.
Now that would have been a very harmonious reading to the early Christians. They used that expression many times. But after the various Trinitarian debates in the 4th century, that term fell out of use. You don't hear anyone use that today, although it is exactly what the Nicene Creed says, that he was God, begotten of God. Jesus is true God, but He's the only begotten God being generated from the Father.
And so critics say, well see, they took that, " The Only Begotten God, " and then other variations said " The Only Begotten Son, " so they went with the Only Begotten Son, because that was the easiest one to use and would cause less controversy. Okay, another principle they use is that the shorter rendering is preferable. Again, no one is going to purposely leave something out of a text, but someone may purposely add something.
For example, the ending at the Lord's Prayer, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. As I mentioned, that's found in the Didache, and it may be how they were praying the prayer in their churches. And so it would be natural for someone to just add that in there because that's how the prayer went the way they were used to saying it. But it would have been strange for someone to have taken that out on purpose. Okay, a third principle is the less harmonious rendering is preferable.
If Matthew says something or other, and Luke says something different in some manuscripts, but in some manuscripts he says exactly the same. They assume that the one that was most likely the original is where they read differently, because no one's going to purposely change it to make them contradict, but they would intentionally change it to make them harmonize. And then fourth, the less polished grammatical construction is preferable. And again, the same principle.
No one's going to purposely change a well-constructed Greek sentence and put it into poor Greek, but someone might take a Greek sentence that was written poorly and put it into more polished Greek. Now, I have mixed feelings about these principles. They make sense if the changes that appear in the text were made on purpose. On the other hand, my guess is that most changes that happened, at least the ones before the year 300, were in there by accident.
In which case, all four of those principles would be just the opposite. If the mistakes were made by accident rather than changes that were made on purpose, well then the more polished is more active to be correct, that someone made a mistake and ended up making it less polished, that originally they harmonized, but because somebody miscopied something, now they don't. No one is going to accidentally add something to a text, but they might accidentally leave it out, skip a line when they were copying.
And again, no one is going to accidentally make a difficult passage into one that reads smoothly, but they might accidentally copy a passage that reads smoothly, and because they leave out a word or two, they make it more difficult. So to me, it's a toss-up. It all depends upon your underlying assumptions.
And that's why I believe we can't just simply throw out the Western text and the Byzantine text and say, " Okay, the Alexandrian text is it, " which even the scholars don't, like you say, they look at all of them and they go with that principle. But I think if we want to be spiritually and intellectually honest, we have to acknowledge that it's extremely unlikely that the original autographs read just like the Byzantine text.
If so, there would be some quotations from the early Christian writers that fit it where it differs from the other. But as I said, it's the other way around. Where it differs from either the Western or the Alexandrian, there are no early Christian quotations that match it. So I do think that the critics are correct in saying that the Byzantine text is in itself somewhat of a critical text.
That they were looking at the Western and the Alexandrian and the Caesarean one, if in fact there was a separate Caesarean family. And then trying to harmonize them and again, conflating them. If something is in the Western but not in the Alexandrian, they would add it. If something was in the Alexandrian, not in the Western, they would add it. If something was unpolished in, say, the Western, but polished in the Alexandrian, then they would go with the Alexandrian, or vice versa.
So I think what we do have in the Byzantine text is the first critical text, but based on entirely different principles. And I think just on that basis, it has considerable merit. Because we can be quite certain when we read the Byzantine text that nothing has been left out. That everything the Western Christians were reading and everything the Alexandrian or Eastern Christians were reading is there in the text. We aren't missing anything.
On the other hand, it may be fuller than what the original was, and it may read a little bit more smoothly than the original. But we do have a text that I think has considerable merit on that basis.
Now where the King James translation differs from the Byzantine text and from the others, then again, if we're really interested in truth, instead of just upholding a position that we grew up with, if we're really seeking after truth, then I think the only honest position is to say we cannot support the King James, where it differs even from the Byzantine text, let alone from the Western and the Alexandrian. Before we go any further, there is one thing I do want to clarify.
I've been speaking a lot about the differences between the Byzantine text and the Alexandrian text, or the critical text. And this might give the impression that there is this huge difference between these text families. But that would be a very wrong impression. Did you know that actually 85% of the time, the Byzantine text and the Alexandrian texts read exactly the same. And for the remaining 15% where there are differences, most of these differences are extremely minor.
If it was any other book than the Bible, no one would even take notice of most of these differences. They're that insignificant. The second point I want to make sure that you understand is that whatever camp people happen to be in, they're basing their views on assumptions. As we've already mentioned, the critical text camp are assuming that changes in the New Testament text were made intentionally in order to make the reading smoother or to clarify a doctrinal issue or something like that.
But as I mentioned before, it's just as likely that changes came into the text because of errors. They were unintentional. And if that's the case, then it throws out so many of the basic assumptions of textual criticism that are used today.
Also, the critical text camp are assuming that the state church worked to produce a uniform Greek text throughout the Greek-speaking church, and that that is the origin of the Byzantine text and why the majority of the manuscripts, even though they're later ones, follow the Byzantine text. And that may be true. It's a reasonable inference. But there's no specific historical evidence that this actually happened. It's an assumption.
Now, similarly, the King James people, the people in the Byzantine text or majority text camp, make their assumptions as well. They assume that from the very beginning, the Greek manuscripts read just like the Byzantine text family reads today. And yet they can't produce any manuscripts of this type earlier than the 9th century. What they say is, well, all of the earlier ones got worn out because they were constantly being used. Well, that's not an unreasonable assumption, but it is an assumption.
There's no specific evidence to support that. So what I'm saying is that there's really no grounds for either camp to get on their high horses and begin denigrating the other camp, or accusing them of either being ignorant or being heretics out to destroy Christianity. And there is certainly no historical evidence of some kind of satanic conspiracy at work here, like a lot of the popular tracts and books want to portray.
As I said earlier, most of the significant variations between the Western and Alexandrian text types were around before the year 200. And some of the Orthodox early Christian writers quote from one text family and other Orthodox early Christian writers quote from another text family. So where's the conspiracy? Where is there any evidence that Satan was at work here? There simply is none.
Up until now, I've been speaking about the Byzantine or Majority Text family, and I've actually said very little about the Textus Receptus itself. Now some of the advocates of the Textus Receptus, which is the Greek text from which the King James version was translated, make all kinds of fanciful claims about the Textus Receptus.
For example, one pamphlet I've read claims that Constantine brought about the corruption of the Greek text, and that the faithful Christians who wouldn't go along with Constantine hid out in the mountains and hills, and they preserved the original New Testament text known as the Textus Receptus. And then this Textus Receptus eventually passed down to the Waldensians who produced a Bible from it. And then the Reformers used this old original text for their translations.
Well, that makes a nice story, but it's hardly the truth. The Waldensians did produce their own Bible translation, but it was a translation of the Latin Vulgate. They didn't translate it from Greek, they translated it from Latin.
Now, centuries after the beginning of the Waldensians, the Reformers in Geneva, Switzerland, not happy with the Bible that the Waldensians were using, made a new translation for them that would have been from the same text type, the Textus Receptus, that all of the Reformation era Bibles were based on. But this was a new translation made in the 1500s. It's not what the Waldensians had been using before that time. Actually, we know the exact origin of the Textus Receptus.
It's the Greek text that was compiled by Erasmus in the early 16th century. Erasmus, as you no doubt know, was a Roman Catholic scholar and a Christian humanist. He was truly one of the most brilliant men of his day. But he produced his Greek text rather hurriedly, and he had only a few manuscripts to work with when he produced his Greek text. He had nothing like the thousands of manuscripts that are available to textual scholars today.
In fact, Erasmus originally couldn't find any manuscript that contained the entire Greek New Testament. Therefore, he had to piece together several different manuscripts. He primarily relied upon two Greek manuscripts that date from the 12th century. So these weren't ancient texts at all, they were medieval texts. But those two manuscripts didn't read exactly alike, so Erasmus had to choose which rendering to go with.
However, he had only one manuscript for the Book of Revelation, and it was missing the final page that contained the last six verses of Revelation. So for the last six verses, he went to the Latin Vulgate and translated the Latin back into Greek. But his rendition of these last six verses are not found in any Greek manuscript anywhere. Now having grown up with the Latin Vulgate, Erasmus was used to reading in Acts chapter 9 verses 5 and 6, the words, " It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.
" And he trembling and astonished said, " Lord, what will thou have me do? " And I'm very familiar with that verse, and no doubt you are, because it's in the King James Bible. However, those words could not be found in Acts chapter 9 in any of the Greek manuscripts that Erasmus had. So he added those words from the Latin Vulgate, just as he did the last six verses of Revelation. He translated the Latin into Greek.
But nobody has been able to find a Greek manuscript anywhere that contains those words in the ninth chapter of Acts. Like I say, their origin is in the Latin Vulgate, not in any Greek text. So the Textus Receptus is itself a form of critical text. Erasmus had to decide which reading to choose from between several manuscripts that he had. And as I've mentioned, he occasionally pulled a reading from the Latin Vulgate.
In fact, he published three different versions of his Greek text, and it's his third edition, the edition of 1522, that's the basis of the Textus Receptus. But now Erasmus never called his text the Textus Receptus, nor did anyone else in his day. Actually, that name was given a century after Erasmus produced his text by a printer named Abraham Elsevier, who stated in the Latin preface to his edition of Erasmus ' text, he said, " So the reader has the text which all now receive.
" Writing it in Latin, it basically comes to the text we've all received, the Textus Receptus, and that's where the name was taken from. But now his edition was actually a modified version of Erasmus ' third printed text. It differed in hundreds of places from Erasmus ' text, but these differences are all fairly minor.
At the same time, back in the year 1550, a Bible scholar Robert Stephanus published a modified edition of Erasmus ' text, and it was his third edition that was the primary basis for the King James version, not the Textus Receptus that was published and used on the main continent. So actually, there are two different texts that are referred to as the Textus Receptus, and that term itself wasn't coined until the 17th century. Now both of these textus receptaces are fairly similar, but they're not exactly the same.
So those are the simple facts about the Textus Receptus. There's nothing mysterious or even ancient about it. It was a product of textual criticism, just as is the critical text of today. The only difference is that Erasmus had only a few Greek manuscripts to work with, and they were all very late medieval manuscripts, unlike today's textual scholars. Now it's important to remember that the Textus Receptus is not the same thing as the Byzantine text or the majority text.
It falls within the Byzantine text family, but it doesn't necessarily follow the majority readings throughout. I've mentioned, for example, the last verses of the Book of Revelation and that passage in Acts chapter 9. Those aren't found in any Greek texts anywhere. 1 John 5:7 that reads in the Textus Receptus, " For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
" Actually, Erasmus put that in there over his own objections, because that had been in the Latin Vulgate of his day and people were used to having that. But it is not a majority text or Byzantine text reading. Most of the Byzantine text manuscripts do not have that passage in it, nor does the Alexandrian or the Western. In fact, it's not found in any Greek text older than about the 14th or 15th century. And even then, only a handful of them contain it.
As I said, Erasmus took it from the Latin Vulgate, and yet even it was not in the original Latin Vulgate. It was something added even later in the Latin Vulgate. And yet it's so surprising that some conservative Christians today attack any translation of the Bible that omits that verse, even though the historical evidence is so clear that this wasn't really a part of John's first letter.
The irony is that there is no Greek manuscript anywhere in the world that reads word for word, letter for letter, as does the Textus Receptus. And the reason, as I said, is that it was a critical edition composed by Erasmus, basing it on more than one manuscript and adding a few elements from the Latin Vulgate. Now I'm not disparaging the Textus Receptus when I say that, because you could say the exact same thing about the critical text that is used today.
Whether we're speaking of the Westcott and Hort text of the late 1800s, or the Nestle Aland text that is used today, there is not a Greek manuscript anywhere that reads like they read either, because they're a composite. There are critical texts made by comparing other texts. So it isn't faulting the Textus Receptus to say that, but we need to be honest and recognize that that is what it is.
And so when people make fanciful claims that this is exactly how it read when Matthew and Paul wrote it, well that's absurd when there's no manuscript in existence that reads exactly like that. Now I want to talk a little bit about Origen and the Textus Receptus. The usual claim that is made by King James Only People is that Origen was behind the Alexandrian text. And he's usually painted as somebody who was corrupting the church and this evil heretic, and he produced this corrupted text type.
For example, a little tract entitled New Eye Opener says this: " Any version of the Bible that does not agree with the Greek Textus Receptus from which the King James Bible was translated in 1611 is certainly to be founded upon corrupted manuscripts. Origen, being a textual critic, is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows he changed them to agree with his own human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas.
Thus, through deceptive scholarship of this kind, certain manuscripts became corrupt. Evidently from this source, our modern revised version Bibles and paraphrases have come. Well that's quite a claim to make about a person, and I'm going to guess that the man or woman who wrote that tract has probably never read any of Origen's writings. Now it is true that Origen was interested in textual criticism. But that's not an evil thing.
In his day, he couldn't help but notice that there were variations in the different Greek manuscripts that were being used in the churches. He was probably more aware of it than a lot of Christians in his day because he did travel a bit and he had a lot of interchange with other Christians throughout the world. But neither the Western or the Alexandrian texts came from Origen.
Some textual critics think that the Caesarean text perhaps originated with Origen, or at least from the text that he took with him to Caesarea. But the Caesarean text plays no major role in textual criticism today. Now, Origen sometimes quotes from a text type that seems to fall within the Alexandrian text, but many of his quotes fit the Western text type. There is absolutely no historical evidence that Origen had anything to do with the formation of the Alexandrian text or even the promotion of it.
In fact, we now have hundreds of papyrus manuscripts that date before Origen was even born, that read similar to the Alexandrian text. So that is a totally groundless accusation. Now I share many of the same sentiments as the King James only people do when it comes to God's Word, that it is inerrant. But I'm deeply saddened by their tendency to make these kind of groundless accusations against people, speaking of things that they know so little about.
In fact, the irony is that Origen did have some impact on the Textus Receptus, and through that on the King James version. But the Textus Receptus and the King James follow Origen on these matters, while modern Bibles like the NIV don't follow Origen. Let me give you two specific examples. I'm going to first read to you a passage from Origen's commentary on the Gospel of John. And in this, he talks about John chapter 1 verse 28. Now he quotes John 1:28 this way.
" These things were done in Bethabara, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. " Then he says, " I am aware that the reading found in almost all the copies is these things were done in Bethany. " He says, " Moreover, this appears to have been the reading at an earlier time. However, I am convinced that we should not read Bethany, but Bethabara, for I have visited the places in order to investigate. " Now Bethany is 15 Stadia, which would be about 1.8 miles from Jerusalem.
And the River Jordan is about 180 stadia. It's 21.5 miles distant from it. Okay, as we said, Origen was a textual critic, not in a negative sense, but trying to find out what the Scriptures originally said because there was so much variation in his day. And he says most of the Bibles, nearly all of them in his day, read that these things were done in Bethany, but he says that should be Bethabara. So now, how do you think the King James reads? Well, let me read it to you from the King James, John 1:28.
These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. Now let me read to you from the NIV. It says, " This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan where John was baptizing. " So you see, the Byzantine text and the Textus Receptus and the King James, they end up following Origen, where he criticizes the text and says he thinks the text in his day is in error. And the NIV follows the Bethany reading, the one that Origen criticized. Let me give you another example.
Reading again from one of his commentaries, he says, " Thus we see that he who aims at a complete understanding of the Holy Scriptures must not neglect the careful examination of the proper names in it. In the matter of proper names, the Greek copies are often incorrect. In the Gospels, one might be misled by their authority. The event about the swine, for example, is said to have taken place in the country of the Gerasenes. Now Gerasa is a town of Arabia, and it has neither a sea nor a lake.
The evangelists would not have made a statement so obviously and demonstrably false. For they were men who informed themselves carefully of all matters connected with Judea. But in a few copies I have found into the country of the Gadarenes. So he's saying that most of the texts in his day read that the event where Jesus cast out the demons and let them go into the herd of swine, that it took place in the country of the Gerasenes. But he says it should say the country of the Gadarenes. That's from Mark 5:1.
Let me read to you what the King James says. It says, " And they came over onto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes. " So the King James, based on the Textus Receptus, follows Origen. Now let me read to you from the NIV, Mark 5:1. It says they went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. So in short, Origen actually influenced the Byzantine text and thereby the Textus Receptus, not the Alexandrian text.
Nobody has come up with a single statement where he criticized the reading and he was supporting the reading of the Alexandrian. Where he disagrees with the reading, he's disagreeing with the Alexandrian text. And as I said, the Byzantine text follows Origen and thereby the King James does. But his statements also show that the majority text in his day, about the year 230 when he wrote those commentaries, was not the majority text of the later centuries.
Because the majority of the Greek manuscripts now read Gadarenes instead of Gerasenes. But that wasn't so in his day according to the testimony. Now depending on which side of the fence you're on, what I've been seeing has perhaps made you very uncomfortable. In fact, it maybe has made you very upset with me. You may be thinking, well, David, you're saying that there were all of these variations way back in the second century, and so we can't possibly know exactly how the original text read.
So that means then I can't pick up my Bible and say that this is the infallible Word of God. Well, actually you can. Let me explain. But first I want to say this. If you disagree with anything I've said so far, what I want you to do is to thoroughly check out everything that I've said. And by checking it out, I don't mean going and finding a pamphlet or a book written by a King James-only person that will say something different from what I've told you. You can definitely do that. That's not going to be very hard.
No, what I mean is go do some scholarly research. Look at the early Christian writings for yourself and see for yourself if what I've been saying is true. In addition, read the works of some genuine textual scholars. If you don't want to read the ones who favor the critical text, then read the works of some who favor the Byzantine or majority text. There are textual scholars who advocate the majority text. Read what they have to say.
But again, I'm talking about the scholars, not the people who write cheap books, who haven't done any real research themselves, and throw out all kinds of fanciful stories and make all kinds of false accusations. Now, if I've said something that is untrue, you have every right in the world to be upset with me. But if what I've said is true, you certainly have no cause to be upset with me just because I haven't said what you wanted to hear. The Bible does guarantee us the word of the Lord endures forever.
But does that mean that God preserved the exact wording of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts so that we still have the same precise wording today? Well, we've already seen that he didn't preserve the exact reading in all of the copies made because there are variations between them. In fact, there are no two Greek manuscripts that read exactly the same. And there is no Greek manuscript in existence that reads exactly like the Textus Receptus.
Now, I want to read to you a quotation that I think puts some of these issues in better perspective. Let me read it to you then tell me what you think. It says, " It is pleased God in His divine providence here and there to scatter words and sentences of difficulty and doubtfulness, not in doctrinal points that concern salvation. For as such, it's been promised that the Scriptures are plain, but in matters of less importance. So that fearfulness would better suit us than confidence.
And if we will resolve to resolve upon modesty, with Augustine who wrote, " It is better to make doubt of those things which are secret than to strive about those things which are uncertain. " Now in such cases, does not a margin do well to admonish the reader to seek further and not to conclude or dogmatize upon this or that insistently? For just as it is the fault of unbelief to doubt those things which are evident.
So also to determine such things as the Spirit of God is left questionable, even in the judgment of the judicious, can be no less than presumption. Therefore, as Augustine says, the variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures. Likewise, to denote diversity of meaning and sense in the margin where the text is not so clear is indeed good. In fact, it's necessary. Well what do you think of that comment?
Are you uncomfortable in acknowledging that God has perhaps left certain matters doubtful? Or does that sound far too liberal for you? Well, I know many King James only supporters would not be very comfortable with that statement. Which is extremely ironic for the statement I just read to you is from the preface of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible. And I have it in front of me right here on my desk.
So on the one hand we have the translators of the King James Bible saying that certain things are doubtful and are uncertain. And rather than to be dogmatic, they wanted to put notes in the margins to let us know when things were not clear. And then on the other hand, we have modern King James supporters saying that there is nothing of doubt. Every single word has been perfectly preserved by God from the very beginning, something the translators themselves didn't even believe.
So we're hardly honoring the translators of the King James Bible when we take these positions that history simply will not support. And when we frown on marginal notes that reveal variation in other texts. That's exactly what the King James translators did. The 1611 edition has all of those marginal notes. Modern-day King James translations usually don't have those. They've been taken out. They've tampered with what those men produced.
No, history does not support the proposition that the enduring of the Word of the Lord means that God preserved the exact words of the original autographs and that we have that exact wording with us today. It's what you and I might expect to find, but it's not what the evidence will support one iota. So maybe we are reading something into the Bible that was never intended. Suppose, for example, that I told my children that I want them to remember my words after I die and to hold to them to live by what I've taught.
What would I be meaning? Would I mean that I wanted them to have a recording of my exact precise words? What would I be meaning? I would be meaning I want them to hold to my overall message what I believe, what I've taught. And it's certainly my prayer that my children will hold to that. Sometimes we're guilty of the very thing that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for. In John 5:39, he told them, " You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.
" Now it's certainly good to read the Scriptures daily, but it's not good when we begin thinking that it is in them that we have eternal life. The essence of Christianity is not being a biblicist. Rather, the essence is an obedient love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ. And it doesn't matter which New Testament text family you use, they all contain the same basic message. They all open the door to have such a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now, I'm definitely not saying that we should not be selective in which translation we use. I think we should be very selective. I have little use for modern paraphrases such as the Living Bible. I want a translation that is fairly literal. I want my translators to translate, not to interpret. And as you are probably aware, I use the New King James Bible myself. I have no problem with either the Byzantine text or the Textus Receptus, but I don't worship them.
And my New King James Bible has marginal notes letting me know where the Textus Receptus differs from the critical text or from the majority text, just as did the original King James before persons tampered with it. When I read the scriptures, I want to know about any variations in different Greek texts. But when we think that it is in the precise words of this Greek text over THAT Greek text, in which we have eternal life, we so often become guilty of the very things that are abominable to our Lord.
Instead of being able to have an obedient love, faith, relationship with Him, we alienate ourselves from Christ. And what are some of those things? Well, one is slander. I've noticed that so many people who put the King James Bible on this infallible pedestal that the translators never put it on are very quick to slander other people.
So often in their writings, they, for example, slander Origen, say all kinds of things about him, which are flatly false, and which, as I've pointed out ironically, the King James follows Origen's textual criticism. So they don't even know their facts, and yet they're so quick to condemn a man. Books like New Age Versions of the Bible accuse the translators of the NIV Bible and other modern translations as denying the deity of Christ or not believing in the Trinity, which is absolutely false.
All of the translators involved in the NIV translation are strong adherents to the deity of Christ and to the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, I'm not fond of the NIV, but I'm certainly not going to accuse those translators of something that is untrue. To falsely accuse someone of heresy is a very serious sin indeed. When we start judging the interior motives of Bible translators or of textual scholars, we are way out of our place. We can't read hearts of people like Jesus could.
Most people who write against these textual scholars and Bible translators don't even know the men they're talking about. They don't know anything about them. Except rumors that they've heard, things that they've heard in other literature, and they pick it up and they carry on the slander that way. If God thought it was essential to us to know which one was the original reading. He could have so easily preserved the originals and then we wouldn't have to worry about it. There'd be nothing to argue about.
But again, his word doesn't turn on this wording versus that wording, or else none of the translations would be valid. Because when you translate from one language to another, you've got to take certain liberties and exact word-for-word translation is hardly readable when you go to another language. So you're making certain assumptions, you're taking certain liberties. God's Word is flexible enough that that can be done without destroying His Word.
But when we try to fit God's way of preserving His Word into our own conceptions of how we think He should have preserved His Word, we end up making all kinds of false accusations, and we end up using dishonest arguments that don't reflect the truth of history. And being dishonest is everything that is the opposite of what Jesus Christ stands for, and that is truth.
And sometimes being truthful means we have to say, we don't know how the original read, but we can have confidence that what we hold is the Word of God, that the message in it is inerrant and infallible. And if we obey its teachings, then we know we are pleasing God. We can say that regardless of what Greek text family we use. And what I want to say in conclusion is that studying the text families has impressed on me how God's ways are so much superior to man's ways.
He's built enough flexibility into his word that neither the human errors of copyists or the language chosen by translators can defeat His Word. His word endures forever because it's something that goes beyond the words and letters written on paper. When we're all in heaven, when no one is using paper and pen anymore, God's Word will still be there because it is eternal, because it transcends this material world.