TEXTUS RECEPTUS

TEXTUS RECEPTUS The name given to a series of editions of the Greek New Testament that were used as the basis for Luther’s German Bible, Tyndale’s English Bible, and the King James Version, among other Reformation-era translations.

Name

The name “textus receptus” (often abbreviated TR) means “received text” in Latin. It is derived from the 1633 Elzevir edition of the Greek New Testament, in which the publishers claimed in the preface, “Now, therefore, you have the text received by all” (Textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum).

Erasmus

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) issued the first published version of the Greek New Testament in 1516. He began assembling this edition while visiting his publisher, Johann Froben, in Basel. His sources for the text were limited to the number of manuscripts that were readily available at Basel. He used seven, all of which were from the Byzantine text-type and none of which was particularly old (Combs, “Erasmus,” 45).

Erasmus’ 1516 edition was not the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament; the New Testament portion of a complete edition of the Bible, the Complutensian Polygot, had been printed under the leadership of Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros in 1514. However, Pope Leo X did not give his permission to publish the work until 1520. It was published in 1522 but was never widely circulated. Erasmus issued four subsequent editions, in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535. After comparing his initial edition to the Complutensian Polyglot, he made some changes in the 1527 edition where he determined its readings were preferable (Greenlee, Text of the New Testament, 46). Martin Luther used the 1519 edition as the basis of his German translation of the Bible.

Robert Estienne

The Parisian publisher Robert Estienne (Latin “Stephanus”; 1503–1559) printed four editions of Erasmus’ Greek text in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551. The 1550 edition “was republished many times and became the accepted form of the TR, especially in England” (Combs, “Erasmus,” 52). The 1551 edition was the first to include verse numbering in the New Testament.

Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza (1519–1605), who succeeded John Calvin in Geneva, produced nine editions of the Textus Receptus between 1565 and 1604. These were basically reprints of Stephanus’ editions with minor changes (Combs, “Erasmus,” 52). It appears that the translators of the King James Version had the Beza edition of 1589 as well as the Estienne edition of 1550 available, though the KJV does not follow either exactly (Gardiner, “New Testament,” 554).

The King James Version

Following the publication of the King James Version (KJV) in 1611, the English-speaking world was dominated by the Textus Receptus’ text-critical conclusions, which assumed the viability of the Byzantine witness. The New King James Version updated the language of the KJV but followed the manuscript family of the older version.

The Elzevir Editions

The Dutch publishers Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir produced seven editions of the Textus Receptus between 1624 and 1678. The 1633 edition was the first to be called the “Textus Receptus” because of its claim to be the “received text” (see above).

Decline of the Textus Receptus

The prevalence of the Textus Receptus first began to wane when newer critical editions of the New Testament provided a means of evaluating variant readings of the text. Scholars began to question the Textus Receptus and began publishing editions of the Greek New Testament that broke from it: Karl Lachmann was the first (1831), followed by Lobegott Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf (eight editions from 1841–1872) and Samuel Tregelles (1857–1872). These critical editions paved the way for the influential Greek critical edition The New Testament in the Original Greek, produced by Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort in 1881.

Westcott and Hort generally assumed the Alexandrian text-type to be more original than the Byzantine. Although Westcott and Hort’s theories sometimes went beyond the evidence, their edition left a permanent impression on the landscape of New Testament studies, the effects of which reverberate in the influential United Bible Societies’ critical Greek New Testaments. The editors of this publication tend to favor the Alexandrian witness, though it has nuanced Westcott and Hort’s position. The Greek New Testament is now in its fifth edition (called the UBS5), and the Novum Testamentum Graece is in its 28th edition (called the NA28)—both edited by Barbara and Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo Martini, and Bruce Metzger. Many modern English translations of the New Testament (NASB, ESV, NIV) tend to follow the conclusions of these textual critics, thus breaking from the influence of the Textus Receptus and the KJV.

The Textus Receptus and the Majority Text

While “Textus Receptus” is the name used for editions of the Greek New Testament that are derived specifically from Erasmus’ text, “majority text” is a name used for the Byzantine text-type in general, since the majority of extant New Testament manuscripts are of the Byzantine type. The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text (edited by Hodges, Farstad, and Dunkin) and The New Testament in the Original Greek (edited by Robinson and Pierpont) are two of the more recent attempts to revive the influence of the Byzantine text-type.

Bibliography

  Aland, Kurt. “The Text of the Church?” Trinity Journal 8, no. 2 (1987): 121–44.

  Combs, William W. “Erasmus and the Textus Receptus.” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 1 (1996): 35–53.

  Fee, Gordon D. “Modern Textual Criticism and the Revival of the Textus Receptus.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21, no. 1 (1978): 19–33.

  ———. “Modern Textual Criticism and the Majority Text: A Rejoinder.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21, no. 2 (1978): 155–60.

  Gardiner, Frederic. “The New Testament Revision.” Bibliotheca Sacra 38, no. 151 (1881): 553–78.

  Greenlee, J. Harold. The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2008.

  Hodges, Zane C. “Modern Textual Criticism and the Majority Text: A Response.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21 (1978): 143–55.

  ———. “Modern Textual Criticism and the Majority Text: A Surrejoinder.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21, no. 2 (1978): 161–64.

  Hodges, Zane C., Arthur L. Farstad, and William C. Dunkin. The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text. 2nd ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985.

  Holmes, Michael W. “The ‘Majority Text Debate’: New Form of an Old Issue.” Themelios 8, no. 2 (1983): 13–19.

  Robinson, Maurice A., and William G. Pierpont. The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform. Southborough, Mass.: Chilton, 2005.

  Wallace, Daniel B. “The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (1991): 151–69.

  ———. “The Majority-Text Theory: History, Methods and Critique.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37, no. 2 (1994): 185–215.

  ———. “Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text.” Bibliotheca Sacra 146 (1989): 270–90.

Elliot Ritzema and S. Michael Kraeger, “Textus Receptus,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).