Textual criticism of the New Testament is the identification of textual variants.[1] or different versions of the New Testament, whose goals include identification of transcription errors, analysis of versions, and attempts to reconstruct the original text. Its main focus is studying the textual variants in the New Testament.[2] Textual criticism is the process of attempting to ascertain the original wording of the original text.

Importance of Textual Criticism

Christian Bible students need to be familiar with Old and New Testament textual criticism as essential foundational studies. Why? If we fail to establish what was originally authored with reasonable certainty, how can we translate or even interpret what we think is the actual Word of God? We are fortunate that there are far more existing New Testament manuscripts today than any other book from ancient history. Some ancient Greek and Latin classics are based on one existing manuscript, while with others, there are just a handful and a few exceptions that have a few hundred available. However, over 5,898^[3] Greek New Testament manuscripts have been cataloged for the New Testament,^[4] 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and an additional 9,300 other manuscripts in such languages as Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, and Ethiopic Coptic, and Armenian. This gives New Testament textual scholars vastly more to work within establishing the original words of the text.

The other difference between the New Testament manuscripts and those of the classics is that the existing copies of the New Testament date much closer to the originals. Some of the manuscripts are dated to about a thousand years after the author had penned the book in the Greek classics. Some of the Latin classics are dated from three to seven hundred years after the author wrote the book. When we look at the Greek copies of the New Testament books, some portions are within decades of the original author’s book. One hundred and thirty-nine Greek NT papyri and five majuscules^[5] date from 110 C.E. to 390 C.E.

Distribution of Greek New Testament Manuscripts

• The Papyrus is a copy of a portion of the New Testament made on papyrus. At present, we have 147 cataloged New Testament papyri, many dating between 110-350 C.E., but some as late as the 6^th century C.E.
• The Majuscule or Uncial is a script of large letters commonly used in Greek and Latin manuscripts written between the 3^rd and 9^th centuries C.E. that resembles a modern capital letter but is more rounded. At present, we have 323 cataloged New Testament Majuscule manuscripts.
• The Minuscule is a small cursive style of writing used in manuscripts from the 9^th to the 16^th centuries, now having 2,951 Minuscule manuscripts cataloged.
• The Lectionary is a schedule of readings from the Bible for Christian church services during the year, in both majuscules and minuscules, dating from the 4^th to the 16^th centuries C.E., now having 2,484 Lectionary manuscripts cataloged.

We should clarify that of the approximate 24,000 total manuscripts of the New Testament, not all are complete books. There are fragmented manuscripts with just a few verses, but manuscripts contain an entire book, others that include numerous books, and some that have the whole New Testament, or nearly so. This is expected since the oldest manuscripts we have were copied in an era when reproducing the entire New Testament was not the norm. Instead, it was far more common to copy a single book or a group of books (i.e., the Gospels or Paul’s letters). This still does not negate the vast riches of manuscripts that we possess.

What can we conclude from this short introduction to textual criticism? There is some irony here: secular scholars have no problem accepting classic authors’ wording with their minuscule amount of evidence. However, they discount the treasure trove of evidence that is available to the New Testament textual scholar. Still, this should not surprise us as the New Testament has always been under-appreciated and attacked somehow shape, or form over the past 2,000 years.

On the contrary, in comparison to classical works, we are overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of existing New Testament manuscripts. We should also keep in mind that about seventy-five percent^[6] of the New Testament does not even require the help of textual criticism because that much of the text is unanimous, and thus, we know what it says. Of the other twenty-five percent, about twenty percent make up trivial scribal mistakes that are easily corrected. Therefore, textual criticism focuses mainly on a small portion of the New Testament text. The facts are clear: the Christian, who reads the New Testament, is fortunate to have so many manuscripts, with so many dating so close to the originals, with 500 hundred years of hundreds of textual scholars who have established the text with a level of certainty unimaginable for ancient secular works.

After discussing the amount of New Testament manuscripts available, Atheist commentator Bob Seidensticker writes, “The first problem is that more manuscripts at best increase our confidence that we have the original version. That does not mean the original copy was history ….”^[7] That is, Seidensticker is forced to acknowledge the reliability of the New Testament text as we have it today and can only try to deny what it says. He also tells us of the New Testament, “Compare that with 2000 copies of the Iliad, the second-best represented manuscript.”^[8] Of those 1,757 copies of the Iliad, how far removed are they from the alleged originals? The Iliad is dated to about 800 B.C.E. There are several fragments of the Iliad that date to the second century B.C.E. and one to the third century B.C.E., with the rest dating to the ninth century C.E. or later. That would make this handful of fragmented manuscripts 500 years removed and the rest about 1,700 years removed from their original.

The Range of Textual Criticism

The Importance and scope of New Testament textual studies can be summed up in the few words used by J. Harold Greenlee; it is “the basic biblical study, a prerequisite to all other biblical and theological work. Interpretation, systematization, and application of the teachings of the NT cannot be accomplished until textual criticism has done at least some of its work. It is, therefore, deserving of the acquaintance and attention of every serious student of the Bible.”^[9]

It is only reasonable to assume that the original 27 books written first-hand by the New Testament authors have not survived. Instead, we only have what we must consider being imperfect copies. Why the Holy Spirit would miraculously inspire 27 fully inerrant texts and then allow human imperfection into the documents is not explained for us in Scripture. (More on this later) Why didn’t God inspire the copyists? We do know that imperfect humans have tended to worship relics that traditions hold to have been touched by the miraculous powers of God or to have been in direct contact with one of his special servants of old. Ultimately, though, all we know is that God had his reasons for allowing the New Testament autographs to be worn out by repeated use. From time to time, we hear of the discovery of a fragment possibly dated to the first century, but even if such a fragment is eventually verified, the dating alone can never serve as proof of an autograph; it will still be a copy in all likelihood.

If we ask why didn’t God inspire copyists, then it will have to follow, why didn’t God inspire translators, why didn’t God inspire Bible scholars that author commentaries on the Bible, and so on? Suppose God’s initial purpose was to give us a fully inerrant, authoritative, authentic, and accurate Word. Why not adequately protect the Scriptures in all facets of transmission from error: copy, translate, and interpret? If God did this, and people were moved along by the Holy Spirit, it would soon become noticeable that when people copy the texts, they would be unable to make an error or mistake or even willfully change something.

Where would it stop? Would this being moved along by the Holy Spirit apply to anyone who decided to make themselves a copy, testing to see if they too would be inspired? In time, this would prove to be actual evidence for God. This would negate the reasons why God has allowed sin, human imperfection to enter humanity in the first place, to teach them an object lesson, man cannot walk on his own without his Creator. God created perfect humans, giving them a perfect start, and through the abuse of free will, they rejected his sovereignty. He did not just keep creating perfect humans again and again, as though he got something wrong. God gave us his perfect Word and has again chosen to allow us to continue in our human imperfection, learning our object lesson. God has stepped into humanity many hundreds of times in the Bible record, maybe tens of thousands of times unbeknownst to us over the past 6,000+ years, to tweak things to get the desired outcome of his will and purposes. However, there is no aspect of life where his stepping in on any particular point was to be continuous until the return of the Son. Maybe God gave us a perfect copy of sixty-six books. Then like everything else, he placed the responsibility of copying, translating, and interpreting on us, just as he gave us the Great Commission of proclaiming that Word, explaining that Word, to make disciples. – Matthew 24:14;28-19-20; Acts 1:8.

As for errors in all the copies we have, we can say that the vast majority of the Greek text is not affected by errors. The errors occur in variant readings, i.e., portions of the text where different manuscripts disagree. Of the small amount of the text affected by variant readings, the vast majority of these are minor slips of the pen, misspelled words, etc., or intentional but quickly analyzed changes. We are certain what the original reading is in these places. A far smaller number of changes present challenges to establishing the original reading. It has always been said and remains true that no central doctrine is affected by a textual problem. Only rarely does a textual issue change the meaning of a verse.^[10] Still, establishing the original text wherever there are variant readings is vitally important. Every word matters!

It is true that the Jewish copyists and the later Christian copyists were not led along by the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, their manuscripts were not inerrant, infallible. Errors (textual variants) crept into the documents unintentionally and intentionally. However, the vast majority of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament has not been infected with textual errors. For the portions impacted with textual mistakes, we can be grateful for the tens of thousands of copies that we have to help us weed out the errors. How? Well, not every copyist made the same textual errors. Hence, by comparing the work of different copyists and manuscripts, textual scholars can identify the textual variants (errors) and remove those, leaving us with the original content.

Yes, it would be the most significant discovery of all time if we found the original five books penned by Moses himself, Genesis through Deuteronomy, or the original Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, first, there would be no way of establishing that they were the originals. Second, truth be told, we do not need the originals. Yes, you heard me. We do not need those original documents. What is so important about the documents? Nothing, it is the content on the original documents that we are after. And truly, miraculously, we have more copies than needed to do just that. We do not need miraculous preservation because we have miraculous restoration. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament critical texts are about a 99.99% reflection of the content that was in those ancient original manuscripts.

Purpose of New Testament Textual Criticism

After stating that the Westcott and Hort[11] 1881 critical edition was ‘an attempt to present exactly the original words of the New Testament, so far as they can now be determined from surviving documents’, Hort[12] (1882) wrote the following on the purpose of textual criticism:

Again, textual criticism is always negative, because its final aim is virtually nothing more than the detection and rejection of error. Its progress consists not in the growing perfection of an ideal in the future, but in approximation towards complete ascertainment of definite facts of the past, that is, towards recovering an exact copy of what was actually written on parchment or papyrus by the author of the book or his amanuensis. Had all intervening transcriptions been perfectly accurate, there could be no error and no variation in existing documents. Where there is variation, there must be error in at least all variants but one; and the primary work of textual criticism is merely to discriminate the erroneous variants from the true.[13]

Text-Types or Families of Manuscripts

The sheer number of witnesses presents unique difficulties, chiefly in that it makes stemmatics in many cases impossible, because many copyists used two or more different manuscripts as sources. Consequently, New Testament textual critics have adopted eclecticism after sorting the witnesses into four major groups, called text-types (also styled unhyphenated: text types). The most common division today is as follows:

Radical Eclecticism (G. D. Kilpatrick, J. K. Elliott)

Radical Eclecticism holds to what may be called a purely eclectic text. This approach prefers a text based solely on internal evidence. Adherents of this view argue that since the history of the New Testament text is untraceable, none of the text types carries any weight. Hence the reading of any manuscript may be original, since no manuscript or group of manuscripts is “best.” An eclectic scholar will thus choose the reading that commends itself as best fitting the context, whether in style or thought. This view, held primarily by a minority of British scholars, has been criticized for ignoring the value and importance of the external evidence, particularly the Greek manuscripts.

Reasoned Eclecticism (B. M. Metzger, K. Aland)

Reasoned Eclecticism holds that the text of the New Testament is to be based on both internal and external evidence, without a preference for any particular manuscript or text type. This view of the text is represented in the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testaments. This approach often represents a predilection for manuscripts of the Alexandrian text type. This preference is based largely on Westcott and Hort’s theory that the Byzantine text is a conflation of the Alexandrian and Western texts, and that the superiority of the Alexandrian text over the Western text can be shown through internal evidence. This approach has occasionally been criticized for producing a new “Textus Receptus”—a canonized form of the New Testament text.^[14]

Text-type	Date	Characteristics	Bible version
The Alexandrian text-type[15] (also called the “Neutral Text” tradition; less frequently, the “Minority Text”)	2nd–4th centuries CE	This family constitutes a group of early and well-regarded texts, including Codex Vaticanus[16] and Codex Sinaiticus.[17] Most representatives of this tradition appear to come from around Alexandria, Egypt and from the Alexandrian Church. It contains readings that are often terse, shorter, somewhat rough, less harmonized, and generally more difficult. The family was once thought to result from a very carefully edited 3rd-century recension, but now is believed to be merely the result of a carefully controlled and supervised process of copying and transmission. It underlies most translations of the New Testament produced since 1900.[18]	NIV, NAB, NABRE, Douay, JB and NJB (albeit, with some reliance on the Byzantine text-type), TNIV, RSV, ESV, EBR, NWT, LB, ASV, NC, GNB, CSB
The Western text-type[19]	3rd–9th centuries CE	Also a very early tradition, which comes from a wide geographical area stretching from North Africa to Italy and from Gaul to Syria. It occurs in Greek manuscripts and in the Latin translations used by the Western church.[20] It is much less controlled than the Alexandrian family and its witnesses are seen to be more prone to paraphrase[21] and other corruptions. It is sometimes called the Caesarean text-type. Some New Testament scholars would argue that the Caesarean constitutes a distinct text-type of its own.[22]	Vetus Latina[23]
The Byzantine text-type;[24] also, Koinē text-type (also called “Majority Text”)	5th–16th centuries CE	This group comprises around 95% of all the manuscripts, the majority of which are comparatively very late in the tradition. It had become dominant at Constantinople from the 5th century on and was used throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire. It contains the most harmonistic readings, paraphrasing and significant additions, most of which are believed to be secondary readings. It underlies the Textus Receptus[25] used for most Reformation-era translations of the New Testament.[26]	Bible translations relying on the Textus Receptus[27] which is close to the Byzantine text: KJV, NKJV, NASB, HCSB, Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva, Bishops’ Bible, OSB
The Cesarean text-type	5th century to 15th century	In textual criticism of the New Testament, Caesarean text-type is the term proposed by certain scholars to denote a consistent pattern of variant readings that is claimed to be apparent in certain Koine Greek manuscripts of the four Gospels, but which is not found in any of the other commonly recognized New Testament text-types: the Byzantine text-type, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian text-type. In particular a common text-type has been proposed to be found: in the ninth/tenth century Codex Koridethi; in Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 2 (a Greek manuscript of the Gospels used, sparingly, by Erasmus in his 1516 printed Koine New Testament); and in those Gospel quotations found in the third century works of Origen, which were written after he had settled in Caesarea.

THE CORRUPT TEXTUS RECEPTUS

The term Textus Receptus, as applied to the text of the New Testament, originated in an expression used by Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir (Elzevier), who were printers in Leiden. The preface to their second edition of the Greek Testament (1633) contains the sentence: Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus (“Therefore you [dear reader] have the text now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted”). In one sense this proud claim of the Elzevirs on behalf of their edition seemed to be justified, for their edition was, in most respects, not different from the approximately 160 other editions of the printed Greek Testament that had been issued since Erasmus’s first published edition of 1516. In a more precise sense, however, the Byzantine form of the Greek text, reproduced in all early printed editions, was disfigured, as was mentioned above, by the accumulation over the centuries of myriads of scribal alterations, many of minor significance but some of considerable consequence.

It was the corrupt Byzantine form of text that provided the basis for almost all translations of the New Testament into modern languages down to the nineteenth century. During the eighteenth century scholars assembled a great amount of information from many Greek manuscripts, as well as from versional and patristic witnesses. But, except for three or four editors who timidly corrected some of the more blatant errors of the Textus Receptus, this debased form of the New Testament text was reprinted in edition after edition. It was only in the first part of the nineteenth century (1831) that a German classical scholar, Karl Lachmann, ventured to apply to the New Testament the criteria that he had used in editing texts of the classics. Subsequently other critical editions appeared, including those prepared by Constantin von Tischendorf, whose eighth edition (1869–72) remains a monumental thesaurus of variant readings, and the influential edition prepared by two Cambridge scholars, B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort (1881). It is the latter edition that was taken as the basis for the present United Bible Societies’ edition. During the twentieth century, with the discovery of several New Testament manuscripts much older than any that had hitherto been available, it has become possible to produce editions of the New Testament that approximate ever more closely to what is regarded as the wording of the original documents.^[28]

History of Research

Classification of text-types (1734–1831)

18th-century German scholars were the first to discover the existence of textual families, and to suggest some were more reliable than others, although they did not yet question the authority of the Textus Receptus. In 1734, Johann Albrecht Bengel[29] was the first scholar to propose classifying manuscripts into text-types (such as ‘African’ or ‘Asiatic’), and to attempt to systematically analyse which ones were superior and inferior. Johann Jakob Wettstein[30] applied textual criticism to the Greek New Testament edition he published in 1751–2, and introduced a system of symbols for manuscripts. From 1774 to 1807, Johann Jakob Griesbach[31] adapted Bengel’s text groups and established three text-types (later known as ‘Western’, ‘Alexandrian’, and ‘Byzantine’), and defined the basic principles of textual criticism. In 1777, Griesbach produced a list of nine manuscripts which represent the Alexandrian text: C, L, K, 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, and 118.[32] Codex Vaticanus was not on this list. In 1796, in the second edition of his Greek New Testament, Griesbach added Codex Vaticanus as witness to the Alexandrian text in Mark, Luke, and John. He still thought that the first half of Matthew represents the Western text-type.[33] In 1808, Johann Leonhard Hug[34] (1765–1846) suggested that the Alexandrian recension was to be dated about the middle of the 3rd century, and it was the purification of a wild text, which was similar to the text of Codex Bezae.[35] In result of this recension interpolations were removed and some grammar refinements were made. The result was the text of the codices B, C, L, and the text of Athanasius[36] and Cyril of Alexandria.[37]

Development of critical texts (1831–1881)

Karl Lachmann[38] became the first scholar to publish a critical edition of the Greek New Testament (1831) that was not simply based on the Textus Receptus anymore but sought to reconstruct the original biblical text following scientific principles. Starting with Lachmann, manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type have been the most influential in modern critical editions. In the decades thereafter, important contributions were made by Constantin von Tischendorf,[39] who discovered numerous manuscripts including the Codex Sinaiticus[40] (1844), published several critical editions that he updated several times, culminating in the 8th: Editio Octava Critica Maior[41] (11 volumes, 1864–1894). The 1872 edition provided a critical apparatus listing all the known textual variants in uncials, minuscules, versions, and commentaries of the Church Fathers.^[4]

The critical method achieved widespread acceptance up until in the Westcott and Hort[42] text (1881), a landmark publication that sparked a new era of New Testament textual criticism and translations. Hort rejected the primacy of the Byzantine text-type (which he called “Syrian”) with three arguments:

1. The Byzantine text-type contains readings combining elements found in earlier text-types.
2. The variants unique to the Byzantine manuscripts are not found in Christian writings before the 4th century.
3. When Byzantine and non-Byzantine readings are compared, the Byzantine can be demonstrated not to represent the original text.

Having diligently studied the early text-types and variants, Westcott and Hort concluded that the Egyptian texts (including Sinaiticus (א)[43] and Vaticanus (B),[44] which they called “Neutral”) were the most reliable, since they seemed to preserve the original text with the least changes. Therefore, the Greek text of their critical edition was based on this “Neutral” text-type, unless internal evidence clearly rejected the reliability of particular verses of it.

Until the publication of the Introduction and Appendix of Westcott and Hort in 1882, scholarly opinion remained that the Alexandrian text was represented by the codices Vaticanus (B), Ephraemi Rescriptus (C),[45] and Regius[46]/Angelus[47] (L). The Alexandrian text is one of the three ante-Nicene texts of the New Testament (Neutral and Western). The text of the Codex Vaticanus stays in closest affinity to the Neutral Text.

Modern Scholarship (after 1881)

The Novum Testamentum Graece,[48] first published in 1898 by Eberhard Nestle,[49] later continued by his son Erwin Nestle[50] and since 1952 co-edited by Kurt Aland,[51] became the internationally leading critical text standard amongst scholars and for translations produced by the United Bible Societies[52] (UBS, formed in 1946). This series of critical editions, including extensive critical apparatuses, is therefore colloquially known as “Nestle-Aland”, with particular editions abbreviated as “NA” with the number attached; for example, the 1993 update was the 27th edition, and is thus known as “NA27” (or “UBS4.” namely, the 4th United Bible Societies edition based on the 27th Nestle-Aland edition). Puskas & Robbins (2012) noted that, despite significant advancements since 1881, the text of the NA27 differs much more from the Textus Receptus than from Westcott and Hort, stating that ‘the contribution of these Cambridge scholars appears to be enduring.’

After discovering the manuscripts 𝔓⁶⁶ (1952) and 𝔓⁷⁵ (1950s), the Neutral text and Alexandrian text were unified.[53]

Evaluations of Text-Types

Most textual critics of the New Testament favor the Alexandrian text-type as the closest representative of the autographs for many reasons. One reason is that Alexandrian manuscripts are the oldest found; some of the earliest Church Fathers[54] used readings found in the Alexandrian text. Another is that the Alexandrian readings are adjudged more often to be the ones that can best explain the origin of all the variant readings found in other text-types.

Nevertheless, there are some dissenting voices to this consensus. A few textual critics, especially those in France, argue that the Western text-type,[55] an old text from which the Vetus Latina[56] or Old Latin[57] versions of the New Testament are derived, is closer to the originals.

In the United States, some critics have a dissenting view that prefers the Byzantine text-type,[58] such as Maurice A. Robinson[59] and William Grover Pierpont. They assert that Egypt, almost alone, offers optimal climatic conditions favoring the preservation of ancient manuscripts while, on the other hand, the papyri used in the east (Asia Minor and Greece) would not have survived due to the unfavorable climatic conditions. Thus, it is not surprising that ancient Biblical manuscripts that are found would come mostly from the Alexandrian geographical area and not from the Byzantine geographical area.

The argument for the authoritative nature of the latter is that the much greater number of Byzantine manuscripts copied in later centuries, in detriment to the Alexandrian manuscripts, indicates a superior understanding by scribes of those being closer to the autographs.[60] Eldon Jay Epp argued that the manuscripts circulated in the Roman world and many documents from other parts of the Roman Empire were found in Egypt since the late 19th century.[61]

The evidence of the papyri suggests that, in Egypt, at least, very different manuscript readings co-existed in the same area in the early Christian period. Thus, whereas the early 3rd century papyrus 𝔓⁷⁵ witnesses a text in Luke and John that is very close to that found a century later in the Codex Vaticanus, the nearly contemporary 𝔓⁶⁶ has a much freer text of John; with many unique variants; and others that are now considered distinctive to the Western and Byzantine text-types, albeit that the bulk of readings are Alexandrian. Most modern text critics therefore do not regard any one text-type as deriving in direct succession from autograph manuscripts, but rather, as the fruit of local exercises to compile the best New Testament text from a manuscript tradition that already displayed wide variations.

Textual criticism is also used by those who assert that the New Testament was written in Aramaic (see Aramaic primacy).[62]

What Makes the Alexandrian Manuscripts that Make Up All Modern Bibles Superior to the Byzantine Manuscripts of the KJV and NKJV?

See also: Textual variants in the New Testament, Major Textual Variants

The New Testament portion of the English translation known as the King James Version was based on the Textus Receptus,[63] a Greek text prepared by Erasmus[64] based on a few late medieval Greek manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type (1, 1^rK, 2^e, 2^ap, 4, 7, 817).[65] For some books of the Bible, Erasmus used just single manuscripts, and for small sections made his own translations into Greek from the Vulgate.[66] However, following Westcott[67] and Hort,[68] most modern New Testament textual critics have concluded that the Byzantine text-type was formalized at a later date than the Alexandrian and Western text-types. Among the other types, the Alexandrian text-type is viewed as more pure than the Western and Byzantine text-types, and so one of the central tenets in the current practice of New Testament textual criticism is that one should follow the readings of the Alexandrian texts unless those of the other types are clearly superior. Most modern New Testament translations now use an Eclectic Greek text (UBS5 and NA 28)[69] that is closest to the Alexandrian text-type. The United Bible Societies’s Greek New Testament (UBS5) and Nestle-Aland[70] (NA 28) are accepted by most of the academic community as the best attempt at reconstructing the original texts of the Greek NT.^[14]

A minority position represented by The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text edition by Zane C. Hodges[71] and Arthur L. Farstad argues that the Byzantine text-type represents an earlier text-type than the surviving Alexandrian texts. This position is also held by Maurice A. Robinson[72] and William G. Pierpont in their The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Text form, and the King James Only Movement.[73] The argument states that the far greater number of surviving late Byzantine manuscripts implies an equivalent preponderance of Byzantine texts amongst lost earlier manuscripts. Hence, a critical reconstruction of the predominant text of the Byzantine tradition would have a superior claim to being closest to the autographs.

Another position is that of the Neo-Byzantine School. The Neo-Byzantines (or new Byzantines) of the 16th and 17th centuries first formally compiled the New Testament Received Text under such textual analysts as Erasmus,[74] Stephanus (Robert Estienne),[75] Beza,[76] and Elzevir. The early 21st century saw the rise of the first textual analyst of this school in over three centuries with Gavin McGrath (b. 1960). A religiously conservative Protestant from Australia, his Neo-Byzantine School principles maintain that the representative or majority Byzantine text, such as compiled by Hodges & Farstad (1985) or Robinson & Pierpont (2005), is to be upheld unless there is a “clear and obvious” textual problem with it. When this occurs, he adopts either a minority Byzantine reading, a reading from the ancient Vulgate,[77] or a reading attested to in the writings of an ancient Church Father[78] (in either Greek or Latin) by way of quotation. The Neo-Byzantine School considers that the doctrine of the Divine Preservation of Scripture means that God preserved the Byzantine Greek manuscripts, Latin manuscripts, and Greek and Latin church writers’ citations of Scripture over time and through time. These are regarded as “a closed class of sources” i.e., non-Byzantine Greek manuscripts such as the Alexandrian texts, or manuscripts in other languages such as Armenian, Syriac, or Ethiopian, are regarded as “outside the closed class of sources” providentially protected over time, and so not used to compose the New Testament text.[79] Other scholars have criticized the current categorization of manuscripts into text-types and prefer either to subdivide the manuscripts in other ways or to discard the text-type taxonomy.

Interpolations

In attempting to determine the original text of the New Testament books, some modern textual critics have identified sections as interpolations.[80] In modern translations of the Bible such as the New International Version, the results of textual criticism have led to certain verses, words and phrases being left out or marked as not original. Previously, translations of the New Testament such as the King James Version had mostly been based on Erasmus’s redaction of the New Testament in Greek, the Textus Receptus from the 16th century based on later manuscripts.^[16]

According to Bart D. Ehrman,[81] “These scribal additions are often found in late medieval manuscripts of the New Testament, but not in the manuscripts of the earlier centuries,” he adds. And because the King James Bible is based on later manuscripts, such verses “became part of the Bible tradition in English-speaking lands.”[82]

Most modern Bibles have footnotes to indicate passages that have disputed source documents. Bible Commentaries also discuss these, sometimes in great detail.

These possible later additions include the following:

Matt. 6:13 Rom. 5:1 Matt. 17:21 1 Cor. 2:1 Mark 1:1 Luke 17:36

Phil. 3:3 Mark 16:9–20 1 Thess. 2:7 Luke 4:4 1 Tim. 3:16 Luke 23:17

John 1:18 James 2:20 John 7:53–8:11 1 John 2:20 Rev. 1:5 Luke 22:43-44

NTTC 1 CORINTHIANS 14:33–35: Did the Apostle Paul Forbid Women to Speak?

Various groups of highly conservative Christians believe that when Ps.12:6–7 speaks of the preservation of the words of God, that this nullifies the need for textual criticism, lower, and higher. Such people include Gail Riplinger, Peter Ruckman, and others. Many theological organizations, societies, newsletters, and churches also hold to this belief, including “AV Publications.” Sword of The LORD Newsletter, The Antioch Bible Society and others. On the other hand, Reformation biblical scholars such as Martin Luther saw the academic analysis of biblical texts and their provenance as entirely in line with orthodox Christian faith.

Attribution: This article incorporates some text from the public domain: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and Edward D. Andrews

REFERENCE

1. Wallace, Daniel. “The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?”.
2. Westcott and Hort (1896). The New Testament in The Original Greek: Introduction Appendix. Macmillan. p. 2. The New Testament in the Original Greek.
3. Westcott and Hort,The New Testament in the original Greek, second edition with Introduction and Appendix (1882), p. 1–3.
4. Puskas, Charles B; Robbins, C Michael (2012). An Introduction to the New Testament. ISD LLC. pp. 70–73. 
5. J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, vol. I (Halle, 1777), prolegomena.
6. J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, 2 editio (Halae, 1796), prolegomena, p. LXXXI. See Edition from 1809 (London)
7. J. L. Hug, Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart 1808), 2nd edition from Stuttgart-Tübingen 1847, p. 168 ff.
8. John Leonard Hug, Writings of the New Testament, translated by Daniel Guildford Wait (London 1827), p. 198 ff.
9. Gordon D. Fee, P⁷⁵, P⁶⁶, and Origen: THe Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria, in: E. J. Epp & G. D. Fee, Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual Criticism, Wm. Eerdmans (1993), pp. 247-273.
10. Eldon Jay Epp, A Dynamic View of Testual Transmission, in: Studies & Documents 1993, p. 280
11. Dunnett & Tenney 1985, p. 150
12. W. W. Combs, Erasmus and the textus receptus, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996), 45.
13. Ehrman 2005, “For the most part, he relied on a mere handful of late medieval manuscripts, which he marked up as if he were copyediting a handwritten copy for the printer. … Erasmus relied heavily on just one twelfth-century manuscript for the Gospels and another, also of the twelfth century, for the book of Acts and the Epistles. … For the [last six verses of the] Book of Revelation … [he] simply took the Latin Vulgate and translated its text back into Greek. …” (pp 78–79)
14. Encountering the Manuscripts By Philip Comfort, 102
15. “Gavin McGrath Books”. www.easy.com.au. Archived from the original on 2010-04-10.
16. Hills, Edward (1 July 1998). “A HISTORY OF MY DEFENCE OF THE KING JAMES VERSION”. Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
17. Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperCollins, 2005, p. 265. 
18. Ehrman 2006, p. 166
19. Bruce Metzger “A Textual Commentary on the New Testament”, Second Edition, 1994, German Bible Society
20. See Gordon Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 699.
21. Footnotes on 14:34–35 and 14:36 from The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version: A New Annotated Edition by the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, 1993, page 2160. Note also that the NRSV encloses 14:33b–36 in parentheses to characterize it as a parenthetical comment that does not fit in smoothly with the surrounding texts.
22. Antioch Bible Society
23. Kramm, H.H. (2009). The Theology of Martin Luther. Wipf & Stock Publishers. p. 110.
24. Hendrix, S.H. (2015). Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer. Yale University Press. p. 39.
25. Note, however, that Luther did not exclusively advocate for disinterested historical reconstruction of the original text. See Evans, C.A. (2011). The World of Jesus and the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation in Early Communities of Faith. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 171. 

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CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM

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[1] Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in dates from the earliest writing in cuneiform, impressed on clay, for example, to multiple unpublished versions of a 21st-century author’s work.

[2] Textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to the text that is being reproduced. Textual criticism of the New Testament has included study of its textual variants.

[3] While at present here in 2020, there are 5,898 manuscripts. There are 140 listed Papyrus manuscripts, 323 Majuscule manuscripts, 2,951 Minuscule manuscripts, and 2,484 Lectionary manuscripts, bringing the total cataloged manuscripts to 5,898 manuscripts. However, you cannot simply total the number of cataloged manuscripts because, for example, P^11/14 are the same manuscript but with different catalog numbers. The same is true of P^33/5, P^4/64/67, P^49/65 and P^77/103. Now this alone would bring our 140 listed papyrus manuscripts down to 134. ‘Then, we turn to one example from our majuscule manuscripts where clear 0110, 0124, 0178, 0179, 0180, 0190, 0191, 0193, 0194, and 0202 are said to be part of 070. A minuscule manuscript was listed with five separate catalog numbers for 2306, which then have the letters a through e. Thus, we have the following GA numbers: 2306 for 2306a, and 2831- 2834 for 2306b-2306e.’ – (Hixon 2019, 53-4) The problem is much worse when we consider that there are 323 Majuscule manuscripts and then far worse still with a listed 2,951 Minuscule and 2,484 Lectionaries. Nevertheless, those who estimate a total of 5,300 (Jacob W. Peterson, Myths and Mistakes, p. 63) 5,500 manuscripts (Dr. Ed Gravely / ehrmanproject.com/), 5,800 manuscripts (Porter 2013, 23), it is still a truckload of evidence far and above the dismal number of ancient secular author books.

[4] As of January 2016

[5] Large lettering, often called “capital” or uncial, in which all the letters are usually the same height.

[6] The numbers in this paragraph are rounded for simplicity purposes.

[7] 25,000 New Testament Manuscripts? Big Deal. – Patheos,

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2013/11/25000-new-testament-manuscrip (accessed November 28, 2015).

[8] Ibid

[9] J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism  (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1995), 8-9.

[10] Leading textual scholar Daniel Wallace tells us, after looking at all of the evidence, that the percentage of instances where the reading is uncertain and a well-attested alternative reading could change the meaning of the verse is a quarter of one percent, i.e., 0.0025%

[11] The New Testament in the Original Greek is a Greek-language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892).

[12] Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892), known as F. J. A. Hort, was an Irish-born theologian and editor, with Brooke Foss Westcott of a critical edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek.

[13] Westcott and Hort,The New Testament in the original Greek, second edition with Introduction and Appendix (1882), p. 1–3.

^[14] David Alan Black, New Testament Textual Criticism : A Concise Guide (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 37–38.

[15] In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Alexandrian text-type is one of the main text types. It is the text type favored by the majority of modern textual critics and it is the basis for most modern (after 1900) Bible translations.

[16] The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, δ 1 von Soden) is one of the oldest copies of the Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to 300-330 C.E.

[17] The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 2 (Soden), or “Sinai Bible”, is a fourth-century (330-360 C.E.) Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices.

[18] The Alexandrian text, which Westcott and Hort called the Neutral text (a question-begging title), is usually considered to be the best text and the most faithful in preserving the original. Characteristics of the Alexandrian text are brevity and austerity. That is, it is generally shorter than the text of other forms, and it does not exhibit the degree of grammatical and stylistic polishing that is characteristic of the Byzantine type of text. Until recently the two chief witnesses to the Alexandrian text were codex Vaticanus (B) and codex Sinaiticus (א), parchment manuscripts dating from about the middle of the fourth century. With the acquisition, however, of the Bodmer Papyri, particularly 𝔓66 and 𝔓75, both copied about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, evidence is now available that the Alexandrian type of text goes back to an archetype that must be dated early in the second century. The Sahidic and Bohairic versions frequently contain typically Alexandrian readings. – Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), xix.

[19] In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Western text-type is one of the main text types. It is the predominant form of the New Testament text witnessed in the Old Latin and Syriac Peshitta translations from the Greek, and also in quotations from certain 2nd and 3rd-century Christian writers, including Cyprian, Tertullian and Irenaeus.

[20] Western Christianity is one of two sub-divisions of Christianity (Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic Church, Independent Catholicism and Restorationism.

[21] A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin paraphrasis, from Ancient Greek παράφρασις (paráphrasis) ‘additional manner of expression.’

[22] The so-called Western text, which was widely current in Italy and Gaul as well as in North Africa and elsewhere (including Egypt), can also be traced back to the second century. It was used by Marcion, Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian. Its presence in Egypt is shown by the testimony of 𝔓38 (about A.D. 300) and 𝔓48 (about the end of the third century). The most important Greek manuscripts that present a Western type of text are codex Bezae (D) of the fifth century (containing the Gospels and Acts), codex Claromontanus (D) of the sixth century (containing the Pauline epistles), and, for Mark 1:1 to 5:30, codex Washingtonianus (W) of the fifth century. Likewise the Old Latin versions are noteworthy witnesses to a Western type of text; these fall into three main groups, the African, Italian, and Hispanic forms of Old Latin texts.

The chief characteristic of Western readings is fondness for paraphrase. Words, clauses, and even whole sentences are freely changed, omitted, or inserted. Sometimes the motive appears to have been harmonization, while at other times it was the enrichment of the narrative by the inclusion of traditional or apocryphal material. Some readings involve quite trivial alterations for which no special reason can be assigned. One of the puzzling features of the Western text (which generally is longer than the other forms of text) is that at the end of Luke and in a few other places in the New Testament certain Western witnesses omit words and passages that are present in other forms of text, including the Alexandrian. Although at the close of the last century certain scholars were disposed to regard these shorter readings as original (Westcott and Hort called them “Western non-interpolations”), since the acquisition of the Bodmer Papyri many scholars today are inclined to regard them as aberrant readings (see the Note on Western Non-Interpolations, pp. 164–166).

In the book of Acts the problems raised by the Western text become most acute, for the Western text of Acts is nearly ten percent longer than the form that is commonly regarded to be the original text of that book. For this reason the present volume devotes proportionately more space to variant readings in Acts than to those in any other New Testament book, and a special Introduction to the textual phenomena in Acts is provided (see pp. 222–236). – Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), xix–xx.

[23] Vetus Latina (“Old Latin” in Latin), also known as Vetus Itala (“Old Italian”), Itala (“Italian”) and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum L {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {L}}} , is the collective name given to the Latin translations of biblical texts (both Old Testament and New Testament) that preceded the Vulgate (the Latin translation produced by Jerome in the late 4th century). The Vetus Latina translations continued to be used alongside the Vulgate, but eventually the Vulgate became the standard Latin Bible used by the Catholic Church, especially after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) affirmed the Vulgate translation as authoritative for the text of Roman Catholics’ Scriptures.

[24] In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Majority Text, Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main text types. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

[25] In Christianity, the term Textus Receptus (Latin for “received text”) refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations.

[26] The Byzantine text, otherwise called the Syrian text (so Westcott and Hort), the Koine text (so von Soden), the Ecclesiastical text (so Lake), and the Antiochian text (so Ropes), is, on the whole, the latest of the several distinctive types of text of the New Testament. It is characterized chiefly by lucidity and completeness. The framers of this text sought to smooth away any harshness of language, to combine two or more divergent readings into one expanded reading (called conflation), and to harmonize divergent parallel passages. This conflated text, produced perhaps at Antioch in Syria, was taken to Constantinople, whence it was distributed widely throughout the Byzantine Empire. It is best represented today by codex Alexandrinus (in the Gospels; not in Acts, the Epistles, or Revelation), the later uncial manuscripts, and the great mass of minuscule manuscripts. Thus, except for an occasional manuscript that happened to preserve an earlier form of text, during the period from about the sixth or seventh century down to the invention of printing with moveable type (A.D. 1450–56), the Byzantine form of text was generally regarded as the authoritative form of text and was the one most widely circulated and accepted. – Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), xxi.

[27] In Christianity, the term Textus Receptus (Latin for “received text”) refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations.

^[28] Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), xxiii–xxiv.

[29] Johann Albrecht Bengel (24 June 1687 – 2 November 1752), also known as Bengelius, was a Lutheran pietist clergyman and Greek-language scholar known for his edition of the Greek New Testament and his commentaries on it.

[30] Johann Jakob Wettstein (also Wetstein; 5 March 1693 – 23 March 1754) was a Swiss theologian, best known as a New Testament critic.

[31] Johann Jakob Griesbach (4 January 1745 – 24 March 1812) was a German biblical textual critic. Griesbach’s fame rests upon his work in New Testament criticism, in which he inaugurated a new epoch.

[32] J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, vol. I (Halle, 1777), prolegomena.

[33] J. J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graecum, 2 editio (Halae, 1796), prolegomena, p. LXXXI. See Edition from 1809 (London)

[34] Johann Leonhard Hug (1 June 1765 in Constance – 11 March 1846 in Freiburg im Breisgau), was a German Roman Catholic theologian, orientalist and biblical scholar.

[35] The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum Dea or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 5 (von Soden), is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century written in an uncial hand on vellum. It contains, in both Greek and Latin, most of the four Gospels and Acts, with a small fragment of 3 John.

[36] Athanasius I of Alexandria (c. 296–298 – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor or, primarily in the Coptic Orthodox Church, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Greek church father and the 20th pope of Alexandria (as Athanasius I).

[37] J. L. Hug, Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart 1808), 2nd edition from Stuttgart-Tübingen 1847, p. 168 ff. John Leonard Hug, Writings of the New Testament, translated by Daniel Guildford Wait (London 1827), p. 198 ff.

Cyril of Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Κύριλλος Ἀλεξανδρείας; Coptic: Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲕⲩⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲩ ⲁ̅ also ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; c. 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444.

[38] Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann (German: [ˈlaxman]; 4 March 1793 – 13 March 1851) was a German philologist and critic. He is particularly noted for his foundational contributions to the field of textual criticism.

[39] Lobegott Friedrich Constantin (von) Tischendorf (18 January 1815 – 7 December 1874) was a German biblical scholar. In 1844, he discovered the world’s oldest and most complete Bible dated to around the mid-4th century and called Codex Sinaiticus after the St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai where Tischendorf discovered it. Tischendorf was made an Honorary Doctor by Oxford University on 16 March 1865, and an Honorary Doctor by Cambridge University on 9 March 1865 following this find of the century.[1] While a student gaining his academic degree in the 1840s, he earned international recognition when he deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament.

[40] The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 2 (Soden), or “Sinai Bible”, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices.

[41] Editio Octava Critica Maior is a critical edition of the Greek New Testament produced by Constantin von Tischendorf. It was Tischendorf’s eighth edition of the Greek Testament, and the most important, published between 1864 and 1894.

[42] The New Testament in the Original Greek is a Greek-language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892).

[43] The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 2 (Soden), or “Sinai Bible”, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices.

[44] The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, δ 1 von Soden) is one of the oldest copies of the Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to 300-330 C.E.

[45] The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is a fifth-century Greek manuscript of the Bible, containing most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable lacunae.

[46] Codex Regius designated by siglum Le or 019 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 56 ( von Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 8th century. The manuscript is lacunose.

[47] Codex Angelicus designated by Lap or 020 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), α 5 (von Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 9th century.

[48] Novum Testamentum Graece (The New Testament in Greek) is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its most influential editors, Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland.

[49] Eberhard Nestle (1 May 1851, Stuttgart – 9 March 1913, Stuttgart) was a German biblical scholar, textual critic, orientalist, editor of the Novum Testamentum Graece, and the father of Erwin Nestle.

[50] Erwin Nestle (22 May 1883 in Münsingen, Germany – 1972), son of Eberhard Nestle, was a German scholar who continued editing his father’s “Nestle Edition” of the New Testament in Greek, adding a full critical apparatus in the thirteenth edition.

[51] Kurt Aland (28 March 1915 – 13 April 1994) was a German theologian and biblical scholar who specialized in New Testament textual criticism. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (Institute for New Testament Textual Research) in Münster and served as its first director from 1959 to 1983.

[52] The United Bible Societies (UBS) is a global fellowship of around 150 Bible Societies operating in more than 240 countries and territories. It has working hubs in England, Singapore, Nairobi and Miami.

[53] Gordon D. Fee, P⁷⁵, P⁶⁶, and Origen: THe Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria, in: E. J. Epp & G. D. Fee, Studies in the Theory & Method of NT Textual Criticism, Wm. Eerdmans (1993), pp. 247-273.

[54] The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical period in which they worked became known as the Patristic Era and spans approximately from the late 1st to mid-8th centuries, flourishing in particular during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Christianity was in the process of establishing itself as the state church of the Roman Empire.

[55] In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Western text-type is one of the main text types. It is the predominant form of the New Testament text witnessed in the Old Latin and Syriac Peshitta translations from the Greek, and also in quotations from certain 2nd and 3rd-century Christian writers, including Cyprian, Tertullian and Irenaeus.

[56] Vetus Latina (“Old Latin” in Latin), also known as Vetus Itala (“Old Italian”), Itala (“Italian”) and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum L {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {L}}} , is the collective name given to the Latin translations of biblical texts (both Old Testament and New Testament) that preceded the Vulgate (the Latin translation produced by Jerome in the late 4th century). The Vetus Latina translations continued to be used alongside the Vulgate, but eventually the Vulgate became the standard Latin Bible used by the Catholic Church, especially after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) affirmed the Vulgate translation as authoritative for the text of Roman Catholics’ Scriptures.

[57] Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Latin: prīsca Latīnitās, lit. ’ancient Latinity’) was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin.

[58] In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Majority Text, Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main text types. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

[59] Maurice Arthur Robinson (born October 13, 1947) is an American professor of New Testament and Greek (retired) and a proponent of the Byzantine-priority method of New Testament textual criticism.

[60] Autograph: The autograph (self-written) was the text actually written by a New Testament author, or the author and scribe as the author dictated to him. If the scribe was taking it down in dictation (Rom: 16:22; 1 Pet: 5:12), he might have done so in shorthand. Whether by shorthand or longhand, we can assume that both the scribe and the author would check the scribe’s work. The author would have authority over all corrections since the Holy Spirit did not move the scribe. If the inspired author wrote everything down himself as the Spirit moved him, the finished product would be the autograph. This text is also often referred to as the original. Hence, the terms autograph and original are often used interchangeably. Sometimes textual critics prefer to make a distinction, using “original” as a reference to the text that is correctly attributed to a biblical author.  This is a looser distinction, one that does not focus on the process of how a book or letter was written.

[61] Eldon Jay Epp, A Dynamic View of Testual Transmission, in: Studies & Documents 1993, p. 280

[62] Dunnett & Tenney 1985, p. 150

[63] In Christianity, the term Textus Receptus (Latin for “received text”) refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations.

[64] Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus; 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance. As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style.

[65] W. W. Combs, Erasmus and the textus receptus, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996), 45.

[66] The Vulgate (; also called Biblia Vulgata, Latin: [ˈbɪbli.a wʊlˈɡaːta]) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome of Stridon who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church.

[67] Brooke Foss Westcott (12 January 1825 – 27 July 1901) was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881.

[68] Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892), known as F. J. A. Hort, was an Irish-born theologian and editor, with Brooke Foss Westcott of a critical edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek.

[69] Novum Testamentum Graece (The New Testament in Greek) is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its most influential editors, Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland.

[70] Novum Testamentum Graece (The New Testament in Greek) is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its most influential editors, Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland.

[71] Zane Clark Hodges (June 15, 1932 – November 23, 2008) was an American pastor, seminary professor, and Bible scholar. Some of the views he is known for are these: “Free Grace theology,” a view that holds that eternal life is received as a free gift only through belief in Jesus Christ for eternal life and it need not necessarily result in repentance or good works, therefore, one need not preach repentance when preaching the message of salvation.

[72] Maurice Arthur Robinson (born October 13, 1947) is an American professor of New Testament and Greek (retired) and a proponent of the Byzantine-priority method of New Testament textual criticism.

[73] The King James Only movement asserts that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. Adherents of the King James Only movement, largely members of evangelical, conservative holiness movement, traditional High Church Anglican, and Baptist churches, believe that the KJV is the greatest English translation ever produced, needing no further improvements, and they also believe that all other English translations which were produced after the KJV are corrupt.

[74] Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus; 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance. As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style.

[75] Robert I Estienne (French: [etjɛn]; 1503 – 7 September 1559), known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and sometimes referred to as Robert Stephens, was a 16th-century printer and classical scholar in Paris. He was the proprietor of the Estienne print shop after the death of his father Henri Estienne, the founder of the Estienne printing firm.

[76] Theodore Beza (Latin: Theodorus Beza; French: Théodore de Bèze or de Besze; June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Geneva.

[77] The Vulgate (; also called Biblia Vulgata, Latin: [ˈbɪbli.a wʊlˈɡaːta]) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome of Stridon who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church.

[78] The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical period in which they worked became known as the Patristic Era and spans approximately from the late 1st to mid-8th centuries, flourishing in particular during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Christianity was in the process of establishing itself as the state church of the Roman Empire.

[79] “Gavin McGrath Books”. http://www.easy.com.au. Archived from the original on 2010-04-10.

[80] An interpolation, in relation to literature and especially ancient manuscripts, is an entry or passage in a text that was not written by the original author. As there are often several generations of copies between an extant copy of an ancient text and the original, each handwritten by different scribes, there is a natural tendency for extraneous material to be inserted into such documents over time.

[81] Bart Denton Ehrman (born 1955) is an agnostic atheist American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks.

[82] Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperCollins, 2005, p. 265. Ehrman’s book is full of misinformation, twisting of the facts, and leaving out information that would alter the conclusion. See MISREPRESENTING JESUS: Debunking Bart D. Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus” by Edward D. Andrews.

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