The Foundations of New Testament Textual Criticism

Textual criticism of the New Testament involves the collection, comparison, and analysis of ancient manuscripts to recover the original wording of the Greek New Testament. The task is necessitated by the fact that we possess no autographs—no original writings of the New Testament authors. What we do have, however, is an unparalleled wealth of manuscript evidence—over 5,900 Greek manuscripts and thousands of versions and citations from the early church fathers. The goal of New Testament Textual Criticism (NTTC) is to evaluate variant readings in these witnesses to determine, as closely as possible, the original text.

There are two dominant approaches to NTTC: the reasoned eclectic method, which weighs internal considerations heavily (e.g., what the author was more likely to have written, transcriptional probabilities), and the documentary method, which places the highest weight on early and reliable external manuscript evidence. The conservative, documentary-based approach prioritizes manuscript evidence from the earliest and most textually accurate witnesses, particularly from the Alexandrian tradition. This method resists subjective conjecture and affirms the preservation of Scripture as the Holy Spirit-guided process through God’s people, culminating in the vast majority of authentic textual content available today.

The King James Version and Its Greek Text

The King James Version (KJV) of 1611 is perhaps the most influential English translation of the Bible in history. Created by a committee of 47 scholars under King James I of England, its impact on the English language is immense. Yet, the literary beauty of the KJV far surpasses its textual accuracy. As many evangelical scholars have rightly observed, its poetic cadence, balance, and majesty make it highly memorable. However, the translation is based on a Greek text that does not represent the best manuscript evidence available.

The Greek New Testament underlying the KJV is known as the Textus Receptus (TR), a printed Greek text produced during the 16th century, primarily by the hand of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. The TR is not a manuscript tradition per se but a printed edition compiled from a very small selection of late Byzantine manuscripts, and it contains numerous variants not supported by earlier textual witnesses.

Desiderius Erasmus and His Greek-Latin New Testament

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536 C.E.), a Dutch Catholic humanist and scholar, was the central figure in the production of the first printed Greek New Testament. On March 1st, 1516, he published the Novum Instrumentum Omne, a Greek-Latin diglot which included both his own Latin translation and the Greek text he collated from a mere seven Greek manuscripts, all of which dated no earlier than the 11th century C.E.

These manuscripts, obtained in Basel, Switzerland, were all from the Byzantine tradition. Erasmus confessed that his work was rushed—he was racing to beat the Spanish Complutensian Polyglot, which, although printed in 1514, had not yet been published due to ecclesiastical delays. Erasmus’ first edition was so hastily done that he called it “precipitated rather than edited,” and scholars have called it the “most poorly edited book ever published.”

Despite its imperfections, Erasmus’ work laid the foundation for what would later be known as the Textus Receptus—a term first used as an advertising phrase in 1633 by the Elzevir brothers: “Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum” (“Therefore you have the text now received by all”).

Manuscript Limitations and Errors in Erasmus’ Work

One of the greatest limitations of Erasmus’ editions was the scarcity and late date of his manuscript sources. This is seen most strikingly in his handling of the Book of Revelation. Erasmus had only one manuscript for this book, and the final leaf—containing the last six verses—was missing. In response, he back-translated the Latin Vulgate into Greek to fill the gap. This produced seventeen unique Greek variants not found in any other Greek manuscript. One of the most significant of these is in Revelation 22:19, where Erasmus’ Greek text reads:

“…God shall take away his part out of the book of life…”

However, the overwhelming manuscript evidence reads “tree of life.” The confusion arose from the Latin similarity between “liber” (book) and “lignum” (tree), which Erasmus misinterpreted. As a result, the KJV renders the incorrect reading “book of life,” a rendering that is not supported by any known Greek manuscript prior to Erasmus’ edition.

The Trinitarian Formula in 1 John 5:7-8

Perhaps the most notorious textual issue in the Textus Receptus is the inclusion of the Trinitarian Formula in 1 John 5:7-8, often referred to as the Comma Johanneum. The passage in the KJV reads:

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

This phrase does not appear in any Greek manuscript prior to the 14th century, and even then, only in a few marginal notes. Erasmus did not include it in his first two editions because he found no Greek manuscripts that contained it. After facing strong pressure from Catholic authorities, he allegedly agreed to include the verse if a single Greek manuscript could be found with the reading.

Shortly after, a manuscript surfaced—Codex Montfortianus (Codex 61)—which contained the phrase, but it was clearly created in response to Erasmus’ challenge. Erasmus reluctantly included the Comma Johanneum in his third edition (1522), but even then, he revised the Greek grammar because the scribe’s Greek was clumsy. This verse is now recognized as a late Latin interpolation that eventually made its way into a few late Greek copies under ecclesiastical pressure.

The Comma Johanneum is absent from P66, P75, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and the majority of early Fathers, including those who explicitly addressed the Trinity (e.g., Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa). It is therefore not an authentic part of the original New Testament text.

Erasmus’ Legacy and the Transmission of the Textus Receptus

Erasmus published five editions of his Greek New Testament (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535). His third edition (1522) became the basis for Robert Stephanus’ four editions (1546–1551), with his 1550 edition being the first to include textual variants. Stephanus’ 1551 edition was the first to introduce verse numbers into the Greek New Testament.

Theodore Beza, successor of John Calvin, built on Stephanus’ work and published eleven editions between 1565 and 1604. His 1589 edition is the one most closely aligned with the eventual King James Version. All of these texts—Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza—relied on the same limited Byzantine manuscripts.

By the time of the Elzevir edition of 1633, the phrase “Textus Receptus” had become associated with this stream of printed Greek texts. The KJV translators used Beza’s editions and Stephanus’ 1550 edition as their base text. Thus, the Textus Receptus represents a printed tradition, not a manuscript tradition.

Evaluating the Textus Receptus Today

In contrast to the seven late manuscripts Erasmus used, modern critical editions (Nestle-Aland 28th, UBS5) benefit from thousands of Greek manuscripts, many of which are centuries earlier. Among these are papyrus manuscripts such as:

• P52 (c. 110–125 C.E.): fragment of John

• P66 (c. 125–125 C.E.): near-complete Gospel of John

• P75 (c. 175–225 C.E.): strong agreement with Codex Vaticanus

• P46 (c. 100–150 C.E.): Pauline epistles

These early Alexandrian manuscripts show remarkable consistency and help reconstruct a text that predates the Byzantine tradition used by Erasmus by as much as 900 years. The documentary method thus affirms the Alexandrian text-type as the most reliable witness to the autographs.

While it is true that the Textus Receptus differs from the modern critical text (e.g., Nestle-Aland 28th Edition) in approximately 5,000 places, the vast majority of these differences are minor and do not affect any core doctrines. Textual scholars have long concedes that no essential Christian doctrine hinges on a textual variant.

Despite its literary legacy, the KJV is based on a text that is not reflective of the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Translations based on the Nestle-Aland or UBS Greek text, such as the Updated American Standard Version (UASV) or English Standard Version (ESV), more accurately reflect the wording of the original New Testament writers.

Final Observations

The Textus Receptus is a historic artifact in the development of biblical scholarship, representing a key stage in the return to the Greek text of the New Testament during the Reformation. However, its textual base is inferior, and it contains non-original readings like the Comma Johanneum and the back-translated portions of Revelation. Thanks to a wealth of manuscript discoveries and disciplined methods of NTTC, we now have access to a Greek New Testament that is more accurate and closer to the autographs than anything Erasmus had in the 16th century.

You May Also Enjoy

Understanding the Transmission and Restoration of the New Testament Text: A Rebuttal to Misconceptions about Miraculous Preservation

About the Author

CLICK LINKED IMAGE TO VISIT ONLINE STORE

CLICK TO SCROLL THROUGH OUR BOOKS