Providential Preservation of the Textus Receptus

The mother and son Bible translator team of Verna and James Linzey discuss how God has preserved his Word through the centuries and how this relates to the many ancient documents upon which the canon is based and the collections of these large and small manuscripts such as the Textus Receptus.

It has been said by theologians and scholars that we have the Textus Receptus (TR) today due to God’s providential preservation of His Scriptures. The doctrine of providential preservation was articulated in 1646 after the English Parliament commissioned the Westminster Confession of Faith to be drawn up. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, paragraph VIII, states:

The Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them.

Although Desiderius Erasmus printed the first Greek New Testament based on the Byzantine manuscripts available to him in 1516, and Robert Estienne provided a critical apparatus of the Greek variants with his printed edition of the Erasmus edition in 1550, it was the Elzevier edition in 1633 that popularized the Erasmus/Estienne edition as the Textus Receptus. The TR (nunc ab omnibus receptum “now received by all”) was based on the Byzantine manuscripts, and although not identical and differing in some 1,838 places,[1] the TR is based on the majority of Greek NT manuscripts from this Byzantine tradition. In 1646 the English Parliament knew only of the TR tradition over and against the Latin Vulgate. But can the question of the providential preservation of Scripture pertain only to the TR and not to all the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts and fragments?

As a matter of historical observation and faith, Christendom generally accepts the oldest and most reliable extant Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic fragments of the biblical canon. In 1646 when the Westminster of Faith was drawn up partly as a defense against using the Latin Vulgate, Parliament did not have historical access to the thousands of ancient language manuscripts that would later be discovered and excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Even the possibility that some New Testament passages were originally written in Aramaic was not in the purview of the writers of the confession. But either based on the Alexandrian text type from which scholars compiled critical editions of the NT, or the Byzantine text type from which other scholars compiled the TR, we have today a remarkable manuscript witness that evinces the accuracy and preservation, (and even scribal orthodox changes) to the biblical canon of Scripture. This is the macro picture for what the more than 5,800 NT Greek manuscripts and fragments afford us. By evaluating all the manuscripts, lectionaries, and sermons in the many languages of early Christians, we can actually reconstruct the earliest OT and NT Scriptures. It is certainly not a shameful embarrassment to have so many ancient biblical witnesses and languages; rather, it is an embarrassing treasure! And we can thank God for fulfilling His inerrant, inspired, and infallible promises to preserve His Word throughout the ages.

But the question remains: was the Textus Receptus the specific answer to God’s providential preservation of His revelation?

Many people answer to the affirmative based 1) on the logical theological assertion that God is able to and consistently does preserve His revelation to His people, and 2) on the rigorous scholarship of those involved in the compilation of ancient manuscripts as they prepared OT and NT texts and translations for people in the early modern era. For example, confessional scholars from William Tyndale in the early 16th century to Westcott and Hort in the late 19th century all strived to provide the earliest and best-attested readings for the Greek NT. Although history bears out that the copying, editing, and publishing of the Bible was done by monks, priests, theologians, and scholars of all theological stripes, the men who preserved and transmitted the Scriptures must come under the providential preservation of the Bible just as much as the Bible itself.[2] Of course, divine providence is not limited to only Holy Writ but to all and every aspect of human and natural endeavor and existence.

The Byzantine text-type manuscripts behind the TR (and also part of the greater Majority Text tradition of Greek NT manuscripts) have been preserved and found in great abundance from all over the former Greek empire. The Alexandrian text-type manuscripts behind the critical NT texts (such as the Nestle-Aland 28th edition and United Bible Society 5th edition)  have been preserved and found in smaller numbers in comparison, but their age is earlier to and geographic provenance similarly comparable to the Byzantine manuscripts. For example, the penchant for some Church Fathers to quote from Byzantine or Alexandrian type traditions depends on the access, geography, and time period that these Church Fathers had in relation to these manuscript types.  The question regarding the sheer numbers of Alexandrian versus Byzantine manuscripts depends on a variety of factors such as means to copy, rise of scriptoria, need for distribution, change in orthography and material, rise of scholasticism, Bible translation efforts, etc. These and other factors were occurring in late Medieval Europe and much less in the Near East. Of course, there are other ancient Greek manuscript traditions that are distinct from these two traditions (i.e., Egyptian, Eclectic, and Western). These other textual traditions have their own place and importance in the question of the providential preservation of Scripture.

There are many issues involved with God’s providence, Bible translation, the earliest ancient witnesses, and those scholars who collated and published these texts. In this day of ease of information access, anyone can consider these topics more thoroughly  It is the responsibility of all believers today to vigilantly and reasonably study God’s Word in order to show themselves as approved workers before God. Today’s leading Bible translations based on the TR or Byzantine tradition are the Authorized Version (KJV), Modern English Version, and the New King James Version. Some of the leading Bible translations based on the Alexandrian tradition are the English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, Holman Christian Bible, New Living Translation, The Voice Bible, and the New Revised Standard Version.

 

PR

Link to James F. Linzey’s author page.

Notes

[1] Daniel Wallace, “Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text,” Bibliotheca Sacra (July-Sept, 1989), 276.

[2] https://danielbwallace.com/2012/12/28/five-more-myths-about-bible-translations-and-the-transmission-of-the-text/