Textus Receptus - Defense of The Textus Receptus

Defense of The Textus Receptus

Frederick von Nolan, a 19th century historian and Greek and Latin scholar, spent 28 years attempting to trace the Textus Receptus to apostolic origins. He was an ardent advocate of the supremacy of the Textus Receptus over all other editions of the Greek New Testament, and argued that the first editors of the printed Greek New Testament intentionally selected the texts they did because of their superiority and disregarded other texts which represented other text-types because of their inferiority.

It is not to be conceived that the original editors of the New Testament were wholly destitute of plan in selecting those manuscripts, out of which they were to form the text of their printed editions. In the sequel it will appear, that they were not altogether ignorant of two classes of manuscripts; one of which contains the text which we have adopted from them; and the other that text which has been adopted by M. Griesbach.

Regarding Erasmus, Nolan stated:

Nor let it be conceived in disparagement of the great undertaking of Erasmus, that he was merely fortuitously right. Had he barely undertaken to perpetuate the tradition on which he received the sacred text he would have done as much as could be required of him, and more than sufficient to put to shame the puny efforts of those who have vainly labored to improve upon his design. With respect to Manuscripts, it is indisputable that he was acquainted with every variety which is known to us, having distributed them into two principal classes, one of which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript. And he has specified the positive grounds on which he received the one and rejected the other.

The Textus Receptus was defended by John William Burgon in his The Revision Revised (1881), and also by Edward Miller in A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (1886). Burgon supported his arguments with the opinion that the Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi, were older than the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus; and also that the Peshitta translation into Syriac (which supports the Byzantine Text), originated in the 2nd century. Miller's arguments in favour of readings in the Textus Receptus were of the same kind. However, both Burgon and Miller believed that, although the Textus Receptus was to be preferred to the Alexandrian Text, nevertheless it still required to be corrected in certain readings against the manuscript tradition of the Byzantine text. In this judgement they have been criticised by Edward F. Hills. Hills argues that the principle that God provides truth through scriptural revelation, necessarily also implies that God must ensure a preserved transmission of the correct revealed text, continuing into the Reformation era of biblical translation and printing. For Hills, the task of biblical scholarship is to identify the particular line of preserved transmission through which God is acting; a line which he sees in the specific succession of manuscript copying, textual correction and printing, which culminated in the Textus Receptus and the King James Bible. Hills argues that the principle of providentially preserved transmission guarantees that the printed Textus Receptus must be the closest text to the Greek autographs; and consequently he rejects readings in the majority Byzantine text where these are not maintained in the Textus Receptus. He goes so far as to conclude that Erasmus must have been providentially guided when he introduced Latin Vulgate readings into his Greek text; and even argues for the authenticity of the Comma Johanneum.

Hence the true text is found not only in the text of the majority of the New Testament manuscripts but more especially in the Textus Receptus and in faithful translations of the Textus Receptus, such as the King James Version. In short, the Textus Receptus represents the God-guided revision of the majority text.

Hills was the first textual critic to defend Textus Receptus. Although others have defended the TR per se, they are either not acknowledged textual critics (e.g. Theodore Letis, David Hocking) or their works are not on a scholarly level (e.g., Terence H. Brown or D. A. Waite).