Textus Receptus - Textual Criticism and The Textus Receptus

Textual Criticism and The Textus Receptus

John Mill (1645–1707), collated textual variants from 82 Greek manuscripts. In his Novum Testamentum Graecum, cum lectionibus variantibus MSS (Oxford 1707) he reprinted the unchanged text of the Editio Regia, but in the index he enumerated 30,000 textual variants.

Shortly after Mill published his edition, Daniel Whitby (1638–1725), attacked his work. He claimed that the autographs of the New Testament were identical to the Textus Receptus, and that the text had never been corrupted. He believed the text of the Holy Scripture was endangered by the 30,000 variants in Mill's edition. Whitby claimed that every part of the New Testament should be defended against these variants.

Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), in 1725 edited Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci Rectè Cautèque Adornandi, in 1734 edited Novum Testamentum Graecum. Bengel divided manuscripts into families and subfamilies. He favoured the principle of lectio difficilior potior ("the more difficult reading is the stronger").

Johann Jakob Wettstein. His Apparatus was fuller than of any previous editor. He introduced the practice of indicating the ancient manuscripts by capital Roman letters and the later manuscripts by Arabic numerals. He published in Basel Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci (1731).

J. J. Griesbach (1745–1812) combined the principles of Bengel and Wettstein. He enlarged the Apparatus by considering more citations from the Fathers, and various versions, such as the Gothic, the Armenian, and the Philoxenian. Griesbach distinguished a Western, an Alexandrian, and a Byzantine Recension. Christian Frederick Matthaei (1744–1811) was a Griesbach opponent.

Karl Lachmann (1793–1851), was the first who broke with the Textus Receptus. His object was to restore the text to the form in which it had been read in the ancient Church about A.D. 380. He used the oldest known Greek and Latin manuscripts. Tischendorf's Editio Octava Critica Maior based on Codex Sinaiticus.

Westcott and Hort, published The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881, in which they rejected Textus Receptus. The text is based mainly on Codex Vaticanus in the Gospels.