Textus Receptus: A detailed examination of its history, significance, and sources

The term “Textus Receptus” was first used in the preface of an edition of the Greek New Testament published in 1633. This edition was published by printers Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevier in Leiden. In the preface, it stated: “Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum” – which translates to: “Therefore you have the text now received by all, in which nothing has been changed or corrupted.”

Erasmus of Rotterdam presented the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, titled “Novum Instrumentum omne.” For this work, he had access to seven Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, which can be attributed to the Byzantine Majority Text and date from the 11th to the 15th century. Erasmus also used the Latin Vulgate and quotes from the works of the Church Fathers as additional sources.

Due to the quick production time of only five months, Erasmus’ first edition contained many errors. A revised version was published in 1519 and served as the basis for Martin Luther’s German translation of the New Testament. Further editions with text corrections were published in the years 1522, 1527, and 1535.

Before Erasmus published his edition, Cardinal Jiménez in Spain had already prepared the multilingual Complutensian Polyglot. However, it was not published until 1520.

Robert Estienne, auch bekannt als Stephanus, publizierte 1546 eine textkritische Ausgabe, die auf den Werken von Erasmus und der Complutensischen Polyglotte basierte. His third edition of 1550 became known as the “Editio Regia.” With the fourth edition, Estienne also introduced the verse numbering system still used in the New Testament today.

Textual criticism research identifies different text families of the New Testament. The Textus Receptus shows many similarities with the Byzantine text but is not considered the best representation of this text family due to the limited number of manuscripts used. In the 19th century, additional manuscripts were discovered that questioned the Textus Receptus.

While modern Bible translations mostly rely on newer text-critical editions like the “Novum Testamentum Graece” or the “Greek New Testament,” the Textus Receptus continues to be used in certain Christian communities, especially in non-denominational and evangelical circles. The Greek Orthodox Church also uses a text that is very similar to the Textus Receptus.

Overall, the Textus Receptus has had a significant impact on the Christian world and continues to influence some Bible translations and interpretations of the New Testament to this day.

Overall, the Textus Receptus has had a significant impact on the Christian world and continues to influence some Bible translations and interpretations of the New Testament to this day.

Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum Omne, later known as Novum Testamentum Omne, was a bilingual Latin-Greek edition of the New Testament with scholarly annotations and the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament. It was prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) from Basel. Five editions were published: 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1536. It is estimated that up to 300,000 copies of Erasmus’ New Testament were printed during his lifetime.

The first edition of 1516, titled Novum Instrumentum Omne, included Erasmus’ revision of the Latin Vulgate as more classical Latin; in subsequent editions, it evolved into an independent Latin version influenced by the Greek. The Greek text is a Byzantine text type. The work was reissued in a second edition (1519) under the new title Novum Testamentum Omne, which was used by Martin Luther for his translation of the New Testament into German (the so-called “September Testament”). The third edition (1522) was used by William Tyndale for the first English New Testament (1526). The Erasmian editions and subsequent revisions in the 16th century influenced the Geneva Bible (1560), the King James Version (1611), and the Textus Receptus, which formed the basis for most modern translations of the New Testament in the 16th to 19th centuries.

Among the contemporary efforts was the translation of the New Testament from Greek and the Psalms from Hebrew by Giannozzo Manetti at the court of Pope Nicholas V, around 1455. The manuscripts still exist, but Manetti’s version was only printed in 2014. Greek fragments began to be printed when Greek fonts were cut: The Aldine Press published the first six chapters of the Gospel of John in 1505. In the early 1500s, there were several authorized efforts to create and publish scholarly polyglot and Greek editions of the biblical texts. In 1512, the French priest Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples published his revised version of the Pauline Epistles of the Vulgate, corrected against Greek texts, as well as a fourfold translation of the Psalms supported by Cardinal Briçonnet. In Spain, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros assembled a team of Spanish translators in 1502 to create a compilation of the Bible in four languages: Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin. Translators from Greek were commissioned from Greece and worked closely with Latinists. In addition to compiling the Bible, there was a new Latin text created for the Vulgate. This text, much of which had already been translated from Greek by the Church Father Jerome in the 4th century, was considered the only authoritative translation in the Catholic Church and was used instead of a new translation. Cisneros’ team completed and printed the entire New Testament, including the Greek version, in 1514. They also developed special fonts for printing Greek. Cisneros informed Erasmus about the work in Spain and possibly sent him a printed version of the New Testament. However, the Spanish team intended to publish the entire Bible as a single work and withdrew from the publication. Even though the first printed Greek New Testament was the Complutensian Polyglot (1514), Erasmus’ work was published first (1516). Erasmus was invited by Cisneros in 1517 to collaborate on the Complutensian Polyglot edition and to offer him a bishopric. But the Dutchman stayed and never traveled to Spain. The Complutensian Polyglot edition was approved for publication by the Pope in 1520; however, it was not published until 1522 due to the team’s persistent desire for review and editing.

In his dedication to Pope Leo X, Erasmus described his editorial approach with the (Latin) New Testament as philological rather than theological: “to fill the gaps, to soften the abrupt, to digest the obscure, to develop the developed, to explain the intricate, to shed light on the dark, to give a Roman polish to the Hebrew expressions… and thus moderate παραφρασιννε παραφρόνησις: that is, ‘to say differently in order not to say differently.'” He polished the Latin and explained: “It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin.” Erasmus’ Latin contained some controversial translations – unlike the Vulgate – with philological or historical justifications in the notes on words that played a significant role in the Reformation.

According to scholars like Henk Jan de Jong, Erasmus’ Greek text in his editions of the New Testament was not intended as a standalone critical text but rather to provide the reader of the Latin version with the opportunity to determine if the translation was supported by the Greek text. To some extent, Erasmus “synchronized” or “harmonized” the Greek (Byzantine) and Latin textual traditions of the New Testament by simultaneously creating an updated translation of both. Since both were part of the canonical tradition, he obviously considered it necessary to ensure that both actually contained the same content. In modern terminology, he made the two traditions “compatible.” This is clearly evident in the way his Greek text informs his Latin translation, but also vice versa: there are numerous instances where he edits the Greek text to reflect his Latin version (and possibly some lost Greek or patristic sources from his earlier research), or where he simply preferred the reading of the Vulgate to that of the Greek text (e.g. at). Acts 9:6).