Textus Receptus

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On Saturday, August 23, 1997 5:57 PM, Ron Patterson <ronp@hiwaay.com>
wrote...


> PATTERSON

> Steve Carr and Matt Bell keep talking about the Textus Receptus. I

> haven't the foggiest notation what they are talking about. I have looked

> through two encyclopedias and a considerable amount of other literature

> trying to find some reference to it, and I cannot.

> 

> I assume that it is a biblical manuscript. If so, is it a codex or was

> it published after the invention of the printing press. In other words,

> when was it copied, translated or whatever.


If I rememeber correctly, 'Textus Receptus' is the common name for one of
Erasmus' Greek texts. Erasmus, who applied the majority method to the
problem of variant readings, produced his Greek version sometime in the
1200's. (That's a little foggy - I may be wrong on the date). In any case,
Erasmus' text became the basis for most of the early English translations,
up to and including the KJV.

The major problem with Erasmus' TR is that it is based on a large number of
very late texts. After the publication of the KJV, new manuscript finds
forced a revision of the Greek text in order to make it conform to the
so-called Alexandrian family, which includes the earliest known Greek texts
- codex Alexandrinus, codex Vaticanus, and codex Siniaticus.

This explains why most modern English Bibles differ from the KJV in a large
number of places - they simply follow variant readings which appear to be
more authentic. Curiously, the KJV became something of an object of
veneration for a small minority of fundamentalists, who seem to be of the
opinion that God intended the KJV to be the only version for the English
speaking world. (Some of the more prominent members of these so-called
'KJV-onlyites' include Dr. Peter Ruckman, and my erstwhile pastor, Jack
Moorman. Try a Web search search on these two names for some very
entertaining defenses of the KJV-Only position).

Since they defend the KJV with such vigour, these men are of neccesity also
forced to defend Erasmus and the Textus Receptus as the One True Text,
despite a large amount of evidence whcih indicates that the text is
deficient.

One rather curious by-product of Ruckman's attempt at historical
revisionism, is the fact that the New Testament writers often quote the
Septaugint, rather than the Hebrew text of the OT. This causes severe
problems for Ruckman's thesis, for reasons which are a little complicated
to go into here. How to solve the problem? In true fundamentalist fashion,
Ruckman simply denies that there ever was a Greek translation of the Old
Testament called the Septuagint. (I kid you not. Try searching for "Peter
Ruckman" and "Septuagint" together, and you will soon see what I mean). It
never ceases to amaze me, the lengths that believers will go to in order ot
avoid facing the obvious.

-Curt

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