- TEXTUS RECEPTUS 'tɛks.təs rə'sɛp.təs, properly 'teɪk.stus reɪ'seɪp.tus, noun. The medieval western Greek New Testament, edited and first published by Desiderus Erasmus in 1516. (Latin for “received text.”)
- 2. Any of the Greek NTs published by Erasmus’s successors before 1831; most often Stephanus’s 1550 edition.
We don’t have the original Greek-language copies of the New Testament anymore. Wish we did; it’d be nice if Christians had preserved them. Then again Christians would wind up worshiping the books… about as much as we already do.
But ancient Christians, like most ancient peoples, figured if you made copies and spread ’em around, that was just as good. And that’s what they did. They made copies, didn’t worry about the originals, and when the originals wore to pieces, no problem—they had lots and lots of backups! There are still thousands of ancient copies of the NT; it wasn’t just a best-seller in the present day. Copies of individual books, copies of the whole NT, and let’s not forget all the bible quotes in ancient Christian writings. In fact if all the ancient bibles were to vanish, we could piece them back together with the ancient Christians’ bible quotes.
And so the originals wore out. The first-generation copies wore out. The second-generation copies wore out. The third-generation copies wore out. And so on, and so on. The New Testaments we see in Greek-speaking churches are commonly copies of copies of copies—times a hundred. Or more.
Meanwhile, in Latin-speaking western Europe, they stopped using Greek bibles. Once the Vulgate was translated, they now had the bible in a language they understood, and that became “the bible” to them. There were still Greek bibles around, ’cause libraries might get one from eastern Christians and stick it in their collections, but like most people, they gave more attention on the translations they understood: Latin bibles, and the occasional local-language bible.
And like the Greek-speaking churches, they didn’t keep St. Jerome’s originals of the Vulgate. They likewise made copies. Then copies of the copies. Then copies of the copies of copies. And so on.
As you can guess, this process of copying the bible is gonna introduce errors into the copies. Humans make mistakes, y’know. Textual variants creep in. And if you’re a serious bible scholar, you don’t want variants to lead you, nor any other Christian, astray. Nor would you want any omissions—any missing words, missing verses—to do so either.
Textual criticism is the science of trying to determine what the original text is. It’s done by looking at the very oldest copies of any text we have. If they all match up, it’s pretty likely this was what the original had in it. If they don’t—
- One copy says “he.”
- Another, “Christ.”
- Another, “Jesus.”
- Another puts the two variants together: “Christ Jesus.”
- Another flips ’em: “Jesus Christ.”
- And yet another has, “Larry.”
—you gotta reasonably determine which of these variants was what the apostles actually, originally wrote. Based on the oldest evidence, historical support, grammatical context, and commonsense. And just to keep your decision-making process transparent, you need to include all the variants in your apparatus, which is a fancy way of saying “extremely important footnotes of all the variants.”
Thing is, Christians didn’t invent this science for quite a few centuries. They did what your typical uneducated Christian does with English-language translations: They pick the variant they like best. The one which most supports what they wanna teach. Or the one which sounds like the way they have it memorized… regardless of how they memorized it. If one of their favorite Christian songs uses that verse as a lyric, and the song goes “Christ Jesus,” that’s the variant they pick. Doesn’t matter that this variant didn’t show up in any ancient bibles at all, and doesn’t appear till the 1980s: If you leave it up to them, they’ll “fix” the bible till it matches all their favorite songs.
That’s kinda what the Textus Receptus is. It’s the first attempt by a western bible scholar to put together a Greek New Testament for popular use. Problem is, it’s pre-scientific. And the other problem… is Christians who don’t believe in science. To these people the Textus is the original Greek New Testament, period. Any other Greek NT produced in the last 150 years—especially one which states their favorite verses are textual variants!—must be part of some devilish plot to undermine the bible.
