Why the Textus Receptus Cannot Be Accepted (Jan Krans)

Here follows a guest post from a colleague and reader of the blog, Jan Krans of the Protestantse Theologische Universiteit (PThU) in Amsterdam, author of Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament, NTTSD 35 (Brill, 2006).

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Why the Textus Receptus cannot be accepted

In the discussion on the Textus Receptus two points of view exist that are diametrically opposed. I will first present the two views, and then demonstrate why only one of these can be sustained. 

In favour of the Textus Receptus

According to the first position the Textus Receptus has to be the one and only reliable text of the Greek New Testament. In other words it has to be the text that shows the correct reading at every single place of variation. Important historical-theological reasons are brought forward for this conclusion.

Historically speaking the Textus Receptus was the Greek New Testament text of the Reformation, during which the Bible itself took centre stage. Theologically speaking the Reformation was God-willed and God-given. Hence God himself used the Textus Receptus for his plans, condoned it, and even guided the minds and hands of its editors. In short the Textus Receptus has to be perfect.

There is even a biblical foundation for this view, for numerous Bible verses show that nothing of God’s word shall be lost: God assures that the Bible is transmitted in a pure and unaltered form. This form is the Textus Receptus.

With this position comes the conviction that the entire textual history since the establishment of the Textus Receptus has to be seen as degradation. Every textual change and every critical voice has to be suspect. For this corollary, again, historical-theological grounds can be given. The time since the Reformation, notably the Enlightenment, is marked by gradual alienation from God and detrimental human autonomy. Driven by the Enlightenment spirit, people began to undermine the Textus Receptus. Therefore all later texts and editions have to be rejected as thinly veiled attacks on God’s word.

It will be clear already at this stage that this first position can only be valid for those who share its most important presupposition, namely the special character of the Reformation, although this presupposition itself does not necessarily lead to the unconditional acceptance of the Textus Receptus.

In favour of textual criticism

The second position regards the establishment of the correct text of the Greek New Testament—the text closest to what the authors wrote and published—as a purely scholarly endeavour. Textual criticism of the New Testament does not fundamentally differ from that of any other text from Antiquity. The basic task is always clear-cut: charting the entire transmission—everything preserved as manuscripts and other sources—and finding out by means of the best text-critical method available what is oldest and most original. Needless to say the transmission of each text may have had special characteristics which scholars will have to take into account.

An immediate consequence of this position is that in principle the text-critical task is never finished. Methods can be refined and fresh manuscript finds can be made. Readers of the New Testament—just as for instance readers of Plato’s works—will have to live with a degree of uncertainty, even more so since there are cases that the available evidence does not allow for firm conclusions. Regrettably Bible translations and even source text editions more often than not hide even this relatively small degree of doubt from their readers.

This position inevitably leads to the conclusions that the Textus Receptus is outdated from a scholarly perspective. In the sixteenth century far fewer manuscripts were known, most of which contain the text in a later form, and text-critical methods were far less advanced.

Why the first position is wrong and the second is correct

The only correct position is the second one, for various reasons. Theologically speaking the first position suffers from a fatal a priori. It concludes from a historical phenomenon (the Reformation) to actions God must have taken. The second position is not hampered by such an a priori, since it is rooted in standard scholarly methods that are by definition neutral with regards to theological convictions. Therefore any mistrust against modern times and methods is refuted as well, since the research that has resulted in the modern critical text was not driven by lack of faith, but by a simple and straightforward question, namely: how can the New Testament texts as they left the hands of their authors be best reconstructed from all the available evidence? The editors of the Textus Receptus did not have the means to execute such a program, and also did not conceive of their task in the same way.

In practice New Testament textual critics today tend to be Christians themselves, but not always. It does not matter, for the quality of their work does not depend on their faith but on their adherence to academic standards.

Biblical texts on the reliability and preservation of God’s word have nothing to do with textual criticism, for the simple reason that the authors did not have copying processes in mind but only the value of the truths they conveyed. Besides, if the full weight of textual preservation were put upon those few verses, the result would amount to the surest proof that the Bible is not inerrant, since there exists not a single historical form of the text that has been available to everyone throughout history.

Historically speaking the Textus Receptus is undoubtedly outdated, as said, resting as it does upon far fewer sources and a far less developed method than known today. Moreover its editors did use the manuscripts available to them in a very irregular way, and did not follow consistently any method they had, whereas the demands of present-day scholarship guarantee that all evidence is taken into account and that methods are made explicit and subjected to scrutiny.

Some more on the Textus Receptus

The term “Textus Receptus” means “commonly accepted text,” and this is indeed how the Elzeviers presented the text of their 1633 edition in its preface. These famous words however expressed marketing rather than scholarship. They meant business. Moreover the term itself began to be widely used only in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the poor scholarly basis of the Textus Receptus had already become abundantly clear. Neither was there a “commonly accepted text” before the nineteenth century, but only a “commonly used text.” Not everyone was convinced of its value. Its place is better described as the default one—at least within Protestantism—without a proper foundation.

There is actually not a single form of the Textus Receptus, since it exists in numerous editions that—just as manuscripts do—differ from each other. This fact is in itself not very important, for it does not touch upon the essential character of the Textus Receptus. However it does show that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editors on occasion did not hesitate to alter the text according to their own views. The absence of a single definitive form of the Textus Receptus also puts its adherents in the unenviable position that they either have to make a choice or admit to the kind of uncertainty they usually fear. Many end up with an artificial form of the Textus Receptus, namely the Greek text as reflected by the King James Version, a Greek text however that never existed before Scrivener tried to reconstruct it in the nineteenth century.

The Textus Receptus does not equal the so-called majority text, that is, the text reconstructed by taking at any place of variation the reading found in most manuscripts. In general it does agree with the latter more often than not, but it also differs at numerous places, due to the manuscripts used by Erasmus and to all the interventions made by him and later editors. We are indeed very well informed on the origin and development of the Textus Receptus. The manuscripts used by Erasmus for his 1516 edition can still be consulted and provide a clear view of the decisions taken in the establishment of the text, and of the mistakes that were made. It turns out that a great many readings are more or less accidental: they would not have been part of the Textus Receptus had Erasmus used other manuscripts. Many other readings originated as haphazard and erroneous editorial interventions. Most of the peculiarities of Erasmus’ text remained unchanged in the Textus Receptus, but their true nature only became known a few centuries later, still to be obfuscated or denied by those who, in very un-Erasmian spirit, prefer the mudded stream over the clear fountain.

Conclusion

Only modern textual criticism approaches the original text of the New Testament as closely as humanly possible. The task entails a small degree of unavoidable uncertainty, but it would be a serious error of judgment to reject it in favour of the certainty promoted but not delivered by Textus Receptus adherents. They should know better. According to any academic standard the Textus Receptus is hopelessly outdated. The real reasons it still finds some few defenders have nothing to do with scholarship, but come down to infelicitous and misguided nostalgia in the best case and to obvious pseudo-scholarship in the worst case. It arbitrarily privileges a specific period, excludes progress, and inevitably argues from results to evidence.