Textus Receptus
The Textus Receptus is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum omne and including the editions of Stephanus, Beza, the Elzevir house, Colinaeus and Scrivener.
Erasmus' Latin/Greek New Testament editions and annotations were a major influence for the original German Luther Bible and the translations of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale. Subsequent Textus Receptus editions constituted the main Greek translation-base for the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, the Portuguese Almeida Recebida, the Dutch Statenvertaling, the Russian Synodal Bible and many other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western, Northern and Central Europe.
Despite being viewed as an inferior form of the text of the New Testament by many modern textual critics, some Conservative Christians still view it as the most authentic text of the New Testament. This view is generally based upon a theological doctrine of the supernatural providential preservation of scripture.
Textual origin
The Textus Receptus most strongly resembles the Byzantine text-type, as its editor Erasmus mainly based his work on manuscripts following the Byzantine text. However, Erasmus sometimes followed the Minuscule 1 in a small number of verses, additionally following the Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome in the 4th century in a few verses, including Acts 9:6 and in placing the doxology of Romans into chapter 16 instead of after chapter 14 as in most Byzantine manuscripts. In the Book of Revelation, Erasmus' text primarily follows the Andreas text-type, named after Andreas of Caesarea, who used it in his widely influential commentary on Revelation.For the first edition, Erasmus had direct access to around 8 Greek manuscripts in Basel, although he used Manuscript 2105 mainly for his copious annotations which were based on notes prepared over the previous decade on unknown manuscripts in England and Brabant. The Greek manuscripts used in the creation of Erasmus' first edition are the following:
| GA | Date | Name | Text-type | Contents |
| 2817 | 11th century | Codex Basilensis A. N. III. 11 | Byzantine | Pauline Epistles |
| 1 | 12th century | Codex Basiliensis A. N. IV. 2 | Caesarean/Byzantine | Acts, Epistles, Gospels |
| 2 | 12th century | Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 1 | Byzantine | Gospels |
| 2814 | 12th century | Augsburg I.1.4° 1 | Andreas/Byzantine | Revelation |
| 2815 | 12th century | Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 4 | Byzantine | Acts, Epistles |
| 4 | 13th century | Minuscule 4/Codex Regius 84 | Mixed/Byzantine | Gospels |
| 2816 | 15th century | Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 5 | Byzantine | Acts, Epistles |
| 817 | 15th century | Codex Basilensis A. N. III. 15 | Byzantine | Gospels |
Even though Erasmus had only one manuscript of Revelation when he created the first edition of his Novum Instrumentum omne, F.H.A Scrivener notes that in a few places such as Revelation 1:4 and Revelation 8:13, Erasmus refers to manuscripts which he had seen earlier during his travels. For subsequent editions, Erasmus had the benefit of many European correspondents and was able to get more collaborators or subeditors: for example, future English Catholic bishop Cuthbert Tunstall helped with the second edition; and he had friendly interactions with Spanish Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros. Erasmus had a copy of the Complutensian Polyglot in time for his 1527 fourth edition, particularly used for improving Revelation.
Other manuscripts were available to later editors of the Textus Receptus. Robert Stephanus had access to over a dozen manuscripts, including Codex Bezae and Regius, additionally making use of the Complutensian Polyglot. Stephanus' edition of the Textus Receptus became one of the two "standard" texts of the Textus Receptus alongside those of Theodore Beza. Like Stephanus, Beza had access to a larger manuscript pool than Erasmus, including Codex Claromontanus and the Codex Bezae; however, he made very little use of them in his editions.
Last verses of Revelation
Although contested by some defenders of the Textus Receptus, it is widely accepted that because the manuscript which Erasmus used lacked the last six verses of Revelation, he used the Latin Vulgate to backtranslate the last verses of Revelation into Greek. However, he also used the notes of Valla, such as in the reading "Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus" in Revelation 22:20, which does not completely agree with the Latin Vulgate. In this process, Erasmus introduced many distinct readings into the text of Revelation. Some of these readings were later edited out by Stephanus in his editions of the Textus Receptus, but some distinct Erasmian readings remained, such as the words "book of life" instead of "tree of life" in Revelation 22:19.Some defenders of the Textus Receptus have argued that Erasmus used other Greek manuscripts for the last six verses of Revelation. Manuscripts such as 2049, 2067 and 296 which contain similar readings to the Textus Receptus have been proposed as possible sources for Erasmus' readings in the book of Revelation. However, critical scholarship today views these manuscripts as being more likely being influenced by the printed Textus Receptus editions, instead of them being a source for the readings of Erasmus. It has also been noted that even if these manuscripts did not copy the Textus Receptus, that since Erasmus did not produce impossible Greek, it is possible for such manuscripts to contain similar readings by coincidence.
History
Erasmus
had been working for years making philological notes on scriptural and patristic texts. In 1512, he began his work on the Latin New Testament. He consulted all the Vulgate manuscripts that he could find to create an edition without scribal corruptions and with better Latin. In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned a Greek text: "My mind is so excited at the thought of emending Jerome's text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired by some god. I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense."He included the Greek text to defend the superiority of his Latin version over the Vulgate. He wrote, "There remains the New Testament translated by me, with the Greek facing, and notes on it by me." He further demonstrated the reason for the inclusion of the Greek text when defending his work: "But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, as they say, even to a blind man, that often through the translator's clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep."
Erasmus's new work was published by Froben of Basel in 1516, becoming the first published Greek New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum. For the Greek text, he used manuscripts: 1, 1rK, 2e, 2ap, 4ap, 7, 817. In his research in England and Brabant for annotations on particular words, he had already consulted several other manuscripts and was particularly interested in patristic quotations as evidence of early readings. For subsequent editions he used more manuscripts, and consulted with his vast network of correspondents.
Typographical errors, attributed to the rush to print the first edition, abounded in the published text. Erasmus also lacked a complete copy of the Book of Revelation and translated the last six verses back into Greek from the Latin Vulgate to finish his edition. Erasmus adjusted the text in many places to correspond with readings found in the Vulgate or as quoted in the Church Fathers; consequently, although the Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text, it differs in nearly 2,000 readings from the standard form of that text-type, as represented by the "Majority Text" of Hodges and Farstad. The edition was a sell-out commercial success and was reprinted in 1519, with most but not all of the typographical errors corrected.
Erasmus had been studying Greek New Testament manuscripts for many years, in the Netherlands, France, England and Switzerland, noting their many variants, but had only six Greek manuscripts immediately accessible to him in Basel. They all dated from the 12th century or later, and only one came from outside the mainstream Byzantine tradition. Consequently, most modern scholars consider his Greek text to be of dubious quality.
With the third edition of Erasmus's Greek text the Comma Johanneum was included because "Erasmus chose to avoid any occasion for slander rather than persisting in philological accuracy" even though he remained "convinced that it did not belong to the original text of l John."
Popular demand for Greek New Testaments led to a flurry of further authorized and unauthorized editions in the early sixteenth century, almost all of which were based on Erasmus's work and incorporated his particular readings but typically also making a number of minor changes of their own.
Complutensian Polyglot
is the name given to the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible. The edition was initiated and financed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros.Some such as the Trinitarian Bible Society also associate the Complutensian Polyglot with the Textus Receptus tradition. However, it is not usually named as part of the Textus Receptus, though it influenced the Textus Receptus and was utilized by editors of the Textus Receptus, including Colinaeus, Stephanus and Erasmus himself in later editions.