Hebrew Text

Textus Receptus

In Christianity, the Textus Receptus is an edition of the Greek texts of the New Testament established by Erasmus in the 16th century. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations.

There is a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins of the Textus Receptus. This is especially true of the manner in which Desiderius Erasmus gave us his original Greek New Testament which was published in 1516. It was this work which went on to become the foundation of the Textus Receptus.

Frederick Nolan, writing in 1815, states, in addition to the manuscripts which Erasmus owned or had seen himself, he gathered readings from various European nations through his broad friendships in universities, libraries, and monasteries. He noted; "I have a room full of letters from men of learning..." "We find by the dates of his letters that he was corresponding at length and elaborately with the learned men of his time on technical points of scholarship, Biblical criticism..." (Froude, The Life and Letters, pp. 377, 394).

Then in the late fifteenth century, the Greek language—unknown for hundreds of years—was recovered in the West, the geographical area of the Latin Church. With the rediscovery of Greek and its inception as the language of the people, the Latin Vulgate translation was subjected to a critical examination in comparison with the Greek original. Scholars discovered numerous mistranslations or outright errors in the Vulgate. This provided a reason for printing the New Testament in its original language, Greek.

Some within the brotherhood of Christ have jumped on the King James-only bandwagon. Their position, however, is not based upon sound principles of textual criticism.

Noted scholar Philip Schaff observed that the King James Version was derived principally from early editions of the Greek text compiled by Erasmus (1469-1536), who never used more than eight manuscripts (late in date), with some enhancement from the Complutensiam Polyglot (a 16th century version containing the Old Testament in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek).