That is hardly a "majority!"Īnother example would be Luke chapter 1. But, there are over 300 Byzantine manuscripts containing Luke 22:30! So von Soden came up with a "majority" reading by consulting only 4.33% of the evidence available to him. Even though von Soden's work was a wonderful endeavor, not to mention a massive effort, and provides us with more manuscript evidence than any other collation of Greek manuscripts, it is, nevertheless, incomplete, and can even be said to be "honeycombed" with error (according to Hoskier).Įven though the Greek New Testaments based on von Soden and Hoskier's work are called "Majority" texts, they are, in fact, not necessarily so.įor example, in Luke 22:30 von Soden consulted 13 Byzantine manuscripts to make his determination what the majority reading should be. I find it to be more accurate than Hodges and Farstad's "The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text." However, bear in mind that both works are based on the manuscript collations made my Hermann von Soden of Matthew through Jude (1913) and Herman Hoskier's work on the Revelation (1929). If you are looking for a new text, I would recommend "The New Testament In The Original Greek According To The Byzantine/Majority Textform" by Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont. If you are looking for a good Greek Text which follows the Byzantine text type I would recommend either the text with interlinear by George Ricker Berry as already mentioned, or the Scrivener text published by the Trinitarian Bible Society. But Scrivener's text is a composite of every Greek source available to him by which he attempted to reconstruct the text followed by the KJV translators, and even then he was forced to admit there are about a dozen readings he could find no Greek manuscript or textual evidence at all in support of the reading. The only Greek New Testament which even comes close to substantial agreement with the KJV is the text of Frederick Scrivener (1880-1894). When they departed from that edition, they sometimes resorted to the 1598 edition of Beza. Of the remaining 15% not from the above sources, the KJV translators also relied on the 1550 edition of Stephanus's Greek New Testament.
Tyndale based his translation on the Greek of Erasmus's edition of 1522, so, about 85% of the KJV is either directly or indirectly based on that edition. Another 15% comes from Tyndale as filtered either directly or indirectly through the Coverdale bible (editions of 1535, 1537, 1550, 1553), The Matthew's bible (editions of 1537, 1549, 1551), The Great bible (editions of 1539, 1540, and Cranmer's edition of 1541), the Bishop's bible (editions of 1568 for the NT and 1606 for the OT), and the Geneva Bible (editions of 1557, 1560). About 70% of the KJV comes from the translation of William Tyndale (both editions, 15). I have asked this in another post, but where is it possible to obtain a TR that is exactly the compilation used in the KJV-does this even exist today? Or was there ever truly such a thing, since we know that certain verses were taken from the Vulgate and other texts?Ĭlick to expand.Well, no. I think the introduction to this book should shed a lot of light on the TR and KJV translation. Although we do not accept these are true Scripture, we have allowed them to remain the appendix must serve as the needed corrective. Acts 9:5-6), and one from the Complutensian Bible (1 John 5:7).
This test retains a few readings from the Latin Vulgate, two or three without Greek-manuscript authority (e.g. Beelzeboul for Beelzebub in Matt 12:24 sin for sins in John 8:21 flock for fold in John 10:16) In places it has different reading from that found in the KJV (e.g. It also departs in a few details from the Greek text used by translators of the King James Version.
The variants are way too extensive to quote here. There is an appendix for a list of varients between it and other printed editions of the RT. It is based on The New Testament in the original Greek According to the Text Followed in the Authorized Version, edited by F. The Greek text is the Received Text (according to the introduction) and was set by Stephen Austin and Sons for the Trinitarian Bible Society in 1976. It is the type used and set in 1866 by the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Hebrew is, of course, the Masoretic text. The Greek Text is used by permission of the Trinitarian Bible Society, London, England. It contains a Literal translation of the Bible (copyright 1985 by Jay P. I have a book titled: "The Interlinear Bible" with Jay P.