The Majority Text (i.e. Textus Receptus or Byzantine Text)

      The other text family had its origin in the city of Antioch in Syria.  The scholars in Antioch took a more literal approach to biblical interpretation.  They considered the Bible to be more than mere allegory; they believed it to be the very Word of God. As a result, they were diligent in seeing to it that they were faithful to copy it correctly, employing many of the same techniques of their Jewish predecessors.  It is this textual line that has given the world many of the great Bible translations: The Erasmus Greek Text, 1522 (Later to become known at as The Textus Receptus, 1633); Martin Luther’s German Bible, circa 1530; Tyndales Bible, 1522; Coverdales Bible, 1535; The Geneva Bible, 1560 and the King James Bible, 1611.

      While the new versions rest on a total of 45 manuscripts, those versions that were translated from the Majority Text rest on over 5,210 manuscripts!  The overwhelming number of manuscripts agrees with the Majority Text.  By the way, when the Nestles-Aland 27^th Text is compared to The Textus Receptus, you find that there are some 3,000 words omitted in the Nestles-Aland text and some 20 verses are also omitted.  Among the verses omitted are: Acts 8:37 and 1 John 5:7.

      This is astounding when you consider that Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which was written in 52 BC has only 9 good manuscripts supporting it and the oldest dates from some 900 years after the time of Caesar!  The Iliad by Homer was written in 900 BC. There are only 643 copies. The earliest copy was made about 400 BC. The textual tradition of the Iliad ranks a distant second to the NT tradition when you consider MSS numbers, age of documents, and quality of texts. Tacitus was a Roman who lived from about AD 55-117. His two long works are Histories and Annals. Only four and one-half of the fourteen books of Histories survive, while only ten of the sixteen books and two partial books of Annals survive. The text for both depends on one ninth century MSS and one eleventh century MSS.

      When you total it all up, the New Testament rests on over 86,000 fragment and manuscripts.  There is more evidence for the accuracy of the New Testament than there is for any ancient writing, period! Do we have the Word of God?  Absolutely! 

      While the Majority Text has much more evidence in its favor against the Alexandrian Text, some would argue that the Alexandrian texts are older, and therefore they are more reliable.