The Majority Text
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| If you want to be sure that your printed copy of the U.S.
Constitution is perfectly accurate, you can compare yours with the original, hand-written
document at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. However, when it comes to the New
Testament (NT), all its original manuscripts (mss.) -- penned by Peter, Paul, and other
apostles in the first century -- have disappeared. Almost all copies made from these originals during the early centuries were worn out, destroyed in the Roman persecution, or lost. The earliest known copy of any part of the NT is Papyrus (P) 52. This 2.5 by 3.5 inch fragment is usually dated about A.D. 125 and contains John 18:31-33, 37-38. In all there are over 5,000 mss. of the Greek (Gr.) NT which survive today. This is far greater then the number of mss. for any other ancient document. Among these thousands of Greek mss., about eighty-five percent agree among themselves to such a great extent that they might be called a "Majority Text" (M-text). The remaining fifteen percent represent mss. and groups of mss. that differ significantly from the M-text and may be described as "minority" forms of the text. The most widely read translation in history, the King James Version (KJV), is based on the Textus Receptus (TR), a close cousin of the M-text. The closest representation of the M-text in print is The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2nd ed., 1985). The only translation with footnotes showing M-text readings is the New King James Version (NKJV, Also by Thomas Nelson, 1985). Why is there a Question about the Original Wording? In the nineteenth century the discovery of a number of early NT mss. caused many Bible scholars to 0change their approach to the Gr. text. Although these mss. differed significantly in many places from the M-text, many scholars concluded they were better copies of the originals because they were older. This new approach led to printed Gr. texts based largely on a handful of early mss. These texts can appropriately be called a "minority text." For the last 100 years, this minority text has almost exclusively dominated printed Gt. texts (Westcott-Hort (WH), Nestle's, and United Bible Societies' (UBS) Gr. texts) and NT translations (English Revised Version (Vers.) (ERV), American Standard Vers. (ASV), Revised Standard Vers. (RSV), New American Standard Vers. (NASB), Today's English Version (TEV), New International Vers. (NIV) and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Matthew 6:13 This minority text dominance explains why so many words and phrases from the KJV are missing in these modern translations. One example is the concluding doxology of the Lords Prayer in Matt. 6:13. It is ommited in many translations even though it is found in most mss. |