Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
It is said of the Kr/family 35 Text-Form that it is the most precise and uniform grouping of New Testament manuscripts ever produced. What does that mean exactly? This will be answered extensively toward the end of the article.
In the days of Westcott and Hort, the argument was that the Alexandrian scribes removed what we have in the Byzantine manuscripts, while the other argument was that the Byzantine scribes added and altered. How could we ever solve it once and for all?
The Byzantine text family that makes up the Textus Receptus, which is behind the KJV and the NKJV is 80-85% in agreement with the Alexandrian text family that is behind almost all modern translations. The King James Version Onlyists (KJVOists) & the Textus Receptus Onlyists (TROists) call the differences omissions in the Wescott & Hort 1881 Greek New Testament (WH) and the Nestle-Aland 28th edition Greek New Testament (NA). They would argue that many of the differences are actually additions to the original texts, which has now been restored to its original form by removing spurious interpolations? Who is correct?
The Majority Text is nearly synonymous with the Byzantine Text because it was in Byzantium (and surrounds) that the Lucian text was copied again and again until it was standardized in thousands of manuscripts. (Phillip Comfort)