Manuscript traditions: Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine texts

Program / Course 4: Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics / Lesson 3.2

What you will learn

• Describe the three traditional text types of the New Testament and their typical features.
• Explain how the Byzantine text came to dominate the later manuscripts and the printed Textus Receptus.
• Summarize the Westcott and Hort approach and the main modern alternatives.
• Explain why the idea of a text type is a tool for study and not a final answer.

The big idea

Manuscripts are not all alike. Scholars noticed long ago that they fall into groups that share many readings, as if related. The three classic groups are called Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine. The Alexandrian is found in some of the oldest and best manuscripts, the Western is known for freer wording, and the Byzantine is the most numerous and lies behind the traditional printed text. Scholars debate how to weigh these groups, and the debate affects how the text is edited and translated.

Key terms

Text type

A group of manuscripts that share many readings and seem to descend from a common ancestor or a common tradition. Also called a family.

Alexandrian text

A text type found in early manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and several papyri, associated with Egypt. It is generally shorter and more restrained.

Western text

A text type found in Codex Bezae and in Old Latin and other versions. It is known for freer and sometimes longer wording.

Byzantine text

The text found in the great majority of later Greek manuscripts, widely used in the Greek church of the Byzantine empire. Also called the Majority Text or the Koine text.

Textus Receptus

A Latin phrase meaning received text. It names the printed Greek text of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries based on late Byzantine manuscripts, used for the King James Version.

Eclecticism

The method of choosing the best reading at each point from all the evidence, instead of following a single manuscript or family.

Critical text

A Greek text assembled by scholars who weigh the evidence of the manuscripts, such as the Nestle-Aland edition.

Background

When scholars compared many manuscripts, they saw that certain copies agreed with each other against others in a large number of small points. They sorted these into groups and named the groups after the places where they seemed to be centered. The names are conventional. A manuscript called Alexandrian was not necessarily copied in Alexandria, and the labels have been questioned by recent scholars.

The picture changed over time. For centuries the common Greek text was Byzantine, because it was the text copied in the Greek speaking church. When the first printed Greek New Testament appeared in 1516, edited by Erasmus, it relied on a few late Byzantine manuscripts. Later editions refined it, and it became the Textus Receptus. The King James Version of 1611 follows it. In the nineteenth century, older manuscripts came to light and scholars began to doubt whether the late text was the best guide to the earliest wording.

Today most scholars and most modern translations rely on an eclectic critical text. A minority argue that the Byzantine text should have priority, and Orthodox and some Protestant communities have reasons for loyalty to it. This lesson describes the groups and the debate without choosing a side.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Learn the Alexandrian text

The Alexandrian text is found in early papyri such as P75 and P66 and in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Its readings are often shorter and plainer than those of the other groups. Many scholars regard it as the most carefully transmitted and as closest to the earliest recoverable form. Others point out that its age and quality do not prove that it is original everywhere, since early manuscripts can also contain errors and some come from the same geographic area, Egypt, because only Egypt preserves papyrus.

Step 2: Learn the Western text

The Western text is known from Codex Bezae, a fifth century Greek and Latin manuscript, and from early Latin and Syriac versions and quotations in writers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian. It is typically freer: it adds explanations, paraphrases and sometimes whole phrases. The book of Acts in this tradition is about a tenth longer than in the Alexandrian text. Because some of its witnesses are early, scholars take it seriously, even though many judge its additions to be secondary. The name Western is old and misleading, since the group is not simply a geographic one and may include several streams.

Step 3: Learn the Byzantine text

The Byzantine text is the form found in the great majority of manuscripts, especially those copied after the ninth century. It tends to be smooth and full, with clear wording and often with harmonizing between the gospels. It is the form read in the Greek church for centuries. Scholars who give priority to the Byzantine text argue that the sheer number of copies and the continuity of church use support it, and that the early papyri come from one region only. Most other scholars reply that the Byzantine text seems to be a later development which combined earlier readings, and that numbers of late copies do not outweigh age and quality.

Westcott and Hort, in an influential edition of 1881, argued that the Byzantine text was a later blending of earlier forms. They preferred a text they called Neutral, which is close to what is now called Alexandrian. Their view shaped later editions, though not every part of their theory survives.

Step 4: Understand the modern debate

Today scholars use an eclectic method. They weigh readings one by one, using both external evidence (the age, quality and spread of the manuscripts) and internal evidence (what a scribe or author is likely to have written). Recent work, including the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method used in the Editio Critica Maior, tries to map the relationships between manuscripts at each point by computer-assisted comparison. This approach is less concerned with fixed families and more with the web of relationships between readings.

Notice that the three groups are tools and not final facts. Some manuscripts mix groups, and the same manuscript may be Alexandrian in one book and Byzantine in another. When a footnote in your Bible says that some manuscripts read differently, it is usually pointing to a difference between these groups.

1. Which text type or types support this reading?
2. How old are the manuscripts that support it, and where were they found?
3. Does the reading look like the work of a scribe who wanted to smooth or harmonize?
4. Is the manuscript evidence broad or narrow?
5. Which edition or translation am I using, and what text does it follow?
6. What assumptions about the text types am I bringing?

Examples

Different perspectives

Modern critical scholarship

Most textual scholars favor an eclectic text that gives much weight to early manuscripts, many of them Alexandrian, while also testing each reading on its own. They see the Byzantine text as largely later, though it may preserve early readings in places.

Byzantine priority

A minority of scholars, including some Orthodox and some Protestants, argue that the Byzantine text represents the church’s continuous tradition and should be preferred. They hold that God preserved his word in the church’s use. Others who share their faith reply that preservation does not require a single text type.

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church uses a Greek text based on the Byzantine tradition in worship. Orthodox writers value its place in the life of the church. Orthodox scholars also take part in critical editions and accept that older witnesses help to understand the history of the text.

Catholic

The Catholic Church uses critical editions for translations, such as modern Catholic Bibles, and also holds the Latin Vulgate in honor. The church has stated that translations should be made from the original texts, using the best available scholarship.

Protestant

Most mainstream Protestant translations follow the critical text. Some conservative Protestants hold to the Textus Receptus or the Majority Text, and defend this position on the basis of providential preservation. The King James Version remains loved by many for its language.

Why it matters

Footnotes and translation differences make more sense when you know the groups behind them. The question of which text to follow is one of the most practical disagreements among Christians who read the Bible in English, and it affects verses in the gospels, Acts and the letters. Knowing the arguments lets you discuss the matter with fairness and avoid claims that the whole New Testament is uncertain or that there are no real questions.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. What would count as a good reason to prefer a reading found in only a few early manuscripts over one found in many later ones?
2. How might loyalty to a church tradition affect the way a person weighs the evidence for a text type?
3. Is it reasonable to hold that God preserved the text in the church’s use and also that scholars should weigh the manuscripts? Why or why not?
4. Which example, the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery or 1 John 5:7, most changes your reading, and why?

Independent assignment

Which text does my Bible follow?

Find the preface or the notes on the text in your own Bible. In your notebook, write down which Greek text the translators used and how they treat the disputed passages named in this lesson. Look up Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53 to 8:11 and describe how your Bible presents them. Write 250 to 400 words on what you found and one question you still have. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study

• Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration Read the sections on the families of manuscripts and the history of the printed text.
• F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Compare its confidence with that of Metzger.
• Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies A father whose quotations form part of the early evidence.
• Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics Another early writer whose citations of the New Testament help date readings.
• Mark 16:9 The longer ending of Mark.
• John 8:3 The woman caught in adultery.
• 1 John 5:7 A reading found in the King James Version.