The Bible's Underlying Texts

[Will]

The Byzantine Text Family
This text family is so called because it is characterized by Byzantine style font. Most of the manuscripts composing this text family were collected and recorded by the Orthodox Church(ie, Greek Orthodox) for many centuries. The Byzantine Text Family makes up around 95% of the manuscripts that we presently have available.

The Alexandrian Text Family
The manuscripts that make up this text family stem from Alexandria, Egypt althought not all are directly from there. They were created with a different font, known as "Unicals." This text family composes around 5% of all NT manuscripts available.

The Western Text Family
This text family is largely composed of Latin Translations of the New Testament, specifically, "Old Latin." Like the Alexandrian Text Family, it is more abrupt in some readings than the Byzantine Text, and has a tendency to paraphrase. Most textual critics believe this text family to be the most prone to textual corruption.

Now, let's delve more into this. The Byzantine Text Family and Alexandrian Text Family are the two major text families that textual critics look at when studying the Greek manuscripts.

Byzantine Text Family-
--Also called the Majority Text
----Was used to compile the Textus Receptus(TR)

Alexandrian Text Family-
--Also called "Neutral" or "Egyptian"
----Is the primary source used in the "Critical Text" primarily due to the influence of Westcott and Hort.

Now, what Translations are influenced by which text families?
Byzantine-
--Majority Text
----Textus Receptus
------Wycliffe, Bishop's, Geneva, KJV, NKJV*, MKJV, KJV21, Webster's, and some others.
*NKJV contains footnotes referencing the whole of the Majority Text and the Critical Text both.

Alexandrian-
--Neutral, Egyptian
----Critical Text
------NIV, NASB, RSV, ASV, almost every new version to come out in the past 100 years with the exception of those listed under the Byzantine Text Family.

Major Variant Readings in the two text families:
1 John 5:7-
--This passage is known as the Johanine Comma. The Alexandrian Text Family omits the reading: "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." The Byzantine Text Family is the only Text Family that contains this reading, and in only a small number of manuscripts. However, this reading is testified to by Cyprian in the 4th century(?).

Luke 11:2 The Lord's Prayer-
--The Alexandrian Text begins with "Father," the Byzantine Text begins with "Our Father in heaven."

Mark 16 Longer or Shorter ending?-
--The Alexandrian Text ends on verse 8, while some translations carry the alternate ending, they place it in brackets and note that this ending is not contained in the older manuscripts. However, the Byzantine Text includes this ending, and is in a large number of texts.

[kevinmiller]

Thanks for posting that Will. Good stuff. :thumb

[Randy]

The Byzantine Text Family
This text family is so called because it is characterized by Byzantine style font. Most of the manuscripts composing this text family were collected and recorded by the Orthodox Church(ie, Greek Orthodox) for many centuries. The Byzantine Text Family makes up around 95% of the manuscripts that we presently have available.

Byzantine FONT?

I'm pretty sure that it is because of the location within the Byzantine empire, in part of modern Turkey.

The Alexandrian Text Family
The manuscripts that make up this text family stem from Alexandria, Egypt althought not all are directly from there. They were created with a different font, known as "Unicals." This text family composes around 5% of all NT manuscripts available.

And miniscules. The Unicals were printed (by hand) in all upper case letters. The miniscules were written similar to cursive. I'm not sure of the breakdown on how many of each are available.

The Western Text Family
This text family is largely composed of Latin Translations of the New Testament, specifically, "Old Latin." Like the Alexandrian Text Family, it is more abrupt in some readings than the Byzantine Text, and has a tendency to paraphrase. Most textual critics believe this text family to be the most prone to textual corruption.

There is some question about wether this should even be listed as a text family or not.

Mark 16 Longer or Shorter ending?-
--The Alexandrian Text ends on verse 8, while some translations carry the alternate ending, they place it in brackets and note that this ending is not contained in the older manuscripts. However, the Byzantine Text includes this ending, and is in a large number of texts.

I had the opportunity to view an ancient bible exhibit at the smithsonian last year. One of the documents that they had there was a gospelbook from the 9th century. It did not have the last 12 verses in the book of Mark, but the scribe who copied it had left enough space for it. When he got to that part, he trippled the size of the lettering to fill the excess space.

I have a few pictures of the leaves of Sinaticus as well as that gospelbook on my blog.

[Will]

Byzantine FONT?

I'm pretty sure that it is because of the location within the Byzantine empire, in part of modern Turkey.




And miniscules. The Unicals were printed (by hand) in all upper case letters. The miniscules were written similar to cursive. I'm not sure of the breakdown on how many of each are available.



There is some question about wether this should even be listed as a text family or not.


I had the opportunity to view an ancient bible exhibit at the smithsonian last year. One of the documents that they had there was a gospelbook from the 9th century. It did not have the last 12 verses in the book of Mark, but the scribe who copied it had left enough space for it. When he got to that part, he trippled the size of the lettering to fill the excess space.

I have a few pictures of the leaves of Sinaticus as well as that gospelbook on my blog.

A: The Byzantine Text type is characterized by miniscules. I chose to call it the Byzantine font because it is characterized by that manner.

B: The Alexandrian Text Type is characterized by Unicals.

C: True, but it is currently listed as a text family to my knowledge. Not that anybody really pays any attention to it as such. Only the Byzantine and Alexandrian really have any supporters in the debate.

[Randy]

I've seen a lot of percentages concerning how many source documents are from which types, but I haven't seen anything more than generalized numbers. Have you seen actual counts of the number of extant documents for the different text types?

[Will]

I've seen a lot of percentages concerning how many source documents are from which types, but I haven't seen anything more than generalized numbers. Have you seen actual counts of the number of extant documents for the different text types?

I haven't seen a whole lot dealing with actual numbers, although I think the number for surviving Alexandrian type may be around 30 or so manuscripts, but I'm not certain how they are classifying these manuscripts. I have a couple books on the manuscripts and such, but it's taking me a very long time to go through them. It's like trying to work through physics as a second grader. Why somebody just can't make it real simple to understand is beyond me.

[Randy]

Another thing to note is that not all 'source documents' come from copies of biblical texts. Many are from letters between early church leaders where they would extensively quote scripture passages.

I did some online looking, and there isn't much available that discusses any of those aspects. There are supposed to be quite a few extremely detailed books that refute the 'new' textual criticism of W & H, which were written about the time that the RV came out. I'd love to see some of them, as it seems that scholarly ability declines through the years.

[Calvary]

The Uncials is just a fancy way of saying written in all caps. The caps lock button was stuck on they wrote it out. :smile Another interesting feature of the all caps mss is that there are no spaces between the words so it reads like this:

ISAWABUNDANCEONTHETABLE. So did I see a bun dance on the table or did I see abundance on the table?

There are 140 copies and they start around the 4th through to the 10th century. That was in 1939 (Lake) but since then Aland, Black, Metzger and Wilkgren (USB The Greek New Testament) have listed about another 70 or so I think. You can get this information from the back of just about any Greek Testament put out by any Bible Society, one just has to learn how to read the

[Will]

Will, your attempt at comparing the KJB

[Will]

[kevinmiller]

[pneu-engine]

[kevinmiller]

They have a KJV-Korean Bible and I think one of their older versions is a TR-based Bible. It's extremely hard to find info on Korean versions of the Bible. I have two mainstream Korean Bibles that were given to me. I will probably try to find another version when I go back to Korea.

[Randy]

[kevinmiller]

They have a KJV-Korean Bible and I think one of their older versions is a TR-based Bible. It's extremely hard to find info on Korean versions of the Bible. I have two mainstream Korean Bibles that were given to me. I will probably try to find another version when I go back to Korea.

I'm not sure why it is the most popular. I imagine because it is a more recently updated version. :dunno: