Defining Textual Criticism Terms, Alexandrian vs Byzantine, Majority Text, TR, Critical Text

I have long said, the most important thing to do at the onset of any discussion is to define the terms. I have tried to do that in my videos. But lately, we have gone down a rabbit hole that causes us to pause and look at a few terms that keep getting mentioned.
When discussing Bible translations, you will often hear the following terms:
- Papyri
- Parchment
- Manuscript
- Codex
- Alexandrian Text
- Byzantine Text
- Majority Text (MT)
- Textus Receptus (TR)
- Critical Text (CT)
We are going to look at those today. Even if you think you know what all of these mean, I really encourage you to watch. You may be surprised at what you learn.
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[@Agben35]

Keep doing what you’re doing Pastor! Praying for you and your new ministry.

[@michaelshannon6558]

Jonathan, you have explained these terms as precisely as textual critics such as Daniel B. Wallace. No other pastor of the churches I’ve attended and held membership in have even mentioned this stuff. Much respect from this long-term Southern Baptist.

[@RichardSmith-uw6st]

Very nice job explaining what for many is a confusing topic. Keep up the good work 👏

[@lizlaughin7806]

hey pastor! Great video! Could you maybe make a note on this video adding what the authorized version means so that beginners don't get confused!

[@rrsafety]

The namers of the “Critical Text” needed better marketing advice. Many KJV-onlyists think “critical” means it is criticizing the King James Bible. They should have named it the “Revealed Text” instead and those who don’t know the meanings of the word “critical” would have all jumped on board.

[@rrsafety]

@@capnjs Nope. Textual criticism is a scholarly investigation of manuscripts with variants. If a scholar has several versions of a manuscript but no known original, then established methods of textual criticism can be used to seek to reconstruct the original text as closely as possible. Sometimes they will create a new “original” document using that method. This document is a “critical text”. It has nothing to do with criticizing.

[@michaelshannon6558]

@@rrsafetyI agree totally, but I wish the scholar who named the discipline had said textual analysis instead.

[@4jgarner]

​@@rrsafetylol you got proven right pretty much immediately. Sorry bro. But keep it up. God bless.

[@richardpetervonrahden6393]

Great concise summary. Thank you.

[@Jeremy_White75]

Very informative! Another great video!

[@user-fk8hr6gv6g]

Thank you very helpful

[@pcb9134]

Excellent video! Thank you pastor!

[@BillPreacher]

Hi Pastor John. I enjoy your videos. I think you do a great job of exposition. Especially, on these issues. If I were an elder of a local church, I WOULD HIRE YOU AS LEAD PASTOR. You're doing a great job! Keep Preaching, brother. Amen, Jesus Christ!

[@genewood9062]

But please note: A PASTOR IS NOT A HIRELING! He is called by Christ, appointed by the Holy Spirit. :--}>

[@pastorburris]

I do not think this brother meant it in that way, but yes. A pastor is not a hireling.

[@shaunjulian8062]

Thanks for the clear and concise explanations! A lot of words get thrown around with very little normative understanding. You're making a difference. Thanks!

[@joelooney7201]

Good information Thank you

[@kvelez]

Most excellent content❤

[@OrthodoxPhilip]

Thank you for straight facts! Question: can you provide more detail on the story of how Erasmus received the manuscripts from the east? Where & from whom they were received? Who went there to retrieve them? Erasmus himself or another person? It sounds intriguing to me that someone from the west would randomly walk into the Ottoman east and walk out with a centuries-old Bible.

[@pastorburris]

Thank you for the encouragement. I love your question. Erasmus went to Basel, Switzerland because he thought he would find a trove of manuscripts. Instead, he only found a handful. The ones that were at Basel were brought there before the fall of Constantinople (1453) somewhere around 1432-1434. Someone had brought them to Basel for a conference and they never left. When Erasmus produces his first edition in 1516, he uses these and a borrowed commentary of Revelation that had the text in it. In one of my videos I actually talk about this and list out the manuscripts. I will search my transcripts and see which one that is and I will let you know.

[@OrthodoxPhilip]

@@pastorburris Thank you for a prompt reply. That is fascinating and a story that doesn't disappoint. I will continue to learn more about this as time goes on. I will also look for your video on those manuscripts.

[@brothermike434]

Pastor Jon - My only regret when listening to your videos is I don’t live close enough to attend your church and sit under your ministry of the Word. To all my KJVO friends - no one has ever answered why the inspired writer of the NT book of Hebrews quoted a textual variant in Hebrews 8:9. I’m willing to listen and learn.

[@cognoscenticycles4351]

That was an excellent overview of an often misunderstood subject.

[@cliftonwatkins7746]

I very much enjoyed the way you've handled this Teaching. I'm sure God doesn't have an American are British Bible in prominence on the right hand side of the throne. Robertson and Dan Wallace may have their debates. But I feel like it's time for someone like you to have a More reasoning together view.

[@genewood9062]

I like that little smile at the end! ............ There is a great KZbin video of soprano Regula Muhlemann singing Mozart's "Exsultate Jubilate" Part way through, two cello players quickly look at each other, and smile. They know that, collectively, they've nailed it! :--}>

[@peterschreiner9245]

Again informative. P.s. Are you related to Pastor Zach Burris who was pastor at one of our local churches, The Mill Church in Stratford, Wisconsin?

[@pastorburris]

I am not aware of any family in Wisconsin, but please tell cousin Zach I said hello. 😀

[@annakimborahpa]

Pastor Burriss, rather than a meager-meal introduction to biblical textual criticism, this video is one big old burrito festival. Shouldeth thou indulge me, now cometh forth three 'If's and beyond: 1. If Erasmus, within a period of twenty years, published five di-glot editions of the Greek and Latin New Testament on facing pages, does this mean he was a 'glotten for punishment'? 2. If F.H.A Scrivener's 1881 edition was merely a reverse engineered/back engineering of the KJB Authorized Version translated into Greek, then wouldn't those who advocate that this is the perfect and final Textus Receptus be engaged in circular reasoning? ... in that there is nothing to support this position with cross-references to any external source? 3. If the 1881 Critical Text edition that contains the conjunction ἢ ('or) in the first sentence clause of 1 Corinthians 11:27 [which is the same rendering as the earlier (A) 1550 Stephanus Textus Receptus and the (B) 1598 Beza Greek New Testament, as well as the later (C) RP Byzantine Majority Text 2005] was good enough for Westcott & Hort, then that's good enough for me. 4. This 1881 W&H CT rendering of 1 Corinthians 11:27 is at odds with the English translations of (A) the 1560 Geneva Bible and (B) the 1611 King James Version, both of which have the conjunction 'and' (καὶ) in its first sentence clause. Epilogue: Twice I dreamed that I translated the Greek New Testament into English with "unreasonable eclecticism", but then these renderings subsequently were consigned to oblivion as (A) the Textus Rejectus and (B) the Criticized Text, according to Majority Text opinion. I'm glad I woke up.

[@josephpellegrino2441]

What is your view of I John 5:7 and 8. The CJ debate?

[@pastorburris]

It is not original. This is not a problem of Alexandrian or Byzantine text types. It simply made its way into the text in the 9th Century from the margins.

[@josephpellegrino2441]

Which text do you prefer. The TR or the critical text? Which manuscripts to do think are more reliable, the Alexandrian or the Byzantine?

[@connerstephens4547]

Unfortunately, I just recently watched a sermon on KJV onlyism by a pastor that went to my church camp growing up. He stated a lot of the KJV only propaganda that you hear from everyone else that is only listening to a select few people instead of studying the topic for themselves. He even stated in the video and I quote “I don’t believe the inspiration of the Bible was in the original autographs.”

[@pastorburris]

Wow!

[@OrthodoxPhilip]

The King James 1769 edition was good enough for the apostles, so who are we to question it, right? (jk)

[@4jgarner]

That's heresy Patrick! And blasphemy too!

[@SoldierofChrist9]

I believe that if one stays within the formal translations i.e. word for word, then one is fine. It's when one ventures out of the formal that one has to be very careful.

[@Beefcake1982]

For those who use the “ Egypt is bad” argument against the Alexandrian text. In John one Jesus is called the word. When king Herod tried to kill Jesus by ordering all the baby boys to be killed, God sent them to Egypt to be kept safe. So God sent the word to be kept safe in Egypt.

[@pastorburris]

Yep. In a recent video (I forget which one), I made the statement that nothing good ever came out of Egypt except for Abraham, Moses, Israel, Jesus, and Apollos - just to name a few.

[@simsjones1977]

​@pastorburris can I have your bibliography for my own research purposes

[@4jgarner]

​@@pastorburrisplus Athanasius too!

[@scripturial]

Great summary of the terms and facts. Sometimes I feel like the scholarship around textual criticism doesn't prioritize producing a text that is designed to serve the church. Most groups doing this work are creating an eclectic text that on one hand is claimed to be as close to the original text as we can get, but at the same time, retaining sole ownership/copyright over the text. There is only one eclectic greek text that allows free unlimited unrestricted use for the benefit of the church at large. Sometimes it seems to me that the Robinson-Pierpont text should be prioritized by the church as a whole, not necessarily because it has the best scholarship, but simply because it is the only fully free biblical Greek New Testament. I am frustrated at these men who wish to collate, copyright, and thus control the ability to distribute the Biblical Greek text.

[@milads_ielts101]

helpful tho the accent lol

[@pastorburris]

Oh yeah, I have a horrible accent. Sorry, it's too late to fix it now. Just pray for me. :)

[@milads_ielts101]

Its lovely :)

[@ronester1]

Reasoned eclecticism is a flawed process. Some readings end up not matching any readings from existing text.

[@pastorburris]

Are you familiar with the nearly 30 places where the reading in the KJV matches no known edition of the TR? The reason why is because the KJV translators used reasoned eclecticism in producing the KJV.

[@ronester1]

@pastorburris well there you go. It's a flawed process that can lead to readings that don't have any support from existing manuscripts. But doesn't this happen in CT translations more often than KJV

[@pastorburris]

What this clearly demonstrates is that, as I have said and as has been the historical understanding, no translation is perfect - not even the KJV.

[@rossjpurdy]

The Alexandrian has been disqualified as a text type due to too much incoherence between manuscripts. There is now only one recognized text type: the Byzantine.

[@pastorburris]

You forgot to add, "in your opinion".

[@rossjpurdy]

🤣@@pastorburris

[@rossjpurdy]

@@pastorburris If you want my opinion, that will cost you cash-money. That just ain't free. All you get are the facts from me.

[@rossjpurdy]

@@pastorburris ---. “On the Relationship of the ‘Western Text’ and the Byzantine Tradition of Acts-A Plea Against the Text-Type Concept.” Pages 137-48 in Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior, III/3: Apostelgeschichte, Studien, edited by Holger Strutwolf et al. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2017. Hixson, E., & Gurry, P. J., eds. (2019). Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 349). IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press.

[@rossjpurdy]

@@pastorburris "Scholars now tend to avoid speaking of textual “traditions” and “text-types” as such, but this quotation nevertheless captures an important aspect of the transmission of the text.39" "39 On the reasons for this development, see Eldon J. Epp, “Textual Clusters: Their Past and Future in New Testament Textual Criticism,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, 2nd ed., ed. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, NTTSD 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 519-77." "Cole, Z. J. (2019). Myths about Copyists: The Scribes Who Copied Our Earliest Manuscripts. In E. Hixson & P. J. Gurry (Eds.), Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (pp. 147-285). IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press."