The Validity of the Received Text

Much is being said today in an attempt to denigrate the Textus Receptus, the Greek New Testament text upon which the English Authorised Version and other Reformation-era translations were based. Critics believe that there is no single text that can validly claim the title 'Received Text', that the text originated in the works of a Roman Catholic priest, and that it was produced using only a few manuscripts—these things would all exclude its use as a valid source of translation, and thus any translations based upon something called the Textus Receptus would themselves be invalid.

It must be acknowledged from the outset that these critics' initial claims are true. There is no single Received Text; Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest to the day of his death; Erasmus used a handful of manuscripts that were readily available to him. However, the matter is not as simple as these critics would have us believe.

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