by Preservation comes to us through surviving manuscripts. Original manuscripts are gone, only copies exist. The total number of manuscripts of the New Testament is 5,488 in two major text-types: the Byzantine and Alexandrian texts.
Byzantine is named for the Byzantine area (Syria, Turkey, and Greece, where the Paul ministered). It’s also known as the Majority Text. It’s important to know, 90% of surviving manuscripts support the Byzantine Text (5,000 of the 5,488). For 1,800 years, Byzantine was the standard Greek Text.
Alexandrian is named for the city of Alexandria, Egypt. It’s also called the Critical text, or Westcott & Hort. It’s important to know, this text is based on less than 10% of surviving manuscripts (approx. 500 of 5488).
It’s also important to know that Alexandria was notorious for Arian and Gnostic heresies that denied the deity of Christ.
- Arianism says Jesus was created by God
- Gnosticism rejects that God came in the flesh
It’s also important to know that the Alexandrian text’s 2 chief manuscripts are the Sinaiticus (found in a rubbish bin in St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844) and the Vaticanus (found hidden in the Vatican library in Rome and studied in 1867). The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus disagree with each other more than 3,000 times just in the Gospels. They differ from Byzantine 6,000 times. They leave out portions of over 200 New Testament verses. They leave out 17 complete verses. In 1881, Westcott & Hort, popularized the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus claiming that they are the oldest surviving manuscripts and therefore the best. Logically, though, from the few illicit details I mentioned, their age is more likely because they were not used so the parchments were not deteriorated by the oils of human flesh.
It’s also important to know that every Bible version except the KJV is translated from the Alexandrian text, including the NKJV.
You decide which version is the honest best today. As for our church, we have determined this to be the KJV!
