The earliest copies of Bible portions were either written on papyrus (also called parchment) or on vellum.

These were papyrus or vellum copies of smaller or larger portions of the Bible.

Westcott and Hort conjectured that, of the 5,000 Bible manuscripts, only two should be given the preference: the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus! They said these were older and therefore more reliable than any of the others. It was assumed that, since it was conjectured that they were without error, all variations in the other 5,000 manuscripts must be copyist errors of one kind or another.

This codex is thought by the experts to have been written about A.D. 340. There are definite reasons for dating it to that time; and we will learn that the Majority Text (the basis for the King James Bible) goes back to an earlier date.

Of the Old Testament, only fragments remain from the earlier parts, but complete books from the later part. The entire New Testament is included.

—Yet this is the manuscript, along with the Vaticanus, which, according to Westcott and Hort’s theory, has become the basis for all 20th-century Bible translations!

The Codex Vaticanus (B) is the most complete known manuscript of the Greek Bible; it includes much of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament while breaking off at Hebrews 9:14.

Copyist errors did, indeed, occur from time to time in the copying of manuscripts; but the Majority Text tended to eliminate them for two reasons: (1) Those manuscripts were prepared by faithful, prayerful followers of Christ and God blessed their efforts to be accurate. (2) As scholars compared manuscript with manuscript of the many in the Majority Text, they could the more easily weed out the errors.

Regarding the quality of the transcription in the Vaticanus, upon very careful examination of it, Dr. Scrivener found that it was not much better than the Sinaiticus:

Burgon recognized a common flow of errors, in the two codices, that pointed to an underlying attempt to insert errors.

The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are not as old as the Majority Text. They originated in Alexandria, Egypt, a continual breeding ground for paganizing Christian error. They were influenced by the Alexandrian heretic, Origen.

There is also a linkage between the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus—and Jerome’s Catholic translation into the Latin Vulgate.

name for it is the Received Text or Textus Receptus (which is actually the name of the third edition of Erasmus’ Greek Text, based entirely on this family of manuscripts). However, throughout this book, we will call it by the most descriptive name: the Majority Text.

In Hort’s opinion, Greek and Syrian church "fathers" produced this as a revision of existing manuscripts in the vicinity of Antioch in the late 4th century. Hort declared it to be later than the other families and, therefore, essentially worthless. Yet the Majority Text includes most of the uncials (which Hort arbitrarily decided must have been produced in later centuries) and nearly all the thousands of cursive manuscripts.

It is of interest that even Dr. Hort admitted that the Syrian Family (Majority Text) was as old as his so-called Neutral family.

"The fundamental text of late extant Greek manuscripts, generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Graeco-Syrian text of the second half of the fourth century."—F.J.A. Hort, quoted in J.W. Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 257.

According to that admission, the Majority Text was at least as old as the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus! Yet, according to the Westcott-Hort theory, the two codices were supposed to be "purer" because they were said to be older! There is something wrong here in someone’s thinking.

Add to this the point that, according to their "Lucian Recension theory," the basic Majority Text was prepared at Antioch between A.D. 250 and 350. Since the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are dated at approximately 340, that would make it older than them!

Very small "families," each with only a very few manuscripts in them, have since been added: the "Ferrar" manuscripts (or Family 1) which includes 1, 13, 124, 346, and 69; and the Codex Theta. These manuscripts would receive but little notice, except that they exhibit some of the strange peculiarities of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

Now we are ready to track down still more evidence that the Majority Text is the purest, earliest, and best.

MOST SOURCES SUPPORT THE KJV

You will recall that we earlier mentioned four early Bible text sources. These were (1) Greek manuscripts, (2) lectionaries (Bible compilations read in churches which could not afford a larger manuscript of a Bible portion), (3) quotations by the early church "fathers," and (4) translations into other languages. We have now learned enough to return to them.

We are now going to discover that the great majority of those four sources, when they are very early, support the Majority Text, which, as you know, is the basis of the King James Bible! They also disprove the "Lucianic Recension theory," since they existed prior to the time that Lucian could have prepared his recension.

1 - Greek manuscripts. As mentioned earlier, there are 5,000 of these! These include the following: (1) Over 200 uncials (all capital letters), counting all fragments, which range in date from the 2nd to the 9th century. (2) About 100 papyri and ostraca (ostraca are written on clay tablets). These are mainly uncial. (3) Approximately 3,000 cursives, dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries. There are also lectionaries.

Comparatively few of these materials contain the complete New Testament and many are very fragmentary, especially those among the uncials and papyri. Yet, as far as the quality and quantity of the evidence, the New Testament is by far the best-preserved ancient document in the world.

The entire New Testament is substantially contained in only two uncials (Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus; most of Matthew being missing in the latter) and in about 50 cursive manuscripts. Approximately 120 other manuscripts contain all but the Revelation; and about 50 contain all but the Gospels.

The most abundant single group is the four Gospels, with some 1,500 documents; and the next, in order, would be combinations of the other groups (Acts and the General Epistles, Pauline Epistles, and Revelation).

About 30 manuscripts contain the Acts and General Epistles alone. (The General Epistles are all those not written by Paul). About 35 have the Pauline Epistles alone. Another 45 only have Revelation alone.

The remainder of the 5,000 manuscripts are too fragmentary to classify.

Why so many fragments? —They are mute testimony to the work of Satan, down through the centuries, to destroy Christians, their homes, their churches, and their Bible portions!

—But we find that nearly all of the above listed manuscripts support the Majority Text!

The Greek papyri should also be mentioned here. They are among the very oldest manuscripts of the New Testament. Because they were written in Egypt, they frequently have some corrupt Alexandrian readings; yet, much of the time, they agree with Majority Text readings. It is possible to find papyri in Egypt, since it has a climate dry enough to preserve them. That is where these were written and preserved.

2 - Lectionaries. The second of the four witnesses to the original text of the Bible are the lectionaries. As mentioned earlier, copyists would assemble many choice passages into books, and use them in church readings. Each one would contain selected portions of Scripture, arranged in a particular schedule for congregational reading. Each of the lectionaries is called a lection. There are about 2,143 of these lectionaries.

Many of these date very early, and they frequently favor the text upon which the King James Version is based.

Here is the comment of one scholar, that the lectionary evidence does not support the conjecture that Lucian’s text was required of all the churches:

"The Lectionaries also indicate that the Traditional [Majority] Text could not have been imposed on the church by the ecclesiastical authorities. These, as has been stated, are manuscripts containing the New Testament Scripture lessons appointed to be read at the various worship services of the ecclesiastical year. According to the researches of E. Colwell (1933) and his associates, the oldest of these lessons are not Traditional but ‘mixed’ in text. Westcott and Hort’s theory was that the Traditional text from its very beginning had never enjoyed official status."—Edward Hills, Believing Bible Study, p. 100.

3 - Quotations by early church "fathers." The writings of early Christians (called "fathers") are also referred to as patristic ("fatherly") testimony. This is the correspondence and miscellaneous works of the church’s earliest writers, theologians, and bishops.

"Besides establishing the antiquity of the Traditional [Majority] Text, the quotations in the early "fathers" reveal the streams of corruption which prevailed in the first ages, till they were washed away by the vast current of the transmission of the text of the Gospels."—D.J.W. Burgon, Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 117.

"The original predominance of the Traditional [Majority] Text is shown in the list given of the earliest "fathers." Their record proves that in their writings, and so in the church generally, corruption had made itself felt in the earliest times, but that the pure waters generally prevailed."—D.J.W. Burgon, Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 121.

"The text, found in the mass [Majority] of existing manuscripts, does not date further back than the middle of the fourth century. Before that text was made up [when the so-called Lucian recension was supposedly required to be distributed], other forms of text were in vogue, which may be termed respectively Neutral, Western and Alexandrian."—Hort, quoted in Dean Burgan, Traditional Text, p. 91.

"It has been pointed out elsewhere that, in and by itself, the testimony of any first-rate ‘father,’ where it can be had, must be held to outweigh the solitary testimony of any single codex which can be named . . For instance the origin and history of Codices A, B, Aleph, and C [Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Ephraemi] is wholly unknown: their dates and the places of their several production are matters of conjecture only. But when we are listening to the articulate utterance of any of the an 

cient ‘fathers,’ we not only know with more or less of precision the actual date of the testimony before us, but we even know the very diocese of Christendom in which we are standing. To such a deponent we can assign a definite amount of credibility, whereas in the estimate of the former class of evidence [the Greek manuscripts] we have only inferences to guide us. Individually, therefore, a ‘father’s’ evidence where it can be certainly obtained—caeterius paribus [Latin: other things being equal] is considerably greater than that of any single known codex."—Edward Miller, quoted in Dean Burgon, Traditional Text, 57.

"With the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) acting as their chronological watershed, church historians will generally arrange the ‘fathers’ by the era in which they lived; Apostolic (A.D. 75-150); Ante-Nicene (A.D. 150-325); and Post-Nicene (A.D. 325-500).

"However, an even more significant designation would be by geographical area; Western, Alexandrian and Antiochian. The relevance of this regional triad to the study of manuscript evidences should be apparent by now. Therefore, the following breakdown of the most pertinent ‘fathers’ is listed according to both criterion.

"For the Apostolic Age, we have: the Western—Clement of Rome (A.D. 30-100); the Antiochian—Ignatius (A.D. 35-107) and Polycarp (A.D. 69-155); and no major Alexandrian ‘fathers.’ In the Ante-Nicene Period: the Western—Irenaeus (A.D. 120-192), Hippolytus (A.D. 170-235), Tertullian (A.D. 160-225), and Cyprian (A.D. 200-258); the Alexandrian—Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165), Clement (A.D. 150-215), Origen (A.D. 185-254), and Didymus (A.D. 313-398); and the Antiochian—Lucian (A.D. 250-312).

"The Post-Nicene Fathers are: In the West—Augustine (A.D. 354-430); in Alexandria—Athanasius (A.D. 293-373) and Cyril (A.D. 315-386); and finally, the Antiochian—Diodorus (d. 394), Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), Theodoret (A.D. 393-458), Basil (A.D. 329-379), Gregory Nazianzen (AD. 329-390), and Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 330-395)."—W.P. Grady, Final Authority, pp. 37-38.

"In Hort’s day . . the early papyri were not extant [available]. Had they been, the Westcott-Hort theory could scarcely have appeared . . Each of the early papyri (A.D. 300 or earlier) vindicates some Byzantine [Majority Text] reading . . Bodmer II shows some Syrian readings to be anterior to [earlier than] corresponding Aleph and B readings . . The early papyri vindicate Byzantine readings in 660 (or 885) places where there is a significant variation."—Pickering, Identity of the New Testament Texts, p. 224.

"H.A. Sturz . . surveyed all the available papyri . . Each new manuscript discovered vindicated Byzantine [Majority Text] readings . .

"The magnitude of this vindication can be more fully appreciated by recalling that only about 30% of the New Testament has early papyri attestation . . If we had at least three papyri covering all parts of the New Testament, all of the 5,000, plus, Byzantine [Majority Text] readings rejected by the critical, eclectic texts would be vindicated by early papyri . .

"Henceforth, no one may reasonably or responsibly characterize the Byzantine [Majority] text-type as being late . . Although modern editors continue to reject these readings, it can no longer be argued that they are late."—Op. cit., pp. 77, 184, 202.

readings before the Sinaiticus or Vaticanus were copied! For example, his translation has the traditional ending on Matthew 6:13, which the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and the modern versions omit:

We are fortunate to know the readings in the Gothic translation; for there are only eight copies still in existence.

Interestingly enough, since that ancient northern language is related to our modern English, we can see traces of our language in it. Here is the first sentence of the Lord’s Prayer in English and in ancient Gothic:

Mesrob, an evangelist, and Sahak translated it about A.D. 400; and it closely matches the readings in the Majority Text.

(4) Georgian Translation. Even the liberals recognize the early date of this translation, which was prepared for the people dwelling between the Black and Caspian Seas of southern Russia. It also supports the Majority Text.

(5) Coptic Translations. The Egyptian translations are called "Coptic," and divided into two main versions, based on dialect and locality. Since these are Egyptian, we find that they do not agree with the Majority Text. Remember, Egypt is where the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus came from.

[1] The Sahidic Translation was used in the southern part of Egypt (called "Upper Egypt," meaning "up the Nile River"), and is dated from about the beginning of the 3rd century.

[2] The Bohairic Translation is northern ("Lower Egypt"), and is as late as the 6th century (about a hundred years after the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus).

Both of these Coptic translations are frequently different from the Majority Text. The reason for this is their proximity to Alexandria, where Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and their many liberal and heretic friends were located. The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were produced in Alexandria. We would today call Alexandria a "university town"; it would be comparable to Berkeley, California, with its rampant liberalism. The university at Alexandria was, at that time, the largest in the world and contained the most paganizing Christians.

(6) Ethiopian Translation. Prepared in the nation closest to Egypt, this translation is corrupt just like the Coptic translations. It also includes 14 non-canonical books.

[1] The Italia (Old Latin) Translation. The first of these was made no later than A.D. 157, about 60 years after the last book of the Bible was finished. It is called the Old Latin Translation or Italia. This translation was made for the young churches established in the Italian Alps (the far northern part of Italy). It is an excellent translation and agrees closely with the Majority Text. Yet it occurs a full century before the theorized "Lucian Recension" is supposed to have been made, and two full centuries before the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were produced.

The Waldensian Bible was either produced from this Italia translation or from the Majority Text Greek manuscripts.

It is highly significant that, in spite of the Romish apostasy, the faithful Latin-speaking believers in the hills of northern Italy continued to use their beloved Italia down through the centuries. They ignored the Vulgate and remained with the Italia and its successor, the Waldensian Bible.

"The Gothic version of Ulfilas, in the same way, held its own until the tongue in which it was written ceased to exist . . The reason for these facts seems to be this: that the languages into which these versions were made were almost perfectly adapted to express the broad, generic simplicity of the original text . . It was 

partly because the Low Latin of the second century, and the Gothic of Ulfilas, and the rude, strong German of Luther had that character in a remarkable degree, that they were capabile of rendering the Scriptures with a faithfulness which guaranteed their permanance."—Fulton, The Forum, June 1887; quoted in Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, pp. 27-28.

"When the Saxons invaded Britain, heathenism gained control. The conquerors disdained to be instructed by their slaves, and the Christians were forced to retreat to the mountains and the wild moors. Yet the light, hidden for a time, continued to burn. In Scotland, a century later, it shone out with a brightness that extended to far-distant lands. From Ireland came the pious Columba and his colaborers, who, gathering about them the scattered believers on the lonely island of Iona, made this the center of their missionary labors. Among these evangelists was an observer of the Bible Sabbath, and thus this truth was introduced among the people. A school was established at Iona, from which missionaries went out, not only to Scotland and England, but to Germany, Switzerland, and even Italy."—Great Controversy, p. 62.

"The old Latin versions were used longest by the Eastern Christians who would not bow to the authority of Rome—e.g., the Donatists; the Irish in Ireland, Britain, and the Continent; the Albigenses; etc."—Jacobus, Catholic and Protestant Bibles Compared, p. 200.

"Now among translations themselves, the Italia is to be preferred to the others, for it keeps closer to the words without prejudice to clearness of expression."—Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 542.

[2] The Latin Vulgate. In A.D. 382, Bishop Damascus of Rome (they were not yet called "popes") commissioned Jerome to make a new, "improved" edition of the Old Latin. That which he produced was the infamous Latin Vulgate.

Jerome was born about A.D. 341-342 of wealthy parents who gave him the best education available. He spent five years (374-379) in the desert in a hermit-like "self-discipline," and then began studying Hebrew and Greek.

Jerome became a close friend of Pope Damasus; and, after living for several years in Antioch and Constantinople where he learned the latest philosophies, he went to Rome in A.D. 382, "where he spent more than two years in close association with Pope Damasus" (Ira M. Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 86).

At the request of the pope, he began work on a "modern" Latin Bible. First he translated a revision of the Gospels which appeared in A.D. 383. This was followed soon by Acts and the rest of the New Testament. His work on the Old Testament began with a revision of the Old Latin Psalter, done on the basis of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament completed about 150 B.C.).

When Pope Damasus died about A.D. 384, Jerome left Rome the next year and eventually settled in Bethlehem in Palestine, where he founded two religious houses. One was a monastery which he managed for the next 15 years. The other was a nearby nunnery, which a nun was in charge of.

From A.D. 390 to 404, he translated the rest of the Old Testament (including part of the Apocrypha). So the entire Vulgate Bible was translated between A.D. 382 and 397.

In A.D. 580, Pope Gregory praised this wonderful translation, the Vulgate. It was a book very dear to the heart of the pontiffs.

The Vulgate is still the official Psalter in St. Peter’s, in Rome. Jerome’s translation was always appreciated by the popes.

Later in this book, we will encounter the Vulgate again; for it was used by Rome to withstand Protestant Bibles. It was first used 

to destroy the effect of the Waldensian Bible. After the Reformation began, translations of it into English and other languages were used to withstand the Protestant European and English Bibles. The Rheims-Douai was specifically translated from the Vulgate, in order to overcome the King James Bibles.

"In the fourth century, Helvidius, a great scholar of northern Italy [where the Waldenses lived], accused Jerome, whom the pope had empowered to form a Bible in Latin for Catholicism, using corrupt Greek manuscripts (Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6, p. 338).

"How could Helvidius have accused Jerome of employing corrupt Greek manuscripts, if Helvidius had not had the pure Greek manuscripts?

"And so learned and so powerful in writing and teaching was Jovinian, the pupil of Helvidius, that it demanded three of Rome’s most famous ‘fathers’—Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose—to unite in opposing Jovinian’s influence. Even then, it needed the condemnation of the pope and the banishment of the emperor to prevail.

"But Jovinian’s followers [the Waldenses] lived on and made the way easier for Luther."—Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, p. 33.

"And the Word of God increased."—Acts 6:7.

"But the Word of God grew and multiplied."—Acts 12:24.

"The Word of the Lord was published throughout all the region."—Acts 13:49.

"So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed."—Acts 19:20.

"As far as the "fathers" who died before A.D. 400 are concerned, the question may now be put and answered. Do they witness to the traditional text as existing from the first or do they not? The results of the evidence, both as regards the quantity and the quality of the testimony, enable us to reply not only that the traditional text was in existence, but that it was predominant during the period under review."—D.J.W. Burgon, Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 116.

"We may reasonably assume that in the earliest period of the transmission of the text, the most reliable copies of the autographs [the originals] would be circulating in the region that held the autographs. With an ever-increasing demand and consequent proliferation of copies throughout the Graeco Roman world and with the potential for verifying copies by having recourse to the centers still possessing the autographs, the early textual situation was highly favorable to the wide dissemination of manuscripts in close agreement with the original text . .

"It follows that within a relatively few years after the writing of the New Testament books, there came rapidly into existence a ‘Majority Text,’ whose form was essentially that of the autographs . . the science of statistical probability demonstrates that a text form in such circumstances could scarcely be dislodged from its dominant position . .

"In every age, from the apostolic to the nineteenth century, the text form in question . . was the one that the church in general recognized, used, and transmitted."—Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, pp. 116-120, 237.

"The outstanding feature of the Received [Majority] Text is its high percentage of agreement among so many thousands of independent witnesses. This agreement is often placed at about 90 percent; in other words, 90 percent of all 

existing manuscripts agree with one another so miraculously that they are able to form their own unique text. In contradistinction to such unity, the remaining 10 percent comprises a selection of manuscripts that will both agree with the Majority Text in many particulars while disagreeing wildly in others. Again, let it be stated that many of these variant readings are also unique to the individual manuscript containing it; where the 10 percent disagree from the majority, these departures also disagree with each other!"—W.P. Grady, Final Authority, p. 28.

"A better, though more cumbersome, way to describe the situation would be something like this: 100% of the manuscripts agree as to, say, 80% of the text; 99% agree as to another 10%; over 95% agree as to another 4%; over 90% agree as to another 3%; only for 3% (or less) of the Text do less than 90% of the manuscripts agree."—Wilbur Pickering, Identity of the New Testament Text, p. 118.

"A very large number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament survive today. A recent list gives these figures: papyrus manuscripts, 81; majuscules (manuscripts written in capital letters), 267; minuscules (manuscripts written in smaller script), 2,764. Of course, many of these are fragmentary and most of them do not contain the entire New Testament. Nevertheless, for an ancient book the available materials are massive and more than adequate for our needs, providing they are properly handled by scholars.

"It is also well known among students of textual criticism that a large majority of this huge mass of manuscripts—somewhere between 80%-90%—contain a Greek text which, in most respects, closely resembles the kind of text which was the basis of our King James Version. This piece of information, however, may come as a surprise to many ordinary Christians who have gained the impression that the Authorized Version is supported chiefly by ‘inferior manuscripts.’ "—Zane C. Hodges, in Which Bible? p. 26.

"95% of the manuscripts belong to the Byzantine tradition . . [That is] the textual tradition which in large measure stands behind the KJV. There are far more manuscripts extant in this tradition than in the other three combined [Caesarian, Western, and Alexandrian]."—D.A. Carson, quoted in G.A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions, p. 478.

(Aleph), Bezae (D), Papyrus 75 and a smattering of versions. Of the four uncials, Aleph, B, C, and D, Burgon said this:

Astoundingly, in the year 1881, this 1% minority text type supplanted the Majority Text with its almost two thousand years as the leading manuscript source. A ‘New’ Greek Text, based on the Vaticanus manuscript was introduced by Westcott and Hort. It has been used as the Greek Text for all subsequent versions. It seems that no 20th-century scholar or Bible translator dares oppose the will of Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort.

Frederic Kenyon, the late Director of the British Museum and author of the most widely used textbooks on textual criticism, wrote this about the Majority Text: