Textus Receptus

The Textus Receptus (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) and including the editions of Stephanus, Beza, the Elzevir house, Colinaeus and Scrivener. Erasmus' Latin/Greek New Testament editions and annotations were a major influence for the original German Luther Bible and the translations of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale. Subsequent Textus Receptus editions constituted the main Greek translation-base for the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, the Portuguese Almeida Recebida, the Dutch Statenvertaling, the Russian Synodal Bible and many other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western, Northern and Central Europe. Despite being viewed as an inferior form of the text of the New Testament by many modern textual critics, some Conservative Christians still view it as the most authentic text of the New Testament. This view is generally based upon a theological doctrine of the supernatural providential preservation of scripture.