Textual Criticism

Textual Criticism. The critical study of the text of a writer whose work has come down from the period before the invention of printing. Few scribes can copy a text exactly; consequently the more often a text is copied and the greater the number of resulting MSS, the greater the variation there is likely to be between them. The task of the textual critic is to compare and evaluate the differences in the MSS (known as different ‘readings’) in order to reconstruct the history of the text through its various stages and ultimately to establish the original text as it left the hands of its author.

The majority of the extant Hebrew MSS of the OT have few variations. This situation is probably due to the establishment of the so-called Massoretic text early in the Christian era and to its being subsequently copied with the greatest care. The Septuagint Greek MSS, however, not only display differences among themselves, but in a number of instances they agree in differing from the Hebrew. Critics have deduced that the LXX translation was made from a different (and probably earlier) text than that which has survived in the Massoretic text. This deduction has been confirmed by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In the NT there are numerous variations between the Greek MSS, some of them considerable, such as that involving the end of the Gospel of Mark (q.v.). Study has shown that three main types of text are to be distinguished; the evidence of the ancient versions (Latin, Syriac, Coptic, etc.) and quotations in the Fathers have made it possible to localize and date these types. They are:
1. an Alexandrian type, which must go back to an early 2nd-cent. archetype;

2. a Western type (so called because its chief witnesses are the Latin versions and Fathers), which can be traced to c.AD 150; and

3. a type associated with Antioch and Constantinople (the so-called ‘Koine’, Byzantine, or Syrian text), which appears to be a systematic revision undertaken towards the end of the 3rd cent. This type of text is found in the majority of extant Greek MSS of the NT and was the text of the first printed editions.


The works of early and medieval Christian writers have sometimes survived in one MS, sometimes in many. Here the problems confronting the textual critic and the methods used in dealing with them are similar to those encountered in the NT.

Modern editors of texts, whether biblical or otherwise, print as the text of their edition either the text of a single MS or a text which they have themselves constructed from the total material available; in either case it is usual to accompany the text with a statement of variant readings found in other MSS or elsewhere (e.g. in versions and quotations). This is normally printed at the foot of the page and is known as a ‘critical apparatus’.

The belief that textual criticism has radically altered the text lying behind the traditional translations of the Bible has been one of the factors prompting the production of modern versions. At least in the NT, the resulting changes are less fundamental than is often supposed.