As individual New Testament books were received and circulated in the early Christian church, various copies were made and deployed NEW TESTAMENT throughout the ancient world. As manuscripts were circulated within particular geographical regions they began to take on particular TEXT-TYPES? characteristics / readings, unique to their location, resulting in localized text-types or textual families. The Alexandrian text-type is the form of The Western text-type is the form of the New Testament text witness in ALEXANDRIAN Greek New Testament that predominates WESTERN the Old Latin and Peshitta translations from the Greek, and also in in the earliest surviving documents, as well quotations from the 2nd and 3rd century Christian writers, including as the text-type used in Egyptian Coptic Cyprian, Tertullian, and Irenaeus. Alexandrian Codex Sinaiticus manuscripts. manuscripts are is considered to characteristic by be Western in its majuscule or the first eight uncial texts. Above chapters of is John 1:1 in Codex John’s Gospel Only one Greek uncial manuscript is considered to transmit a Western text The two oldest Sinaiticus in its for the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, the fifth century Codex Bezae; the and closest to EARLIER upper case sixth century Codex Clarmontanus is considered to transmit a western text complete copies majuscule texts for Paul’s letters and is followed by two ninth century uncials: F and G. of the New א Codex Sinaiticus - 01 330-360 AD Other early manuscripts of note Testament, are P66 and P75. Codex Sinaiticus Many, if not most, textual critics today believe that and Codex there were two major early text-types that can be Vaticanus,* are ascertained, the Alexandrian and Western. A representations A number of scholars see the Alexandrian and W of the Western text-types as being equally early, with both Alexandrian Text having their origins in the 2nd century. Type Codex Vaticanus - 03 B ea 300-325 AD P66 P75 Codex Bezae - 05 D p 175-225 AD These four *Although major portions of B are Alexandrian, its text 150-200 AD Codex Claromontanus - 06 D categories are c. 400 AD realistically has examples of the other text-type forms within c. 550 AD admittedly somewhat of a misnomer. The Caesarean text-type was identified as such first by Burnett There are Earliest example of minuscule writing from a 10th century Hillman Streeter in 1924. Streeter’s theory of local texts, identified five many There are six manuscripts* earlier than the 9th CAESAREAN examples of BYZANTINE century which conform to the Byzantine text copy of Thucydides different text-types, each in a physical location of which this was one. mixed manuscripts type of which Codex Alexandrinus, in its Gospel that combine AKA Majority Text, Traditional texts, is the oldest; the rest of the text is typical Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Alexandrian. The closest Alexandrian / Constantinopolitian Text, examples of Byzantine, and * This list could also realistically include the Byzantine / Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Codex Ephraimi (Alexandrian/Byzantine Jerome seems to imply that Caesarea offered a mix); Codex Basilensis (Alexandrian/ As the latest of the four Larry Hurtado Caesarean Caesarean distinctive local text (as a result of Origen’s Text, is one of several text- Byzantine mix); N 022, O 023, P 024, R 027, Σ text-types, Byzantine has argued that characteristics text would studies) only for the Greek Old Testament. If a 042, Φ 043, and Guelferbytanus B. manuscripts are mostly the Caesarean types that is used in textual be distinctive text of the New Testament had also written in minuscule text at best is a criticism to describe the Minuscule 565 - 93 ε Minuscule been developed in Caesarea (whether by Origen (lower case) style and in secondary (or textual character of the Greek Polytonic orthography 800-900 AD 565, Codex or by Eusebius, it should be possible to identify it in the writings of one of these Fathers, or derived) and New Testament manuscripts handwriting. Koridethi, preferably of both. But research has not yet been not a primary and those of Codex Alexandrinus- 02 A able to establish any such identification. text-type,1 and 400-450 AD Family 1 and so most textual Family 13. critics no longer “Although the theory of text types still prevails in current ! recognize it and The Byzantine Text-Type text-critical practice, some scholars have recently called makes up the largest to abandon the concept altogether in light of new In the past it had been posited do not treat it that earlier texts such as P45 as one of the number of surviving computer-assisted methods for determining manuscript and Codex Washingtonianus, three major or manuscripts, though not in relationships in a more exact way. To be sure, there is within their Markan text, were distinct text- already a consensus that the various geographic Codex Washingtonianus* LATER P45 - P. CHester Beatty I the oldest. It also underlies Caesarean. This however, has - 032 W types.2 locations traditionally assigned to the text types are been questioned by most if not the Texts Receptus or Θ 250-300 AD 300-500 AD incorrect and misleading. Thus, “Western text” is not the Codex Koridethi - 038 all.3 800-900 AD “received” Greek text. only misnomer: the geographical labels of the other text *W is block-mixed and has some significant Alexandrian readings. types should be considered with suspicion, too. Some 1. Larry W. Hurtado, Text-Critical Methodology and Pre-Caesarean Text: Codex W in the Gospel of Mark, SD 43 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). 85-89. scholars prefer to refer to the text types as “textual 2. Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and tot he Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, trans. Erroll F. Rhodes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing , 1995), 336. 3. Hurtado, Larry W. “P45 and the Textual History of the Gospel of Mark.” Pages 132–48 in The Earliest Gospels: The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels--the Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45. Edited by clusters.” Charles Horton. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 258. London: T & T Clark Intl, 2004. Tommy Wasserman Tommy Wasserman, "Alexandrian Text", n.p. [cited 22 Aug 2019]..