The Autographs
It is universally accepted that there are no known remains of the original writings (called autographs) of the apostles.
Of course, this was not always the case. In De Praescriptione Haereticorum, Tertullian (AD 150-240) indicated that some of the epistles of Paul were still extant in his day, being held by the original church recipients. Tertullian declares First and Second Corinthians to be in Corinth, Ephesians to be in Ephesus, Philippians to be held at Philippi, Colossians to be at Colossae, First and Second Thessalonians to be in Thessalonica and Galatians to be "in Galatia."
Was Tertullian making assumptions, or did he know of some such works? While this seems fantastic or assumptive almost 2,000 years later, the fact is that these original writings would have only been about 150 years old at that time - which is not very long for a document of prominance to be preserved in a church.
The oldest New Testament manuscripts we have today begin from the second century as fragments, our selection improves with third century manuscripts, but from the fourth and fifth centuries onward we have excellent extent manuscripts to study. We also have a vast number (almost 6,000 in Greek alone) of New Testament manuscripts to examine.
The Primary Manuscripts
א Codex Sinaiticus - This is the preeminent Greek manuscript. It dates from the 4th century, 340-350 A.D. It was originally the whole Greek Bible, but is now missing most of the Old Testament. א also contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. This manuscript is a very recent discovery, not being edited (documented) until 1938. It is of the Alexandrian family.
A Codex Alexandrinus - This manuscript was preeminent until the discovery of א. It dates from the first half of the 5th century. It is the whole Greek Bible, as well as the Psalms of Solomon, and two epistles of Clement of Rome. It was first edited in 1657, and again in 1720 and 1828. Except for the gospels, which are of the Byzantine family, it is the Alexandrian family.
B Codex Vaticanus - This manuscript has resided through the centuries at the Vatican in Rome. It dates from the 4th Century. It was the whole Greek Bible, including the
apocrypha, but is lacking the pastoral epistles, part of Hebrews, and the Revelation. It was not made available and edited until 1889, and is of the Alexandrian family.
C Codex Epharemi Rescriptus - This manuscript is a palimpsest (technically recovered text that had been 'erased' by scraping), and dates from the 5th century. It has the interesting quality of containing texts identified with each of the five families.
D Codex Bezae - This manuscript is the chief example of the Western family of texts, and is noteworthy because of it's wide discrepancies from other texts. It has Greek and
Latin text, the Latin being very similar to the African family of the Old Latin text. Codex Bezae only contains the Gospels and Acts. D2 Codex Claromontanus - This
manuscript contains only the Pauline Epistles. It is likewise in both Greek and Latin, the Greek likewise being of the Western family and the Latin likewise being of the African.
L Codex Regius - This is another unical codex and dates from the 8th century, but is conspicuously similar to א and B and must have been copied from a much older work.
And others... There are several others which are regarded as Primary, but those listed above are probably the most significant and most often referenced.
Versions - Early Translations
Also valuable in the reconstruction of both Old and New Testaments are early translations. Because several translations originated in the first and second centuries (or much earlier in the case of the Septuagint), these 'Versions' are valuable for text-comparison purposes.
Prominant on this list is Jerome's Latin Vulgate, which was preceeded by the Old Latin, aka the "Vetus Latina". The Old Latin version is 2nd century AD, used the Septuagint for the Old Testament and original Greek manuscripts for the New Testament. Jerome revised the Old Latin for his New Testament but used the Masoretic Hebrew text for his Old Testament.
Also of significant importance were Syriac and Coptic (Egyptian) versions, including a Syriac Harmony of the Gospels, the Diatessaron of Tatian (2nd C. AD), the Old Syric (3rd C. AD) and Coptic versions from the 4th and 5th centuries, along with many other versions in various languages from the 4th century onward.
Families and Grouping Attempts
The "Families" of the manuscripts - The process of reconstructing the original New Testament includes a concept of families identified to extant manuscripts. Grouping manuscripts into families is based primarily on their age and on the presence or absence of common sets of variations in texts. This type of grouping was made famous/infamous by Westcott and Hort (1881), has been readdressed and and refined by others, and are still used as descriptors for manuscripts today (see above).
Unfortunately, something about these "Family" groupings seems flawed - like a reasonable idea which was very poorly executed, but with some validity, and then became a scholastic tradition.
What about the "Majority Text"? The Majority Text refers to 85-90% of the aproximately 5,800 extant manuscripts and ranges in age from the 4th to 9th centuries and later. The Majority Texts have been classified as belonging to the Byzantine family. The manuscripts used for the Textus Receptus Greek-to-Latin translation were from this family, but the TR should not be equated to Majority Text as the TR only refers to the distinct set of manuscripts used in the publication of the Novum Instrumentum Omne (1519-1536).
What is important to know about families is that the Byzantine family represents Majority Text readings and is symbolized by the lowercase Greek beta (β), while the Alexandrian family represents the Critical Text readings and is symbolized by the captial A, which is unfortunately the same symbol used for the Codex Alexandrinus. The other three families are the Ceasarean (χ), Western (δ), and Eastern (ε) families which are comprised of texts which are primarily valuable for purposes of comparison.
The Actual NT "Standard"
The "Critical Text" (CT)
Modern scholarship relies on Greek Critical texts derived primarily from Codex Sinaiticus with comparative attention to other sources, as defined in a specific source, Novum Testamentum Graece by Nestle-Aland, currently in the 28th edition and governed by the United Bible Society (USB5, 2014).
For the Received Text (TR) please see my review on the King James Version, is the section covering the KJV Manuscripts.
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