INTRODUCTION
The Byzantine Text
The Byzantine text is the historically dominant form of the Greek New Testament. As a result, it was the Textus Receptus, a close relative of the Byzantine text compiled from a small number of manuscripts, that was the dominant form of the printed Greek New Testament from the early sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century. In 1881, however, the Textus Receptus was effectively supplanted by Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament, particularly in academic circles. Westcott and Hort prepared their Greek text on the assumption that there was a recension of the Byzantine text in the fourth century that became the basis for all subsequent Byzantine manuscripts. Based on this assumption, Westcott and Hort counted (or discounted) the overwhelming majority of Byzantine manuscripts as originating from a single formal recension source, removing them from the equation, so that they could give preference to a small handful of manuscripts, particularly Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (ℵ). Although the assumption of a fourth century recension has now largely been discredited due to a complete lack of evidence, Westcott and Hort's preference for a small handful of manuscripts has endured, and the modern critical editions of Nestle-Aland and UBS have become the standard Greek text accepted in academic circles today.
Yet there are critical flaws in the underlying methodology of the reasoned eclecticism that is practiced in the editions of Nestle-Aland and UBS. In his essay “The Case for Byzantine Priority,” Dr. Maurice Robinson makes the following observation:
Modern eclecticism creates a text which, within repeated short sequences, rapidly degenerates into one possessing no support among manuscript, versional, or patristic witnesses. The problem deteriorates further as the scope of sequential variation increases.
In other words, when the text-critical decisions of the editors of Nestle-Aland and UBS are considered over the course of a few verses (and sometimes over the course of only one verse), it is often the case that the resulting text as a whole has no support in any Greek manuscript, ancient translation, or quotation from the church fathers; rather, it is a conjectural text. This critical flaw of the modern eclectic approach has never been adequately addressed by its proponents. For this reason and others, some prefer the Byzantine text, which is based on the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts.
The Byzantine text is not quite the same as the Textus Receptus, which is the textual basis of the New Testament in the King James Version and the New King James Version. While the Textus Receptus is within the Byzantine family of texts, the first edition of Erasmus' Greek New Testament was produced from only seven manuscripts. Although those manuscripts were from the Byzantine family, they contained some readings that have very little support among Greek manuscripts (especially in the book of Revelation).
On average,* when there are variants among Greek manuscripts, the Byzantine text is supported by 96% of the Greek manuscripts in the Gospels and 90% of the Greek manuscripts in Acts and the Epistles.† These Byzantine manuscripts, which number in the low thousands, represent many individual streams of transmission. And while they are generally later in date, they were all copied from earlier manuscripts of the same text type. Even Westcott and Hort acknowledge that the Byzantine text dates at least as far back as the fourth century, which is contemporaneous with Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (ℵ). Thus the Byzantine textform is ancient, highly uniform, and well attested by a variety of independent streams of transmission. Therefore it has a strong claim toward being the original text of the New Testament. Those seeking further information are encouraged to read Robinson's essay in full.
The Text of This Edition
The text of the present edition follows in the footsteps of the editions of Hodges and Farstad (HF) and Robinson and Pierpont (RP). In the time since those editions were published, new manuscript collation data has become available. This new data allows for the correction of some texts that were previously thought to be Byzantine but now appear to be only minority Byzantine readings. Apart from the John 7:53–8:11 and Revelation (which are treated in Appendices D, E, and F), the basic methodology for the present edition is as follows. Any Byzantine reading supported by at least a 3:2 ratio over any other Byzantine reading becomes the text of this edition. When Byzantine readings are closely divided so that no reading attains a 3:2 ratio of support over another Byzantine reading, other internal and external evidence is used to determine the text, with preference given to the reading of HF and RP when they agree. Only Byzantine manuscripts are considered when determining manuscript support. For the purposes of the present edition, a Byzantine manuscript is defined as a manuscript that has at least a 90% alignment with the Byzantine text (as determined from the alignment data published in Text und Textwert) and that is not a representative of the Kr manuscript family. (For the Catholic Epistles the threshold is 85% instead of 90%.)
For books of the New Testament that have been published in the Editio Critica Maior, an initial collation of Byzantine manuscripts (as defined above) was made by combining the ECM collation with Scrivener's collation. For the Catholic Epistles, the editor's own personal collation of fourteen manuscripts was added to the collations of ECM and Scrivener. If the initial collation supported the HF/RP text by at least a 3:2 ratio, no further collation was done. However, if HF and RP disagreed or is the initial collation showed less than a 3:2 ration of support for the HF/RP text, the editor personally collated approximately twenty additional manuscripts that have a very high degree of alignment with the Byzantine text and are not Kr. For a small number of selected variants, the editor did a third round of collation to further refine the results, using about ten to fifteen manuscripts that have a very high degree of alignment with the Byzantine text and are not Kr. For any variant unit in which the Byzantine manuscripts under consideration are split by less than a 3:1 ratio, the manuscript counts are listed in the footnotes.
For books that have not yet been published in ECM, preliminary collations were done for variant units where HF and RP disagree and where Scrivener's data suggests that the combined reading of HF/RP does not accurately represent the Byzantine text. The preliminary collation combined Scrivener's collations with the editor's own personal collations of twenty manuscripts. For other variant units where the marginal notes of HF and RP combined with Scrivener's collation indicate a potential split in the Byzantine manuscripts, the symbol 𝔐 pt is used in lieu of listing manuscript counts. As ECM volumes are released, the manuscript counts for these books will be updated.
For variant units fully collated in Text und Textwert, the full counts are given for Byzantine manuscripts that match the definition listed above. For variant units in the Gospels where Von Soden collates more than 140 Kx manuscripts and explicitly lists the manuscript counts in his apparatus, Von Soden's manuscript counts are listed in the footnotes instead of the manuscript counts from the combined collations of ECM, Scrivener, and the editor of the present edition. However, if the same variant unit is fully collated in Text und Textwert, the Text und Textwert data is used rather than Von Soden's data. The manuscripts used in the collations are listed in Appendix C.
Colophons
Many Greek manuscripts include interesting scribal notes in the colophons of the Gospels and Pauline epistles. In the Gospels these notes give the date of publication. In the Pauline epistles they give details about the place of authorship, who delivered the epistle, and, in the pastoral epistles, details about the recipient. Because these are scribal notes and not the sacred text itself, they should not be considered infallible. However, most readers do not even realize that these notes exist, especially in the Gospels. Consequently, the colophons are included as footnotes in this edition to allow readers to easily access and evaluate them.
Editions of the Greek New Testament Compared in this Volume
The Text-Critical Greek New Testament is a new edition of the Greek New Testament that documents every difference found in the following editions and manuscript families of the Greek New Testament.‡

ANT | Greek New Testament of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, edited by Basileios Antoniades (1904)
CT | Critical Text (This designation is used when NA, SBL, TH, and WH are all in agreement.)
ECM† | Editio Critica Maior (1997–2024) split guiding line alternative readings. NA always represents the ECM reading when there is no split guiding line. When ECM does have a split guiding line, NA always follows the “a” reading. The ECM† designation marks the non “a” split guiding line readings.§
HF | Hodges and Farstad, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, 2nd edition (1985)
MSS | Manuscripts (This designation is used to cite readings supported by at least 5% of manuscripts when the reading is not found in any edition or manuscript family. This designation is used only for variant units in which an edition or manuscript family differs from the main Greek text. It is not used independently.)
NA | Nestle-Aland, 29th edition (2026)
*PCK | Wilbur Pickering, The Greek New Testament According to Family 35, 3rd edition (2020)
RP | Robinson and Pierpont, The New Testament in the Original Greek, electronic text (2025)
SBL | SBL Greek New Testament (2010)
SCR | Scrivener's Textus Receptus (1894)
ST | Stephanus' Textus Receptus, 3rd edition (1550)
TH | The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (2017)
TR | Textus Receptus (This designation is used when SCR and ST are in agreement.)
WH | Westcott-Hort (1881)
𝔐 number | The designation marks the Byzantine manuscript counts (excluding K r manuscripts) when the Byzantine text is divided.
𝔐 pt | This designation marks potential splits in the Byzantine text for variant units for which sufficient manuscript counts are not yet available.

In addition to the editions listed above, the following manuscript families are documented for the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11).†

μ 1 | A very late family of approximately 12 manuscripts
μ 2 | An early family of approximately 47 manuscripts that is slightly favored by NA and WH
μ 3 | A somewhat early family of approximately 37 manuscripts
μ 4 | An early family of approximately 36 manuscripts that has four long omissions
μ 5 | An early family of approximately 298 manuscripts that is followed by Robinson and Pierpont
μ 6 | A somewhat early family of approximately 204 manuscripts that is followed by Hodges and Farstad
μ 7 | A late family of approximately 261 manuscripts that is followed by Pickering, closely related to K r, and slightly favored by TR
λ 1 | A somewhat early family of approximately 224 lectionary manuscripts of John 8:3b–11 that is followed by ANT in 8:3b–11
λ 2 | An early family of approximately 40 lectionary manuscripts of John 8:1–11 that is followed by ANT in 8:1b–8:3a

The following manuscript families are documented for the book of Revelation.‡

𝔐 A | A family of approximately 57 manuscripts of Revelation that contain or derive from the fourth-century commentary of Andreas of Caesarea
𝔐 C | A family of approximately 34 manuscripts of Revelation that are related to the text of Revelation in the Complutensian Polyglot. This family is closely related to K r
𝔐 K | The main Koine tradition in Revelation comprised of approximately 95 disparate manuscripts that represent many copying eras and locations

When a manuscript family in the Pericope Adulterae or the book of Revelation is closely divided, the manuscript counts for the family are listed in parentheses. For example, 𝔐 K(30) means that 30 manuscripts of family 𝔐 K support a particular reading.
The Textus Receptus
While it is common to refer to the Textus Receptus as a single entity, in reality there are various editions of the Textus Receptus, which all differ from one another. Although Erasmus was the first to publish what became known as the Textus Receptus, it was Robert Estienne (Stephanus) who came to shape the text as we know it today. Stephanus' third edition (published in 1550 and known as Editio Regia or the “Royal Edition”) is a splendid masterpiece of typographical skill. It was also the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament to include text-critical notes in the margins. Modifying Stephanus' text, Theodore Beza published five editions of the Textus Receptus. His fifth edition (published in 1598) was one of the primary source texts of the Greek New Testament used by the translators of the King James Version. At times, however, the King James Version deviates from Beza's fifth edition. Seeking to recreate the Greek text underlying the New Testament translation of the King James Version, Scrivener modified Beza's fifth edition with readings from various editions of the Textus Receptus that the King James translators would have had at their disposal. Scrivener published his modification of Beza's fifth edition in 1881. When people think about the Textus Receptus today, they think primarily of Stephanus' 1550 edition and/or Scrivener's 1881 edition.
Editions of the Critical Text
Westcott and Hort published their Greek New Testament in 1881, basing their text-critical decisions on the possibility that a majority of manuscripts could descend from a single formal recension source and thus should not necessarily be preferred as correct. Although they never proved this possibility from the actual manuscript evidence, their theory paved the way for future editions of the critical text. Following in the footsteps of Westcott and Hort, the Nestle-Aland editions have become the standard Greek text in most academic circles today. Closely aligned with the Nestle-Aland editions is the Editio Critica Maior, which thus far has only published Mark, Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Revelation. The Editio Critica Maior is unique in the sense that it uses a split guiding line for hundreds of readings. This means that, in many instances, there is no single base text. When compared to the twenty-seventh edition of Nestle-Aland, the changes introduced in the Editio Critica Maior at times move in the direction of the Byzantine Text. Another modern critical text that presents slightly different readings is the SBL Greek New Testament, edited by Michael Holmes. Following the same general methodology as the editors of Nestle-Aland, Holmes differs from Nestle-Aland in over six hundred places, providing an alternate perspective within the eclectic tradition. A fourth critical text that presents slightly different readings is The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge, which its editors say is rooted in the earliest manuscripts and relies upon the study of scribal habits to inform text-critical decisions.
Modern Editions of the Byzantine Text
Although the Byzantine text is quite stable for the vast majority of the New Testament, in the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) and the book of Revelation the degree of variation among Byzantine manuscripts increases significantly. Partly in response to this high degree of variation in the Pericope Adulterae and the book of Revelation, Wilbur Pickering published The Greek New Testament according to Family 35. Family 35 (also known as K r) is a large family of highly uniform manuscripts within the Byzantine text tradition. It is the only family of manuscripts that has a demonstrable archetype for every book of the New Testament. This means that, even in the Pericope Adulterae and the book of Revelation, there is little question as to the reading of Family 35. Many, however, argue that the high level of uniformity among manuscripts in Family 35 is the result of a systematic recension. Whatever the case may be, the readings of Family 35 at times represent fewer than 20% of extant Greek manuscripts, and there are no extant manuscripts for this family prior to the eleventh century. Nevertheless, Pickering's edition provides important documentation of a large but late family within the Byzantine text tradition.
In addition to the Textus Receptus and Family 35, the present volume also documents variants found in The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, edited by Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad. With the exception of the Pericope Adulterae, the Hodges and Farstad text differs very little from The Text-Critical Greek New Testament. The main difference is that Hodges and Farstad use a stemmatic approach, hypothesizing family trees to show the relationships of various manuscript families. They then make text-critical decisions based on those hypothetical family trees.
The Greek New Testament of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, edited by Basileios Antoniades, provides one further witness to the Byzantine text family. This edition relies more heavily on readings found in Greek lectionaries than any other edition of the Greek New Testament. At times it includes readings with very little support among Greek manuscripts. Many of these readings are printed in small type in the 1904 and 1912 editions to indicate doubt on the part of the editor as to their originality. This text, also known as the Patriarchal Text, is used in the Greek-speaking Orthodox Churches.
Text-Critical Footnotes
For the purpose of simplicity, the text-critical footnotes of this volume generally ignore punctuation, capitalization, accents, and breathing marks. However, capitalization, accents, and breathing marks are written in the footnotes when necessary to differentiate meaning. Text-critical signs such as brackets, diamonds, double angle brackets, and small type are also generally ignored because of the level of complexity this would add to the footnotes. Nevertheless, the use of double brackets is at times documented in the text-critical notes, particularly when used by ECM and/or NA.
Manuscript Percentages
For sets of variants that have been fully collated in the Text und Textwert volumes, the manuscript percentages supporting the exact Greek text for each variant are listed. It should be noted that, while manuscript percentages are not the sole factor to be considered in the task of textual criticism, they should not be ignored either, particularly when they demonstrate the dominance of a particular text type. (See Appendix A for details about the calculation of manuscript percentages.)
In John 7:53–8:11, percentages have been calculated from a 2024 draft of Maurice Robinson's collation. In John 18, percentages have been calculated from Michael Morrill's collation. In the book of Philemon, the percentages for variants not collated in Text und Textwert have been calculated from Matthew Solomon's collation. In the book of Jude, the percentages for variants not collated in Text und Textwert have been calculated from Joey McCollum's tabulations of Tommy Wasserman's collation. In the book of Revelation the percentages for variants not collated in Text und Textwert have been calculated from the Editio Critica Maior supplemented by Hoskier's collation.§ Percentages derived from sources other than Text und Textwert are displayed in brackets.
* : Here the word average refers to the median rather than the mean. † : The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) and the book of Revelation are special cases in which the Byzantine Greek manuscripts are divided. ‡ : Differences between movable nu and movable sigma are ignored. In the footnotes movable nu and movable sigma are removed when they occur before a consonant. Differences between meaningless word breaks are also ignored (see Appendix F). For the purposes of comparison, typographical errors in the compared editions have been corrected. See Appendix B for a list of corrections. § : A split guiding line lists two or more variants as the mainline text. The use of a split guiding line indicates that the ECM editors have left open the decision as to which of the variants they believe might be the initial text. * : For books that have been released by ECM but not yet incorporated into a printed edition of Nestle-Aland, the designation NA refers to the ECM “a” readings. † : See Appendix D for more information about manuscript families in the Pericope Adulterae. ‡ : See Appendix E for more information about manuscript families in Revelation. § : The combined collations of the Editio Critica Maior and Hoskier document 83% of the manuscripts of Revelation.