Your question assumes that 99% of the ancient texts left something out of the 1% of ancient texts. Why do you assume this?
No. It assumes that the TR is not identical to the "Majority Text". Can you tell us why?
Deputy,
Certainly.
The term Majority Text historically has been synonymous with the term Received Text or Textus Receptus. A couple of other texts have recently been referenced by the term Majority Text. While these recent "Majority Texts" are indeed vastly superior to the critical minority Alexandrian texts that underpin most modern translations, there are good reasons to view these as "steps away" from the genuine text used by the KJV translators.
Strictly speaking the Received Greek Text is a slightly modified form of the Byzantine Greek New Testament, which represents the majority of extant Greek manuscripts. While representing the majority of Greek manuscripts in most cases, the Received Text contains a few readings not supported by the majority but which are supported by the majority of Latin manuscripts, other versions, and quotations from ancient church leaders.
The reason that the Received Text is not entirely and strictly a majority text is simple. In determining the true reading of Scripture, other witnesses must be examined in addition to the extant Greek manuscripts, in particular, Greek lectionaries, ancient versions and the quotations from the writings of “church fathers,” meaning church leaders who lived in the early centuries after the apostles. In some few cases, these witnesses point to readings more authentic than existing Greek manuscripts.
You might find this interesting:
The Hodges-Farstad Greek New Testament claims to represent a Majority of extant Greek manuscripts, but this is simply a myth.
a. First of all, the extant Greek manuscripts have never been collated and examined in such a way that a majority text could be determined with any proper degree of certainty.
“... THE MAIN PROBLEM OF NT TEXTUAL CRITICISM LIES IN THE FACT THAT LITTLE MORE THAN THEIR ACTUAL EXISTENCE IS KNOWN OF MOST OF THE MANUSCRIPTS SO FAR IDENTIFIED, and that therefore we constantly have problems with many unknowns to solve. We proceed as if the few manuscripts, which have fully, or almost fully, studied, contained all the problems in question” (Kurt Aland, “The Significance of the Papyri,” cited from Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, Conclusion).
In The Text of the New Testament, Kurt and Barbara Aland state that “MOST OF THE MINUSCULES HAVE NOT YET BEEN EXAMINED FOR THEIR TEXTUAL VALUE” (p. 128).
The Hodges-Farstad Text is based on the collations of Hermann von Soden from the early 20th century. Though this is the most extensive collation that has ever been made, it was only a very partial, insufficient one. Note the following important testimonies about von Soden’s work:
“Von Soden and his assistants collated some hundreds of manuscripts, and published the results in a massive critical edition. In his footnotes, von Soden shows the majority text by the symbol K (short for Koine, or ‘common text’). However, AT ANY GIVEN INSTANCE OF THIS SYMBOL, ONE CAN RARELY BE SURE WHETHER VON SODEN CONSULTED ALL HIS MANUSCRIPTS AT THE PASSAGE IN QUESTION, OR CONSULTED JUST A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE. And even where he does give figures, the resulting total does not constitute a majority of all the manuscripts which are now available” (TSB Quarterly Record, Number 482, page 15).
“Yet von Soden was a rationalist. HE SHOWED VERY LITTLE REGARD TOWARD THE RECEIVED TEXT and sought to rewrite it on the basis of his collations and rather novel theory of textual history. ... We will show that [Hodges and Farstad] have used von Soden very uncritically. We will also show that despite the massive scope of von Soden’s work, it is after all only a very small part of the total picture and cannot begin to be used in the way Hodges and Farstad have attempted” (Jack Moorman, When the KJV Departs from the Majority Text, p. 8).
“Now what needs to be seen here is that anyone who seeks to gather Byzantine MS evidence from the standard sources -- Alford, Tischendorf, Souter, Merk, Vogels, Nestle, Aland, or von Soden -- IS REALLY GETTING ONLY A FEW SCRAPS FROM THE TABLE. The energies of these men have been expended elsewhere. Their labours toward the great mass of Byzantine MSS is limited to those places where there is departure from the TR. ... Therefore Hodges and Farstad have based their edition upon an area of von Soden’s work where he gave the least attention” (Moorman, When the KJV Departs from the Majority Text, p. 11).
Kurt and Barbara Aland, while stating that von Soden’s apparatus “is a necessary tool for textual critics,” also warn that “von Soden’s apparatus is so unreliable that the reader soon comes to regard this remarkably full apparatus as little more than a collection of variant readings whose attestation needs verification elsewhere. Von Soden’s edition was distinctly a failure” (Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, p. 23).
The largest project being conducted at present toward the collation of Greek manuscripts is the work at The Institut fur neutestamentliche Textforschung [The Institute for New Testament Research] in Munster, Germany. According to Wilbur Pickering, this institute has “a collection of microfilms of some 4,500 of the extant Greek MSS (around 80 percent of them), and scholars connected with the Institut are collating SELECTED ONES” (The Identity of the New Testament Text, 1980 edition, p. 150). (Pickering hopes that through the use of computers it will one day be possible to consider the testimony of all extant Greek manuscripts, but to our knowledge no one is in the process of actually digitizing all of the manuscripts.)
It is obvious that even this project will fall far short of the goal of producing the material necessary to determine a definitive majority text. Even though this Institute has a vast number of manuscripts on microfilm, Pickering observes that these represent only 80 percent of the total number known to be in existence.
He also observes that the scholars are collating only “selected ones” from the 80% they have at hand. One reason for this is that the theories of modern textual criticism held by those doing this work cause them to discount the Byzantine Greek manuscripts so that they do not assign to them the proper value. Jack Moorman explains why the modern textual critics are not in any hurry to examine the vast majority of surviving Greek manuscripts. “It may come as a surprise that only a relative few of the 5,300 MSS now catalogued have been collated. ... Except for a few cursory checks the vast majority has been ignored. The reason is quite simple: The overwhelming majority of manuscripts support the TR/KJV; and seeking out any further support is the last thing textual criticism is interested in.
Keep in mind that the KJV Translators used the following methods:
The witness of Greek manuscripts. Divided into papyri (96), uncials (263), and minuscules (2,812), there are 3,171 Greek manuscripts extant today (by the count of Kurt and Barbara Aland in the second edition of The Text of the New Testament).
The witness of Greek lectionaries. These are Scripture readings used by churches. In contrast to the Greek manuscripts that give a “continuous text,” the lectionaries have an “interrupted text.” There are 2,280 lectionaries extant.
The witness of ancient versions. A translation into another language is an important witness to the Greek text upon which it was founded. We have copies of many ancient versions, including Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic. In some cases (e.g., Syriac Peshitta and Old Latin) these are earlier than the oldest of the Greek uncials.
The witness of quotations from “church fathers,” or the writings of ancient preachers. When they quoted the Scripture, it is possible to see what text they were using. Burgon himself collated more than 86,000 quotations from ancient Christian writings, searching for textual evidence.
From my understanding, the translators and collators of the modern "Majority Text" generally used only the first of these four witnesses, while the 47 scholars of the KJV used all four.
