Can we know for sure the original text in textual variants?

[Biblicist]

I always thought that Erasmus back translated those last few verses from the Vulgate into his Greek text?

Thanks, what was I thinking, you're quite right, I have must have gone through a bit of a brain brown-out.[/QUOTE]

 

[PrincetonGuy]

Prior to the UBS/GNT Greek text and with the important research that is associated with this text, we were forced to rely on the poorly contrived text of Erasmus which was a bit of an embarrassment.

The fourth and definitive edition of the text of Erasmus was published in 1537, and was followed by the critical texts of Robert Estienne (1550), Konstantin Von Tischendorf (1849), Karl Lachmann (1850), Samuel P. Tregelles (1857-1872), and Westcott and Hort (1881).

 

[Biblicist]

The fourth and definitive edition of the text of Erasmus was published in 1537, and was followed by the critical texts of Robert Estienne (1550), Konstantin Von Tischendorf (1849), Karl Lachmann (1850), Samuel P. Tregelles (1857-1872), and Westcott and Hort (1881).

Reading back on my post I can see how I may have inadvertently implied that there was nothing of any real scholarly value prior to the current UBS/NA Greek text. I should have pointed out that the critical GNT is a development which has its heritage within the research of numerous men such as Tischendorf, Lachman etc.

When it comes to even Westcott and Hort, from my understanding, their amazing work was not so much original but built on the foundations of those who went before them, so they had essentially compiled the best research of the day which Eberhard Nestle turned into the Novum Testamentum Graece(1898) and things moved on from there.