Organized by underlying Greek New Testament textual basis, and by translation philosophy within each group.
These three aren't equivalent categories of the same kind: Textus Receptus is a lineage of printed Greek editions starting with Erasmus; Majority/Byzantine Text is a reconstructed manuscript tradition; Critical Text is an editorial method applied across evolving scholarly editions (Nestle-Aland/UBS). They're grouped here as the three textual bases behind English Bible translations, not as three parallel manuscript families.
These textual bases disagree because they weigh different evidence: CT leans on a small number of old manuscripts and reasoned evaluation of each variant, while TR and MT lean on a much larger body of later ones. Part of the case for CT's approach is that later manuscripts accumulated centuries of scribal smoothing, harmonizing, and clarifying — a widely-held view among critical text scholars, though not one that MT or TR proponents accept as the deciding factor. Six of the best-known disputed passages, below.
None of these six create a theological conflict when read against the whole of Scripture. Even the most significant, the Comma Johanneum's explicit Trinity formula, doesn't establish or undermine the doctrine of the Trinity on its own either way: that doctrine rests on the cumulative witness of many passages (John 1:1, Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, among others), not on any single verse. Textual variants can affect the wording, emphasis, or evidential support of individual passages without necessarily changing a doctrine considered from the whole biblical corpus — which is why major Christian doctrines generally shouldn't be evaluated from a single disputed reading in isolation. That principle is widely shared among textual critics across the theological spectrum, whichever family they personally favor.
1 John 5:7–8
The one major case where TR stands alone against both other families. Erasmus omitted it from his first two editions (1516, 1519) because it wasn't in his Greek manuscripts, then added it in 1522 after a Greek manuscript containing it (Codex 61) surfaced. The popular version of this story has Erasmus promising in advance to include the Comma if such a manuscript could be produced — a colorful anecdote repeated by many respected scholars, but one specialist research has found no solid basis for in Erasmus's own writings, so it's best treated as tradition rather than settled fact. What is well established: that manuscript is itself late, and its Greek is understood to derive from a Latin source rather than an independent Greek transmission. KJV and NKJV include the Comma; almost no other modern translation does.
Mark 16:9–20
Most CT-based translations (ESV, NIV, NASB) still print these verses, just flagged as likely a later addition rather than silently dropped.
John 7:53–8:11
Same pattern as Mark 16: absent from the earliest Greek witnesses and appearing in different locations in some later manuscripts, which leads most modern critical editions to regard this well-loved, ancient story as a later addition to John's Gospel. Kept in most Bibles but flagged.
1 Timothy 3:16
A scribal abbreviation/letter-form issue, not simply one ordinary letter changed: ΘC (an abbreviation for θεός, "God") and OC (ὅς, "who") could look visually similar in the relevant manuscript hands, which is how the two readings are thought to have diverged. This passage has consequently featured prominently in debates over the textual basis of the KJV and the doctrine of Christ's deity, which doesn't rest on this verse alone in either case.
Luke 2:14
One letter (a final sigma) changes how the phrase is understood: the traditional nominative reading is usually rendered as goodwill toward everyone, while the genitive reading is typically understood as peace to those who receive God's favor. Which reading is original affects the grammar and translation; how each cashes out theologically is a further, separate question.
Romans 8:1
Many textual critics regard the longer reading as an expansion influenced by the similar wording later in verse 4, though this is an inference about how the variant arose rather than a directly attested historical event.
Each arrow between cards describes a specific kind of relationship, not just "came after":
Within each textual-basis family, translations are further grouped by translation philosophy — how closely the English tracks the original wording versus the original meaning:
Cards flagged with ⚑ have a documented theological, denominational, or doctrinal leaning behind specific translation choices: sponsoring institution, oversight-committee composition, or contested renderings (gender language, the divine name, etc.). This isn't a claim that every rendering in these translations is theologically motivated, or that unflagged translations have none; it's the set where a specific, sourceable leaning is well known and worth being aware of as a reader. Presented factually; where a translation choice was controversial, both the translators' stated rationale and their critics' objections are noted.