MGNT vs TR vs LXX

All the above are greek texts, but what exactly is the difference and how is each one to be used?

Understanding "Textual Criticism"

"Critical" does not mean anything bad or whatever, it is just a realization of historical fact that first of all the text themselves did fall from heaven and on top of that that we ourselves do not have the original but merely copies. These copies are also hand copied and off course there are mistakes in this process and these mistakes include both intentional and unintentional ones.

The process/work of "Textual Criticism" is to compile and catalog manuscripts to compare variant readings between them and then come to conclusions. Educated, Pious conclusions as to which reading most probably represents the original or authentic text.

When they are done with this process, they usually publish a "curated version" of the text thats usually called a "Critical Edition".

Off course, the people involved, so called "text critics" are not all equal. They don't all come with the most humble and honest of intentions and accordingly the results come in all shapes and forms, since they also make their own rules/cannons according to which they work

mGNT

This terms stands for morphological greek new testament. The term "morphological" is a linguistic term and refers to the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed and how they relate to one another within a language. most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word.

This version is also referred to as the "Critical Text"

Book recommendation - Morphology of Biblical Greek by William D Mounce

Textus Receptus

This is simply one of the versions that came out of a process of textual criticism. It is also called the "Received Text" because the Roman Catholic Church claims this was the text received from Paul when they have received their mandate.

A different argument as to the name is a quote from a 1633 editors quote that states: So you hold the text, now received by all in which is nothing corrupt.

There are however various versions of this text aswell, one of them being for example the Nestle Alode Edition (NA). Specifically this edition follows two specific manuscripts for controversial sections, the Vaticanus and Cena Atticus manuscripts. There is also the United Bible Society Edition and the Tyndale House edition.

The biggest problem with this version, is that the users thereof "confess" that they take this text as the inspired and infallible word of God. They do this, although they know that the text is merely what is deemed to be the best option at the time and something that is "infallible" is not only something that is 100% correct, it literally means that it is "incapable of making mistakes or being wrong", which of course is once again reflecting the church attitude that can by it's very nature simply not be true.

LXX

this is the Septuagint, which is a greek translation of the entire bible. This translation came about after Alexander the Great conquered the region and Greek became the lingua franca.

The symbol LXX is the roman numeral for 70, which refers to a legend according to which 72 translators were put in separate cells when translating the text from hebrew to greek. They did not have any communication means and were released on the same date. The translations were all exactly the same and accordingly the conclusion was reached that this translation is almost "inspired" and approved by God himself.

Dead Sea Scrolls

Since these are also manuscripts, but from a different collection. The Dead Sea Scrolls are known to be the oldest discovered translations.