Is the Textus Receptus the only acceptable Bible manuscript? And is it wrong to switch between manuscript traditions to determine a proper translation?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2013.

Strictly speaking, the Textus Receptus is not the name of a certain manuscript of the New Testament. The term arose early on in the scholarly period, when biblical scholars woke up to the fact that there were many manuscripts of the New Testament and people were inclined to choose between them what they thought was the original text. That, of course, is what we still have to do.

But, amidst all the theories that were spun early on about the manuscripts of the New Testament, there was a particular text that came to be known as the Received Text because the majority of believers accepted it. Since those days, the early manuscripts of the New Testament written on papyri have come to light.

The decision therefore, to call a certain text the Textus Receptus, was made not only in ignorance of the early papyri but on very questionable grounds, even at the time at which it was invented. Since then, many manuscripts have come to light, and it is a question of thanking God for their multiplicity, and then doing our best to establish what is likely to have been the original text.

In answer to your second question: no, of course it is not wrong. It is what we have to do in the light of the many manuscripts that we now have; and we may thank God for true believers who have given themselves to a study of the manuscripts and produced what they feel to be near the original manuscripts of the New Testament.

Yours sincerely in Christ,