Religion:Textual variants in the New Testament

Short description: Differences in New Testament manuscripts

Textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to the text that is being reproduced. Textual criticism of the New Testament has included study of its textual variants.

Most of the variations are not significant and some common alterations include the deletion, rearrangement, repetition, or replacement of one or more words when the copyist's eye returns to a similar word in the wrong location of the original text. If their eye skips to an earlier word, they may create a repetition (error of dittography). If their eye skips to a later word, they may create an omission. They may resort to performing a rearranging of words to retain the overall meaning without compromising the context. In other instances, the copyist may add text from memory from a similar or parallel text in another location. Otherwise, they may also replace some text of the original with an alternative reading. Spellings occasionally change. Synonyms may be substituted. A pronoun may be changed into a proper noun (such as "he said" becoming "Jesus said"). Most of these variants are not of any importance, since the meanings do not really change.

Origen, writing in the 3rd century, was one of the first who made remarks about differences between manuscripts of texts that were eventually collected as the New Testament. He declared his preferences among variant readings. For example, in Matthew 27:16–17, he favored "Barabbas" against "Jesus Barabbas" In John 1:28, he preferred "Bethabara" over "Bethany" as the location where John was baptizing. "Gergeza" was preferred over "Geraza" or "Gadara". At Hebrews 2:9, Origen noticed two different readings: "apart from God" and "by the grace of God".

John Mill's 1707 Greek New Testament was estimated to contain some 30,000 variants in its accompanying textual apparatus which was based on "nearly 100 [Greek] manuscripts." Eberhard Nestle estimated this number in 1897 as 150,000–200,000 variants. In 2005, Bart D. Ehrman reported estimates from 200,000 to 400,000 variants based on 5,700 Greek and 10,000 Latin manuscripts, various other ancient translations, and quotations by the Church Fathers. In 2014 Eldon J. Epp raised the estimate as high as 750,000. Peter J. Gurry puts the number of non-spelling variants among New Testament manuscripts around 500,000, though he acknowledges his estimate is higher than all previous ones.

Since 1981, in a system developed and introduced by Kurt and Barbara Aland in their textbook The Text of the New Testament, Greek New Testament manuscripts have commonly been categorized into five groups.

Below is an abbreviated list of textual variants in the New Testament.

Variants

This running list of textual variants is nonexhaustive, and is continually being updated in accordance with the modern critical publications of the Greek New Testament — United Bible Societies' Fifth Revised Edition (UBS5) published in 2014, Novum Testamentum Graece: Nestle-Aland 28th Revised Edition of the Greek New Testament (NA28) published in 2012, and Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior (ECM) last published in 2017 — and supplemented by nonmodern publications wherever applicable, including those of Hodges & Farstad, Greeven, Lachmann, Legg, Merk, Nestle-Aland editions 25–27, Aland's Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (SQE), Souter, Swanson, Tischendorf, Tregelles, von Soden, and Westcott & Hort.

See also

• Bible version debate
• Biblical inerrancy
• Caesarean text-type
• Categories of New Testament manuscripts
• Comparison of codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus
• King James Only movement
• List of New Testament verses not included in modern English translations
• Modern English Bible translations
• The New Testament in the Original Greek
• Western text-type

Bibliography

• Münster Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (2017). Bibelausgaben Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior / Band III: Die Apostelgeschichte: Gesamtband Teil 1-3. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3438056146. 
• Münster Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (2013). Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior IV, Die Katholischen Briefe, Teil 1 und Teil 2, Gesamtwerk. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3438056054. 
• American Bible Society (2012). Novum Testamentum Graece — Nestle-Aland 28th Revidierte Auflage. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3438051400. 
• American Bible Society (2014). The Greek New Testament — Fifth Revised Edition. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3438051165. 
• Bruce M. Metzger (2005). A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament — Second Edition. Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 1598561642. 
• Kurt Aland (1985). Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum: Locis Parallelis Evangeliorum Apocryphorum Et Patrum Adhibitis Edidit. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 3438051303. 
• Brooke Foss Westcott, Fenton John Anthony Hort (1881). The New Testament in the Original Greek. Macmillan & Co.. 
• Zane C. Hodges, Arthur L. Farstad (1982). The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text. Thomas Nelson Publishers. ISBN 0840749635. 
• David Holly (1983). Comparative Studies in Recent Greek New Testament Texts. Biblical Institute Press. ISBN 8876535810. 
• Constantinus Tischendorf (1869). Novum Testamentum Graece, ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum omni studio perfectum apposuit commentationem Isagogicam praetexuit, Editio Octava Critica Maior: Volumen I. Giesecke und Devrient. 
• Constantinus Tischendorf (1872). Novum Testamentum Graece, ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum omni studio perfectum apposuit commentationem Isagogicam praetexuit, Editio Octava Critica Maior: Volumen II. Giesecke und Devrient. 
• Hermann Freiherr von Soden (1902–1913). Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte. Alexander Duncker; Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. 
• Alexander Souter (1910). Novum Testamentum Graece: Textui a Retractatoribus Anglis Adhibito Brevem Adnotationem Criticam Subiecit. Clarendon Press. 
• Karl Lachmann (1842–1850). Testamentum Novum Græce et Latine Carolus Lachmannus recensuit. Philippus Butmannus, Ph. F. Græcæ Lectionis Auctoritatis, apposuit. Berolini. 
• S.C.E. Legg (1935). Novum Testamentum Graece secundum textum Westcotto-Hortianum; Evangelium Secundum Marcum, cum apparatu critico nouo plenissimo, lectionibus codicum nuper repertorum additis, editionibus versionum antiquarum et patrum ecclesiasticorum denuo inuestigatis. Clarendon Press. 
• S.C.E. Legg (1940). Novum Testamentum Graece secundum textum Westcotto-Hortianum; Evangelium Secundum Mattaeum, cum apparatu critico nouo plenissimo, lectionibus codicum nuper repertorum additis, editionibus versionum antiquarum et patrum ecclesiasticorum denuo inuestigatis. Clarendon Press. 
• Augustinus Merk (1933). Novum Testamentum Graece, apparatu critico instructum. Pontifici Instituti Biblici. 
• Albert Huck, Heinrich Greeven (1981). Synopse Der Drei Ersten Evangelien: Mit Beigabe Der Johanneischen Parallelstellen. Mohr Siebrek Ek. ISBN 3161430328. 
• Reuben Swanson (2005). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Gospel 4-Pack. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 1414307632. 
• Reuben Swanson (1996). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Acts. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0865850550. 
• Reuben Swanson (2002). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Romans. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0865850704. 
• Reuben Swanson (2003). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: 1 Corinthians. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0865850720. 
• Reuben Swanson (2006). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: 2 Corinthians. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0865850739. 
• Reuben Swanson (1999). New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Galatians. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0842339744. 
• Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1857). The Greek New Testament. Samuel Bagster and Sons. 

Further reading

• Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, ed. E. Nestle, K. Aland, Stuttgart 1981.
• Bruce M. Metzger & Bart D. Ehrman, "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration", OUP New York, Oxford, 4 edition, 2005
• Bart D. Ehrman, "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament", Oxford University Press, New York - Oxford, 1996, pp. 223–227.
• Bruce M. Metzger, "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament", 1994, United Bible Societies, London & New York.

External links

• The Comparative Critical Greek New Testament
• Variantes textuais (in Portuguese)
• Varianten Textus receptus versus Nestle-Aland
• The Gospel of John part of the Holy Bible