Textual variants in the New Testament

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to the text that is being reproduced.

Textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

has included study of its textual variants. 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 Dittography is the accidental, erroneous act of repeating a letter, word, phrase or combination of letters by a scribe or copyist. The term is used in the field of textual criticism, especially in critical studies of ancient or biblical literature ...

). 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").

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

, 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

. 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 reekmanuscripts." 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.Peter J. Gurry,
The Number of Variants in the Greek New Testament: A Proposed Estimate
''New Testament Studies'' 62.1 (2016), p. 113 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.

Legend

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.

Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Luke

Gospel of John

Acts of the Apostles

Epistle to the Romans

First Epistle to the Corinthians

Second Epistle to the Corinthians

Epistle to the Galatians

Epistle to the Ephesians

Ephesians 3:9 textus receptus KJV And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ Ephesians 3:9 critical manuscripts NIV And to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things

Epistle to the Philippians

Epistle to the Colossians

First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

First Epistle to Timothy

Second Epistle to Timothy

Epistle to Titus

Epistle to Philemon

Epistle to the Hebrews

Epistle of James

First Epistle of Peter

Second Epistle of Peter

First Epistle of John

Second Epistle of John

Third Epistle of John

Epistle of Jude

Book of Revelation

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

The Comparative Critical Greek New Testament

The Gospel of John part of the Holy Bible
{{New Testament textual variants navigation Biblical criticism New Testament-related lists Greek New Testament manuscripts New Testament Textual criticism