When we first hear there are 400,000 variants in the NT manuscripts, we can freak out a bit. But as we have seen in our previous post, it really is ok. We know only a small portion of the Bible has variants, and none affect our beliefs or doctrines. We have come to see most of the variants are quite insignificant; we will see this again below. We are also going to see even the “significant” variants are not all that significant.
Below is a list of the type of variants which we find in the biblical manuscripts. This is not an exhaustive list. I suggest you look at our Suggested Readings and Helpful Links pages for resources to dive deeper into the issue. I am limiting the use of original language alphabet and words. Rather, I am using English equivalents to keep this from getting too complicated or technical. Remember what I am talking about happens in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts.
Having variants don’t necessarily mean there is something wrong or in error with a text. A variant simply means a point in one text differs from what is being used in the base text, the text we are using for comparison. The textual critic’s job is to determine which reading, the one from the base text or an alternate reading, represents what was written in the autograph. Remember the autographs—the original written texts—no longer exists, time and use have worn them out.
Types of Variants
*Spelling Errors: This is the case where the scribe wrote the word incorrectly, left a letter out, flipped letters or doubled a letter. The same kind of mistake we make when writing or copying a text. As a dyslexic I write “fo” for “of and “saw” for “was” quite often.
*Spelling Convention: This is similar to spelling errors; the word is not being spelled wrong but differently. We live in a much more precise time in history than even a few centuries ago. Spelling and grammar rules were much looser in the past. Spelling can also change based on region, think of American “labor” and British “labour”.
The name “John”, in the Greek, ends in a letter which sounds like “n”: a nu. There are two common ways to spell the name in Greek, ending in one or two “n”, along with other acceptable spellings of the name. For almost every occurrence of the name John in the NT there is a variant because of the diverse ways the name can be spelled. Even though in each case it is an appropriate spelling of the name, since they are different, they count as a variant: a difference between the manuscripts.
Note these first two types, spelling errors and spelling convention cover approximately 70% of the variants—280,000 of the 400,000 variants. Textual critics know the correct spelling in almost all cases and for the few they question it is not an issue. Would you throw your Bible away because we are not sure of the spelling of “Arpachshad” (Gen 5:12)? Should it be “Arpakchad”? Would this change your theology?
*Expansion of Piety: Another very common variant is the adding of words to references to Jesus, a desire to add to the grandeur of our Savior. For example, Matt 16:20 should be “he was the Christ”, many late manuscripts have “he was Jesus the Christ”. Similar to this are situations where late text replaces “he” with “Jesus”, adds “Jesus” to “Lord”, “Lord” to “Jesus”, “Christ” to “Lord” and comparable type changes, none of which changes the meaning at all.
*Similar Looking Words: A scribe writes the wrong word from similar looking options. It would be like us writing “loss” instead of “loose”, “red” instead of “reed”. In 1 Timothy 3:16 some manuscripts had “He was revealed in the flesh” others “God was revealed in the flesh”. The Greek word for “He” and “God” (especially an abbreviated form of “God”) look alike. In most cases it is fairly easy to tell which is original.
*Similar Sounding Words: There were times when the scribes would work in teams. One person would read the text while a group would write it out. In this way many copies could be made in one sitting. But there are words which sound the same such as “red” and “read”, “rode” and “road” or “there”, “they’re” and “their”. We see this variant in Lk 6:41 as the word fruit sounds like the word for log in Greek. There is no question Jesue was referring to a log in one’s eye not a fruit.
*Dropping Letter or Word: (Haplography) The accidental removal of a letter, word, or phrase when it appears twice in close proximity. Also dropping small words like an article—a or an.
*Skipping a Line: (Homoearcton) When two lines start with the same letters and the scribe accidentally skips one of the lines. Also, Homoeoteleuton: When two lines end with the same letters and the scribe accidentally skips one of the lines. In Codex Sinaiticus, the original scribe skipped Luke 10:32, probably because it ends with the same word as Luke 10:31. A corrector later added the verse as a footnote.
*Switching Order: (Metathesis) Accidentally switching the order of words. Unlike English where word order matters, it is not an issue in many other languages. In English “The dog bit the man” is very different from “The man bit the dog.” In many other languages, word order is not an issue as the word’s meaning and usage is determined by the shifting or adding letters to the base word, just as we do when we add an “s” to make a word plural or an “ed” to made it past tense. Other languages do this to a vastly greater extent. Thus, while the textual critic works to discover the original word order, the correct meaning has not been affected.
*Adding from Margin: Sometimes a scribe would add a note to the margin, and a later scribe would copy the note into the text. This is seen in John 5:4 where a note about the legend of the stirring of the pool related to healing was added to some late manuscripts.
*Parallel Influence: Adding phrasing from a parallel passage. A scribe intentionally harmonizes a passage to agree with the wording he already knows or unintentionally writes the line as she knows it from the parallel work. This happens most often with the gospels. An example would be Matt 1:25 where the late text of the KJV has “brought forth her firstborn” which is borrowed from Luke 2:7 while the ESV correctly has “had given birth to a son”.
The Impact of Variants
The textual variants above are divided into four categories combining two concepts: significance and viability. The first question asked of each variant is “Is it significant, meaningful? Second question is “Is it viable, likely to be original”?
The first question is asking if the variant changes the meaning of the text. If the meaning is changed based on the variant, is it is considered a significant variant.
The second question is asking if there is a good possibility the variant was part of the original wording. If there is a good possibility—a small but still possible chance—it might have been original, it is considered a viable variant..
Four categories.
Neither Viable nor Significant. Variants like spelling errors. They are easy for scholars to locate. There is no basis for believing they were in the originals and don’t affect the meaning.
Viable, but Insignificant. Variants such as those based on spelling convention e.g., the spelling of John. The variant could have been in the original but makes no change to the meaning of the text.
Not Viable but Significant. These variants would change the meaning of the text but could not possibly be from the original. I Thess 2:7 would be an example of a variant which would be considered significant but not viable “…we were gentle among you”. One manuscript has “…we were horses among you”. These word are similar in Greek but clearly only “gentle” makes any sense. It is true “horses” would change the meaning. Its impact on meaning makes it significant but the lack of sensible meaning in the context and being found in only one manuscript makes it a non-viable variant.
Viable and Significant. These are variants which do change the meaning of the text and have a possibility of being from the original.
This is the smallest group of variants at less than 1% of the 400,000 variants. This means less than 4,000 out of 400,000 variants are considered both viable and significant. Looking at this from the opposite perspective: 99% of the variants are either not viable or insignificant, not meaningful and/or not likely from the original.
Many of the viable and significant variants are noted at the bottom of your Bible. The best option is in the text and then the possible alternate wording is in the note. They will usually start with “some manuscripts”, “some late mss” or some similar wording.
The fact the translator put a textual note in the margin does not mean it is a 50/50 choice for the option. The alternate option may have very little support, but they want the readers to be aware of its existence. The textual critics by the ethical standards of their profession are very conservative when claiming a reading is certain. We thank God for this as it engenders great trust in their work.
Keep in mind this is different from when the note may say “or …” or “literally ….” Those notes are given as an alternate translation for passages which are difficult to translate, not from a variant issue. Be sure to read the introductory material in your Bible to see how it indicates textual verses translation issues.
The opening paragraph of I John has a good example of a significant and viable variant. At the end of First John 1:4, there are two choices for the wording: “that our joy may be complete.” or “that your joy may be complete.” A note in the ESV says “some manuscripts your” indicating the translators felt that “our” was the correct reading but want us to be aware some of the copies of the text have “your.” As with all of these type of variants it does affect the meaning of the passage to some extent but has no impact on any point of theology or any Christian doctrine.
So, there are only about 4,000 variants which do raise a question. Yet, only about 50 are of any meaningful issue in interpreting a passage. What is the most important number to take away from this discussion? ZERO! That is zilch, none, nada! There are NO variant readings affecting our beliefs. Nothing depends on which variant we accept. No variant alters our theology or Christian doctrines. NONE!
In our next and final post in this series on variants, we will look at the Big Three. Three variants which are both significant and viable. One even deals with the Trinity!
Summarizing the Process
While there have been many topics touched on in the short life of the RBC, we do have a general plan for main topics we are seeking to cover. Lord willing, we will always cover a variety of topics, such as building our doctrinal foundation, the names of God, Jesus in the OT, and many others. In spite of this broad direction, our emphasis from the start has been to focus on Bible translation: the process, the methods, and evaluation of modern translations.
We are working our way to posting about translation. Below are the steps God has taken to get from the original writing of the biblical material to the Bible we hold in our hands. We are seeking to follow this path in the order in which we write our posts.
*Inspiration: The words of the Bible are God’s words as if we had seen Him write them or heard Him say them. Yet at the same time, each writer was writing his own thoughts, using his own words, and putting them down in his own style. This view of inspiration is called the Synergistic Verbal Plenary Theory of Inspiration. The gist of this view is God inspired the whole Bible, all of it, from the genealogies to Psalm 23 and John 3:16. All of it is His Word. Along with this is the assertion the very words used were His Words. God didn’t dictate to the writers what to say but moved them, so they wrote what was God approved! We covered this in our 4-part series on Inspiration .
*Canon: The collection of authoritative writings which guides and controls the belief of Christian believers because they were recognized by the Church as the Word of God. Note, they were not made nor was it decided they were God’s Word but recognized for what God made, not man chosen. We touched on this in Revolution Non-Evolutionary.
*Transmission: A process started with the first copies of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts of the Bible thru the copying of copies down through the ages to our current day. Until the 16th century, the work of copying the text was done by hand. With handwritten copies (known as manuscripts) errors occurred. These errors are referred to as variants. This has been the topic of this current 4-part series of posts on Variants .
*Textual Management: This is a term I use; I have not seen one for this process. I am using it for the work of the textual critics especially the outcome of their work: the collating of a standard text. This is the production of an edited rendering of the Bible. Edited in the sense of gathering the wording most accurately reflecting the original documents. Due to the 400,000 variants in the 5,800 Greek texts of the NT, textual critics do the work of determining the most likely wording of the NT. This is also done for the OT. Don’t let this issue concern you. Due the work of these dedicated scholars we have certainty of 98% to 99% of our biblical text and very little issue with the rest. No variant affects our Christian beliefs. Take a look at the previous post in this series, Variants: Half-Truth Full Lie, to get a handle on this issue.
Keep in mind along with 5,800 Greek manuscripts there are over 15,000 manuscripts of the Greek NT in other languages such as Aramaic, Arabic, Latin, Coptic (an Egyptian dialect), Syriac and others. If this is not enough, the early church pastors and leaders—known collectively as the Church Fathers—quoted from the NT over a million times in letters, sermons, position papers and commentaries. We could recreate the NT from their writings with only 11 verses out of the 7,957 verse in the NT missing. When the textual critics need help to determine the correct wording of any passage in the NT there is no shortage of help.
*Translation: The process of taking a work from the original language (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) to a receptor language: English in our case. More specifically translators are taking manuscripts from an ancient language and culture on the other side of the world into the Western culture of 21st century English.
*Publication: This is the process of putting a translated text into a desired format of font, size and cover along with any additional elements desired such as reference notes, study notes, concordance, and maps. We actually covered this first in our series of Bible Primers .
These steps take us from the writing of the Bible to putting it in the store for us to purchase. Even when we find and buy our Bible this is not the end of the story. It is now up to us. Once we buy our Bible, we have to read, study, memorize, interpret, and most importantly obey and be guided by it. All of this must be done in the power and under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Until the next time we see you here at CultivatingFaith.org, God Bless! #CultivatingFaithOrg
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