What “Textual Variants”? How bad are They?
Fortunately, they just aren’t that bad. We can broadly class all Textual Variants into two classes.
- Meaningful Variants. These textual variants have an impact on what the text means. For example, if one manuscript said “Jesus was happy” and another says “Jesus was sad”, that’s a meaningful variant because it changes the meaning of the text.
- Viable Variants. These Textual Variants have a decent chance of having the wording of the original document. Some variants appear in only a single (late) manuscript, and thus the chances of them being in the original text are extremely low.
From those two options, we can create a list of four types of Textual Variant.
- Neither meaningful nor viable (they don’t change the meaning and have no chance of being original)
- Viable but not meaningful (they don’t change the meaning and have a chance of being original)
- Meaningful but Not viable (they do change the meaning, but have no chance of being original)
- Both Viable and meaningful (they do change the meaning and do have a chance of being original)
We’ll look at #1 and #2 two together
Textual Variants that are NOT meaningful, even if viable.
These are Textual Variants which have no effect on anything.
These comprise over 75% of all textual variants, which means over 75% of textual variants have no effect on anything whatsoever.
In fact, the most common type of Textual Variant is spelling differences, often a single letter. Remember, there was no dictionary in ancient times, and thus no defined right or wrong way to spell a word. The single most common textual variant is called a “
moveable Nu“, with “Nu” being the Greek letter which sounds like our “N”.
In English, we have this rule too. (
Sort of).
In English the indefinite article “a” gets an “n” added when the next word starts with a vowel. For example:
- “This is a book.”
- “This is an owl.”
Greek applies this rule more frequently, and that’s the most common textual variant. Does it matter much if Paul wrote “a owl” vs “an “owl”? Exactly. It simply doesn’t matter to the meaning. In fact, this Textual Variant (
movable Nu) is
the single most common Textual Variant.
Other examples include when one manuscript has “Jesus Christ”, and another has “Christ Jesus”, with only the order changed. Again, it simply doesn’t matter which is original because there’s no impact on meaning. (
You’ll know this is especially true of Greek if you’ve read my A Few Fun Things About Biblical (Koine) Greek article) Another example
: perhaps one document will only have “Christ” and another only has “Jesus”. Again, this doesn’t change the meaning much, even if it does change the text slightly.
Again, over 75% of all Textual Variants are not meaningful, even if they are viable. (
Viable = possibly original)
So don’t worry, your Bible isn’t filled with mistakes.
Textual Variants that are Meaningful, but not viable.
These are variants where it’s essentially impossible for them to have been original, even if they would change the meaning of the text. Typically, these variants are found only in a single manuscript, or in a small group of manuscripts from one small part of the world. Most often, they are simple scribal errors.
I have a rather humorous example:
1 Thessalonians 2:7
But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.
There’s a Textual Variant on the word “gentle”. Most manuscripts read “gentle”, some read “little children” and one manuscript reads “horses”. It’s easy to explain these variants when you see how these words are spelled in the Greek, so here are the first three words of the verse in each Textual Variant:
- Alla Egenēthēmen ēpioi (gentle)
- Alla Egenēthēmen nēpioi (little children)
- Alla Egenēthēmen hippioi (horses)
Context tells us that
nēpioi (
little children) can’t be intended, and since the previous word begins with “n”, it’s easy to see how the mistake was made (
doubling the “n”). Often, one scribe would read while several other scribes copied. If you heard it read, you’d realize it’s an easy mistake to make because they sound almost identical. (
Because the previous word ends with an “n” sound)
Further,
there’s no possible way that
hippioi (
horses) was intended. It was a simple scribal error, easily noticed and just as easily corrected. (
With a good chuckle. ) Both Textual Variants are meaningful, but it’s nearly impossible for them to be original (
they aren’t viable).
These types of Textual Variants make up ~24% of all Textual Variants.
Combined with the ones that aren’t meaningful, you have
over 99% of all Textual Variants make no impact on meaning whatsoever.
Pretty cool right?
Textual Variants that are Meaningful and Viable
These Textual Variants have a good chance of being original (
viable), and change the meaning of the text (
meaningful). They comprise less than 1% of all Textual Variants.
We’ve examined one of these Textual Variants here on Berean Patriot before, namely:
The Johannine Comma of 1 John 5:7-8: Added or Removed? Other major Textual Variants include the story of the woman caught in Adultery (
Pericope Adulterae for short) and the last 12 verses in Mark’s Gospel. Those three are probably the most well-known, but there are many more.
Next, we’ll look at the three competing theories on how to handle the less-than-1% of places where the text of the New Testament isn’t completely agreed up on.
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