Textual variants in the Epistle to the Galatians

Textual variants in the Epistle to the Galatians are the subject of the study called textual criticism of the New Testament. Textual variants in manuscripts arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to a text that is being reproduced. An abbreviated list of textual variants in this particular book is given below.

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"). John Mill's 1707 Greek New Testament was estimated to contain some 30,000 variants in its accompanying textual apparatus[1][2] which was based on "nearly 100 [Greek] manuscripts."[3] 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.[4]

Legend

A guide to the symbols used in the body of this article.

Notable manuscripts

Notable textual variants

Galatians 2:20

υιου του θεου – א, A, C, D2, Ψ
θεου και Χριστου – B, D*, F, G, (b)

Galatians 2:20

αγαπησαντος – all mss.
αγορασαντος – Marcion

Galatians 3:14

ἐπαγγελίαν – א, A, B, C, D2, K, P, Ψ, 33, 81, 88mg, 104, 181, 330, 436, 451, 614, 629, 630, 1241, 1739, 1877, 1881, 1962, 1984, 2127, 2492, 2465, Byz, Lect, it, vg. syr, cop, arm
εὐλογίαν – 46, D*, Fgr, G, 88*, it

Galatians 5:21

φθόνοι – 46, א, B, 33, 81, 2492, ℓ 603, ℓ 809, it, copsa
φθόνοι φόνοι – A, C, D, G, K, P, Ψ, 0122, 88, 104, 181, 326, 330, 436, 451, 630, 1241, 1739, 1877, 1881, 1962, 1985, 2127, 2495, Byz, Lect

Galatians 6:2

αναπληρωσετε – B G 1962 it vg syrp,pal copsa,bo goth eth
αποπληρωσετε – 46
αναπληρωσατε – א, A, C, Dgr, K, P, Ψ, 0122, 33, 81, 88, 104, 181, Byz

See also

References
  1. Adam Fox 1954, John Mill and Richard Bentley: A Study of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament 1675–1729 Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 105–15.
  2. John Mill 1707, Novum Testamentum Graecum, cum lectionibus variantibus MSS Oxford.
  3. Metzger and Ehrman (2005), p. 154
  4. Peter J. Gurry, 2016, "The Number of Variants in the Greek New Testament: A Proposed Estimate" New Testament Studies 62.1, p. 113

Further reading
  • Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, ed. E. Nestle, K. Aland 1981, Stuttgart.
  • Metzger, Bruce M.; Ehrman, Bart D. (2005), The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.), New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Bart D. Ehrman 1996, "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament", Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, pp. 223–27.
  • Bruce M. Metzger 1994, "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament", United Bible Societies, London & New York.
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