Spelling - BibleQuestions.info

What is a Critical Edition of the New Testament?

October 17th, 2020Paul Gibson

Spelling of "David" in Greek Matthew 1:1

As I've written before, different scholars have different opinions about which Greek manuscripts most closely resemble the original texts written by the New Testament authors, and they use different sets of rules to determine the most appropriate readings. When scholars put their beliefs into practice, a new critical text of the New Testament is created. The text may be published many times in different editions, just as the text of the King James...

Is a Textual Variant Both Meaningful and Viable?

July 11th, 2020Paul Gibson

I've stated repeatedly in previous articles that most textual variants are simple mistakes made by scribes when copying the New Testament, but some changes are intentional. When trying to decide if a variant could be original, textual scholars start by asking two questions:

Is the Variant Meaningful?

Often, mistakes do not create a meaningful text. Spelling errors may produce a series of letters that aren't really a word. Jesus instructed...

Are Spelling Differences Meaningful in New Testament Manuscripts?

May 16th, 2020Paul Gibson

Last week I wrote about the estimated 200,000-500,000 textual variants in the Greek New Testament manuscripts. That's a lot of variants, but with over 2,000,000 pages of New Testament manuscripts available for scholars to study, that averages out to less than 1 unique textual variant for every 4 pages of text. Now consider, the majority of textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts are spelling differences that don't affect the meaning of the...