Why Are There Differences in Ancient New Testament Manuscripts?

In the ancient world, copies of the New Testament books were made in several major locations. The manuscripts originating in these locations are grouped in what are called families of texts.

Manuscripts from these locations generally have variations common to other texts from the same location.

Textual critics hold different opinions about how many families of texts there are of the New Testament. Some will say there are three major families; others might argue there are four or five.

The three major locations and families are the Western (mostly Latin) texts from Italy and the West, the texts from around Asia Minor in the east (Constantinople/Byzantium in what is now Turkey), and those from Egypt, particularly Alexandria.

Some scholars say that Syriac, or texts from western Mesopotamia, constitute a fourth family. Others declare that the Caesarean versions, those originating around Palestine, might be a fifth family.

Because of geographic isolation, through the centuries each of these families tended to "inbreed" or become unique to itself, producing identifiable variations.

Today textual critics are divided on which of the thousands of manuscripts and papyri coming from these areas are most accurate. For most, the arguments boil down to two areas—the Alexandrian (Egyptian) Greek and the Byzantine Greek texts. When we compare the manuscripts from each we find a number of variants between these families. So there was some failure to copy one or the other accurately. The question is, which is more accurate and which is less accurate?

Most scholars today think that the texts from Alexandria, because they are older, are more accurate or closer to the originals. The oldest Alexandrian manuscripts date from around the fourth century after Christ while the oldest Byzantine manuscripts come from around the seventh century.

However, does older necessarily equate to better? There are several factors to consider.

First, we must consider that there are fewer than 45 texts from Alexandria, compared with around 5,000 of the Byzantine manuscripts. Thus the Alexandrian texts appear to be a tiny minority.

Second, Alexandria was a major center of gnosticism, a religious/philosophical movement that corrupted early Christianity. When we look at the variants in the Alexandrian texts, we find that their gnostic leanings tend to portray Jesus Christ as neither divine nor having come in the flesh as a physical human being.

A third area to consider is that the Byzantine scribes were known to be reputable in their faithfulness in the copying process. Many more points could be argued, but English translations based on the Byzantine texts of the New Testament appear to be more accurate. (For more information, request or download our reprint article "Which Bible Translation Should I Use?")

For your peace of mind, however, the numbers of variants of any real significance between the Alexandrian texts and the Byzantine texts are few. We could sum up the differences by saying that 99.5 percent of the New Testament is the same no matter which version you have or use. The remaining half a percent would amount to about 20,000 variants. Of these, the overwhelming majority are minor scribal errors such as differences in spelling.

Of some 2,500 real differences, only about 300 involve any substantial difference in meaning. These variants involve less than one tenth of one percent of the text of the New Testament. The numbers of variants that actually affect the meaning—not just spelling—of the text are minuscule. GN