Over 700,000 textual variants exist in New Testament manuscripts

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 November 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The New Testament contains more than 700,000 textual variants, revealing how copyists altered the text over centuries. These changes range from minor spelling shifts to major additions and omissions, offering a glimpse into the complex history of early Christian texts.

Textual variants in the New Testament refer to differences in the text of the original Greek manuscripts. These variations arose due to human error during the copying process, with scribes sometimes inadvertently altering words, rearranging phrases, or adding text from memory. These changes can include deletions, repetitions, or substitutions, and even the replacement of a pronoun with a proper noun, such as changing 'he said' to 'Jesus said.'

The study of these variants has been a central focus of textual criticism. Early scholars like Origen, writing in the 3rd century, noted differences between manuscripts and expressed preferences for certain readings. For instance, he favored 'Barabbas' over 'Jesus Barabbas' in Matthew 27:16–17, and 'Bethabara' over 'Bethany' in John 1:28. These observations laid the groundwork for later critical editions of the New Testament.

Estimates of the number of variants have grown over time. In 1707, John Mill's Greek New Testament was thought to have approximately 30,000 variations, but Eberhard Nestle increased this figure to between 150,000 and 200,000 in 1897. By 2005, Bart D. Bart D. Ehrman provided a range of estimates from 200,000 to 400,000 variations, relying on 5,700 Greek and 10,000 Latin manuscripts for his calculations. Eldon J. Epp later increased the estimate to 750,000, and Peter J. Gurry placed the number of non-spelling variants at around 500,000, though he acknowledged this was a higher estimate than previous ones.

Modern critical editions, such as the United Bible Societies' Fifth Revised Edition (UBS5) from 2014 and the Nestle-Aland 28th Revised Edition (NA28) from 2012, continue to refine these estimates. Scholars also rely on nonmodern publications, including works by Hodges & Farstad, Greeven, Lachmann, Legg, Merk, and Westcott & Hort, to build a comprehensive understanding of the textual history of the New Testament.

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