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
manuscriptsoriginatingintheselocationsaregroupedinwhatarecalledfamiliesoftexts.Manuscriptsfrom theselocationsgenerallyhavevariations common toother texts fromthe same location.
Textual critics hold different opinions about how many families of texts there are of the NewTestament. Somewill saythere arethreemajor families;others might arguethereare four or five.
The three major locations and families are theWestern (mostly Latin) texts from Italy and theWest,the textsfromaroundAsia Minorin theeast (Constantinople/Byzantiumin what isnowTurkey),and thosefrom Egypt,particularlyAlexandria.
Some scholars say that Syriac, or texts from western Mesopotamia,constitute a fourth family.Others declarethatthe Caesareanversions,those originating around Palestine,might bea fifth family.
Because of geographic isolation,through the centuries each of these families tended to “inbreed”or become uniqueto itself,producing identifiablevariations.
Todaytextualcriticsaredividedonwhichof thethousandsof manuscriptsand papyri coming fromthese areasaremostaccurate.Formost,theargumentsboildowntotwoareas—theAlexandrian(Egyptian)Greek and theByzantine Greektexts.When we comparethe manuscripts from each wefind a number of variants betweenthesefamilies.Sotherewassomefailuretocopyoneortheotheraccurately.Thequestionis,which is moreaccurateand which isless accurate?
Most scholars today think that the texts fromAlexandria,because they are older,are more accurate or closer to the originals.The oldestAlexandrian manuscripts date from around the fourth century after Christ while the oldest Byzantine manuscripts come from around the seventh century.However,does older necessarilyequateto better?Thereare several factors to consider.
First,wemust considerthattherearefewer than 45textsfromAlexandria,comparedwith around 5,000 of theByzantinemanuscripts.Thus theAlexandrian textsappear to bea tinyminority.
Second,Alexandriawasa major centerof gnosticism,a religious/philosophical movement that corrupted early Christianity.When we look at the variants in theAlexandrian texts,we find that their gnostic leanings tend to portrayJesusChrist asneither divinenor having come inthe 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 NewTestament appear to be more accurate.(For more information,request or download our reprint article“WhichBibleTranslation Should IUse?”)
Foryourpeaceofmind,however,thenumbersofvariantsofanyrealsignificancebetweentheAlexandrian texts and the Byzantine texts are few.We could sum up the differences by saying that 99.5 percent of the NewTestament 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 differencesin spelling.
Of some2,500realdifferences,onlyabout300involveanysubstantial differenceinmeaning.Thesevari- ants involve less than one tenth of one percent of the text of the NewTestament.The numbers of variants that actually affect the meaning—not just spelling—of thetext areminuscule.