How Many Variants Make It into Your Greek New Testament?

Greek students sometimes get the wrong impression that their Nestle-Aland apparatus records all the variants for the New Testament. I certainly thought this at one point. And it’s not just students. I once heard a story about one of Kurt Aland’s colleagues who called him up in a state of distress because he had found a variant in the Syriac that was not in the NA apparatus! Aland had to break the news to him that this poor variant was not alone. The Nestle apparatus, like most apparatuses is selective.

But just how selective is your Greek New Testament? Since we now have complete collations for several small parts of the NT, and since I’ve done the boring exciting work of counting the variants in them, we can now get a sense of just how selective our standard editions are in their apparatuses.

Drawing on the data available for John 18, Philemon, and Jude, we can see just how many of the total number of variants the UBS4, NA28, and ECM apparatuses include. It’s not a perfect comparison because these editions all include variants from versions and fathers which the exhaustive collations don’t. They also don’t necessarily share the same variant units either. But for giving a general sense of the data, I think these comparisons are helpful.

Results

Here are the results of my comparison:

And in table form with percentages:

Section	Number of Variants (% of total)
	UBS4	NA28	ECM	TOTAL
John 18	10 (0.3%)	183 (6.0%)	–	3,058
Philemon	16 (1.4%)	55 (4.6%)	–	1,185
Jude	47 (2.8%)	145 (8.6%)	789 (46.6%)	1,694

From these numbers we can see just how selective the UBS and NA apparatuses are. In the UBS, we only get 0.3 percent of the total variants in John 18 and it’s still only 2.8 percent in Jude. The NA does better, of course, but it is still just a drop in the bucket of the total number. Somewhat surprisingly, even the ECM with its extensive apparatus comes in below 50 percent.

Signficance

I see at least two conclusions we can draw from these comparisons. The first is that unqualified claims that most of our variants were created early on are simply false. Given that the NA, UBS, and ECM apparatuses all lean heavily toward the earliest evidence, it follows that the bulk of our variants were created (or at least are first attested) later on. In Jude, for example, over 53 percent of variants don’t show up in an edition that represents the text’s first 1,000 years of development (i.e., the ECM). So we cannot blithely claim that most of our variants were created early. It may be true that most of our most interesting or most important variants were created early, but that would take us well beyond the time I have for this blog post.

Second, insofar as these editions succeed in presenting the most significant variants for exegesis and translation (I’m thinking now of the NA and UBS editions), we can conclude that most of our variants are pretty insignificant.

Now that phrase “insofar as” is a pretty important qualifier and I can already hear many astute blog readers protesting that the NA/UBS editions leave out too much of value. I hear your protest. But editors have to draw the line somewhere and I don’t envy them for that. Even knowing that editors leave out some readings we think should be there, my comparisons here still give us at least one concrete way to answer the question “How many variants matter?” If we adjust the question to “How many variants mattered enough that the editors included them in my Greek New Testament?” the answer is less than ten percent.

HT: Greg Lanier for suggesting the idea.

Jude Bibliography

Bibliography for Epistle of Jude

1. Text

NA27: Novum Testamentum Graece (ed. B. & K. Aland et al. [E. Nestle]; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 199327, cf. 18981, 197926).

NA28: Novum Testamentum Graece (ed. B. & K. Aland et al. [E. Nestle]; INTTF, H. Strutwolf; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012²⁸, cf. 18981, 197926, 199327).

UBS4: United Bible Societies, The Greek New Testament. Fourth Revised Edition (ed. B. & K. Aland et al.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesselschaft & UBS, 1993⁴).

These two editions have the same text. NA27 lists and notes more textual variants. When UBS4 gives a variant it lists more evidence than NA27 does (e.g. in v1, 3, 5, 22, 23, 23)

B.M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Second Edition. A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition) (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft & UBS, 1994).

Comments on variants in UBS GNT (from editorial perspective): pp. 656-661: v1, 3, 4, 5 (extensive with minority report), 8, 12, 19, 22-23 (more extensive), v22, 23, 25.

ECM2: Novum Testamentum Graecum. Editio Critica Maior Vol. IV Catholic Letters (ed. by Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland†, Gerd Mink, Holger Strutwolf, and Klaus Wachtel; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2013)

ECM1:  The Second and Third Letter of John. The Letter of Jude, Pt. 1. Text, Pt. 2. Supplementary Material Novum Testamentum Graecum. Editio Critica Maior Vol. IV Catholic Letters. Instl. 4 (ed. by Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland†, Gerd Mink, Holger Strutwolf, and Klaus Wachtel; Stuttgart 2005)

Latest from Münster; used around 140 manuscripts, excellent display of variants; improvements to NA27 text (marked below with asterisk); places of uncertainty marked with dots:

Jude 5/4 (p. 409): de (NA27) / oun

*Jude 5/20 (p. 410): Ihsouj / (o) kurioj (NA27).

[*Jude 5/12-20 (p. 410): umaj apac panta oti Ihsouj; NA27: [umaj] panta oti  [o] kurioj apac]

Jude 14/28-32 (p. 422): agiaij muriasin autou (NA27) / muriasin agiaij autou.

Jude 16/14-16 (p. 424): epiqumiaj eautwn (NA27) / epiqumiaj autwn

Jude 17/12-16 (p. 425): rhmatwn twn proeirhmenwn (NA27) / rhmatwn proeirhmenwn

*Jude 18.7 (p. 426): nothing / adds oti (NA27: oti in a single square bracket.)

*Jude 18.8-14 (p. 426) ep  esxatou xronou esontai / ep  esxatou tou xronou esontai (NA27 : tou in a single square bracket)

Jude 20/8-18 (p. 428): epoikodomountej eautouj th agiwtath hmwn pistei (NA27) / epoikodomountej eautouj th agiwtath umwn pistei

Jude 21/10 (p. 429): thrhsate (NA27) / thrhswmen

Jude 25/32-38 (p. 434): pro pantoj tou aiwnoj (NA27) / pro pantoj aiwnoj

T. Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission (CBNT 43; Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2006).

Independent text established on basis of a complete transcription of 560 manuscripts of Jude. Studies of papyrus witnesses (P72, ch 2; P78, ch 3); extensive textual commentary. (6 page list of corrections to ECM1).

Wasserman’s reconstructed text differs in five places from the ECM1 text: ku/rioj is preferred in v5; a0pafri/zonta in v13; pa/ntaj tou\j a0sebei=j in v15; and both  o#ti and tou= are read in v18.

C. Landon, A Text-Critical Study of the Epistle of Jude (JSNTSS 135; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

Idiosyncratic approach (‘thoroughgoing eclectic method’). Discusses 95 variant units in the text of Jude. Proposes 21 improvements to NA27/UBS4 text

2. Commentaries (Greek text)

R.J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Waco, TX: Word, 1983).

Probably the best all-round commentary.

C.A. Bigg, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1901; New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1922).

P.H. Davids, 2 Peter and Jude: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2011).

G.L. Green, Jude & 2 Peter (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).

        

J.B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. Jude and the Second Epistle of St. Peter. Greek Text with Introduction, Notes and Comments (London: Macmillan & Co., 1907)

J. H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, and Jude: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (ABC 37C; New York: Doubleday, 1993)

Uses transliteration, but lots of comment and notes on the Greek. Neyrey also wrote the brief commentary on Jude in NJBC, pp. 917-19.

3. Studies and Monographs

NB. For more: W. Grünstäudl, ‘Bibliography on 2 Peter and Jude (1983-2013)’ [academia.edu]

J.S. Allen, ‘A New Possibility for the Three-Clause Format of Jude 22–3’ NTS 44 (1998), 133–143.

P. F. Bartholomä, ‘Did Jesus Save the People out of Egypt? A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5’ NovT 50 (2008), 143–158.

R.J.  Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990). This includes (as chapter 3) a revised version of his ‘The Letter of Jude: An Account of Research’  from Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.25.5 (1988), 3791-3826.

J. N. Birdsall, ‘The Text of Jude in P72’ in Collected Papers in Greek and Georgian Textual Criticism (TaS 3^rd Series 3; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias 2006), 73–77.

G. J. Brooke, ‘Torah, Rewritten Torah and the Letter of Jude’ in The Torah in the New Testament. Papers Delivered at the Manchester-Lausanne Seminar of June 2008 (eds M. Tait & P. Oakes; LNTS 401; London/New York: Continuum, 2009), 180–193.

W. Brosend, ‘The Letter of Jude. A Rhetoric of Excess or an Excess of Rhetoric?’ Interp. 60 (2006), 292–305.

T. Callan, ‘Use of the Letter of Jude by the Second Letter of Peter’ Biblica 85.1 (2004), 42-64

T. Caulley, ‘Balaak in the P72 Text of Jude 11. A Proposal’  NTS 55 (2009), 73–82.

J.D. Charles, Literary Strategy in the Epistle of Jude (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 1993). Incorporates some earlier studies:

J.D. Charles, ‘‘Those’ and ‘These’. The Use of the Old Testament in the Epistle of Jude’ JSNT 38 (1990), 109–124.

J.D. Charles, ‘Jude’s Use of Pseudepigraphical Source-Material as Part of a Literary Strategy’ NTS  37 (1991), 130-145

J.D. Charles, ‘Literary Artifice in the Epistle of Jude’ ZNW 82 (1991)106-124.

J.D. Charles, ‘The Use of Tradition-Material in the Epistle of Jude’ BBR 4 (1994), 1-14

J.D. Charles, ‘The Angels under Reserve in 2 Peter and Jude’ BBR 15 (2005), 39-48.

B. Dehandschutter, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian, Jude and Enoch. Some Notes on 1 Enoch 1:9’ in: Tradition and Re-Interpretation in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (FS Jürgen C. H. Lebram; ed. J.W. van Henten; Leiden: Brill, 1986), 114–120.

M. Desjardins, ‘Portrayal of the Dissidents in 2 Peter and Jude: Does it Tell Us More About the “Godly” Than the “Ungodly”?’ JSNT 30 (1987), 89-102.

L.R. Donelson, ‘Jude as Text with Excess of Context’ in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy Presented to Hans Dieter Betz on his 70th Birthday (eds M.M. Mitchell & A.Y. Collins; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 279–295.

E. E. Ellis, ‘Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Jude’ in Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays (WUNT 18; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr & Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 220-36.

I.H. Eybers, ‘Aspects of the Background of the Letter of Jude’ Neotestaentica 9 (1975), 113-123.

T. Flink, ‘Reconsidering the Text of Jude 5, 13, 15 and 18’ Fil. Neot. 20 (2007), 95-125.

J. Fossum, ‘Kyrios Jesus as the Angel of the Lord in Jude 5-7’ NTS 33 (1987), 226-43 (also in J. Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God. Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology [NTOA 30; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995], 41–69)

J. Frey, ‘The Epistle of Jude between Judaism and Hellenism’ in The Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition (eds. K.W. Niebuhr & R.W. Wall; Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2009), 309-329.

J.J. Gunther, ‘The Alexandrian Epistle of Jude’ NTS 30 (1984), 549-62.

H. Harm, ‘Logic Line in Jude. The Search for Syllogisms in a Hortatory Text’ Occasional Papers in Translation and Textlinguistics 1 (1987), 147–172.

J. F. Hultin, ‘Jude’s Citation of 1 Enoch’ in Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The Function of “Canonical” and “Non-Canonical” Religious Texts (eds J.H. Charlesworth & L.M. McDonald; JCTCRS 7; London/New York: Continuum, 2010), 113–128.

P.R. Jones, The Epistle of Jude as Expounded by the Fathers - Clement of Alexandria, Didymus of Alexandria, the Scholia of Cramer’s Catena, Pseudo-Oecumenius and Bede (TSR 89; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001).

S.J. Joseph, ‘”Seventh from Adam” (Jude 1:14-15): Re-examining Enochic Traditions and the Christology of Jude’ JTS 64 (2013), 463-481.

S.J. Joubert, ‘Language, Ideology, and the Social Context of the Letter of Jude’ Neotestamentica 24 (1990), 335-49.

S.J. Joubert, ‘Persuasion in the Letter of Jude’ JSNT 58 (1995), 75–87.

S.J. Joubert ‘Facing the Past. Transtextual Relationships and Historical Understanding in the Letter of Jude’ BZ 42 (1998), 56–70.

S.J. Joubert, ‘When the Dead are Alive! The Influence of the Living Dead in the Letter of Jude’ HTS 58 (2002), 576–592.

M.A. Kruger, ‘Toutois in Jude 7’ Neotest. 27 (1993), 119–132.

S. Kubo, ‘Jude 22-23: Two Division Form or Three?’ New Testament Textual Criticism, Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger (eds: E.J. Epp & G.D. Fee; Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 239-253.

K. R. Lyle. Ethical Admonition in the Epistle of Jude (Studies in Biblical Literature 4; New York: Peter Lang, 1998).

E. Mazich, ‘“The Lord Will Come with His Holy Myriads”. An Investigation of the Linguistic Source of the Citation of 1 Enoch 1,9 in Jude 14b-15’ ZNW 94 (2003), 276–281.

N.J. Moore, ‘Is Enoch Also Among the Prophets? The Impact of Jude’s Citation of 1 Enoch on the Reception of Both Texts in the Early Church’ JTS  64 (2013), 498-515.

J. Muddiman, ‘The Assumption of Moses and the Epistle of Jude’ Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions (eds A. Graupner & M. Wolter; BZAW 372; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 169–180.

T. Nicklas, ‘Der “lebendige Text” des Neuen Testaments. Der Judasbrief in P72 (P. Bodmer VII)’ ASE 22(2005), 203–222.

C.D. Osburn, ‘The Christological Use of 1 Enoch I.9 in Jude 14,15’ NTS 23 (1976-77), 334-341.

C.D. Osburn, ‘The Text of Jude 5’ Biblica 62 (1981), 107-115.

C.D. Osburn, ‘Discourse Analysis and Jewish Apocalyptic in the Epistle of Jude’ in Linguistics and New Testament Interpretation. Essays on Discourse Analysis (ed. D.A. Black; Nashville: Broadman 1992), 287–309.

G. van  Oyen, ‘Is There a Heresy That Necessitated Jude’s Letter?’ in Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity (FS P.W. van der Horst; eds. A. Houtman, A. de Jong & M. Misset-van de Weg; AJECAGJU 73; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008), 211–226.

J. T. Reed & R.A. Reese, ‘Verbal Aspect, Discourse Prominence, and the Letter of Jude’ Filología neotestamentaria 9 (1996), 181–199.

R.A. Reese, Writing Jude: The Reader, the Text and the Author in Constructs of Power and Desire (Biblical Interpretation Series; Leiden: Brill, 2000).

J.M. Ross, ‘Church Discipline in Jude 22–23’ ExpT 100 (1989), 297–298.

D.E. Rowston, ‘The Most Neglected Book in the New Testament’ NTS 21 (1974f), 554-563.

P. Spitaler, ‘Doubt or Dispute (Jude 9 and 22–23): Rereading a Special New Testament Meaning through the Lens of Internal Evidence’ Bib. 87 (2006), 201–222

L. Thurén, ‘Hey Jude! Asking for the Original Situation and Message of a Catholic Epistle’ NTS 43 (1997), 451-465

D.F. Watson, Invention, Arrangement, and Style: Rhetorical Criticism of Jude and 2 Peter (SBLDS; Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1988), 29-79.

R. L. Webb & P. H. Davids (eds.), Reading Jude with New Eyes: Methodological Reassessments of the Letter of Jude (LNTS; London: T & T Clark, 2008).

R.L. Webb, ‘The Eschatology of the Epistle of Jude and Its Rhetorical and Social Functions’ Bulletin for Biblical Research 6 (1996), 139-151.

R.L. Webb, ‘The Use of ‘Story’ in the Letter of Jude: Rhetorical Strategies of Jude’s Narrative Episodes’ JSNT 31 (2008), 53–87.

E.R. Wendland, ‘A Comparative Study of “Rhetorical Criticism”, Ancient and Modern, with special reference to the Larger Structure and Function of the Epistle of Jude’ Neotestamentica 28 (1994), 193-228.

S. C. Winter, ‘Jude 22-23: A Note on the Text and Translation’ HTR 87 (1994), 215-222.

F. Wisse, ‘The Epistle of Jude in the History of Heresiology’ Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts (FS A. Böhlig; NHS 3; ed. M. Krause; Leiden: Brill, 1972), 133-143.

T.R. Wolthuis, ‘Jude and Jewish Traditions’ Calvin Theological Journal 22 (1987), 21-41.

T.R. Wolthius, ‘Jude and the Rhetorician. A Dialogue on the Rhetorical Nature of the Epistle of Jude’ CTJ 24 (1989), 126–134.

Review of Wasserman's Epistle of Jude

The Review of Biblical Literature has published the following review online: Tommy Wasserman
The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5824. Reviewed by Stephen D. Patton

The review is appreciative of Wasserman's work. Ironically, Patton's Greek accents are incorrect in three places.