0

Does anyone know if there has been a real accurate count of how many variants exist? Even if a variant is just defined as 1 early Codex and NA28 - is there such a number?

Daniel Wallace estimates 400K - but is there a real number somewhere?

https://danielbwallace.com/2013/09/09/the-number-of-textual-variants-an-evangelical-miscalculation/

Let me know your thoughts

Darin McCoy
  • 1
  • 1
  • Welcome to BHSX. Thanks for your question. Please take the opportunity to take the site tour (link below) to better understand how this site works. – Dottard Aug 12 '22 at 22:12
  • 1
    Nobody has counted them. The answer also depends on what you call a variant - a spelling difference or a difference in word order. Danial Wallace's estimate would be about correct. It also depends on which MSS one includes as well. There are about 5400 Gree MSS and over 8000 Latin MSS, all different with thousands of their own variants; some unique and some common to others. The whole article of Wallace is very helpful. – Dottard Aug 12 '22 at 22:12
  • How can it be counted? What's the limit of manuscript period you're gonna consider? All mss until 10th century, or 20th century? There's no reason for it. It's just estimation. – Michael16 Aug 13 '22 at 03:01
  • In my scenario - I'm looking for an early manuscript (let's say Codex vaticanus for example) vs NA28. I don't want an estimation - I want the actual number.

    And i'm looking for the number on differing criteria - for XXX criteria its this many variants, for yyy criteria its this many variants

     – Darin McCoy Aug 13 '22 at 04:18
  • An article I read about the latest Nestle-Aland edition said there are slightly over 5,000 variants noted in it -- I've tried to find an exact number without luck. As for total variants, no one really knows, I presume because no one has actually counted them. That's not surprising given the work it would take, but hard numbers should start showing up given that every manuscript available is being put in a computer database and there is software available for comparing text. But even then someone would have to go through and categorize each variant, or a lot of people counting manuscripts. – Traildude Jan 01 '24 at 23:04

0 Answers0