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Textual criticism is the academic discipline that examines and compares biblical manuscripts. One concern of textual criticism is the “recovery” of the original reading of a biblical text. In the course of copying the biblical texts, words are inevitably added, omitted, or changed for unintentional reasons, and sometimes on purpose (scribal emendations). Textual critics are not just concerned with getting back to an original text, but are also often interested in understanding how textual variants are informative for the study of a text in general. In the case of Galatians, there may be dozens of textual variants—that is, areas in the text where manuscripts differ on a word or phrase. Oftentimes the variation is insignificant, as with a difference of spelling (the equivalent of “advisor” vs. “adviser”). There are also occasions, however, where the variation is more weighty.

The art and science of textual criticism can be complex, but in a discussion such as we will have here, it benefits the uninitiated to understand that textual critics consider two kinds of evidence in the study of variants in pursuit of an original reading.

External Evidence. One type of evidence involves consideration of the reliability of the manuscript(s) in question. Any given manuscript, no matter where and when, can be liable to a mistake here and there (as this is only human). However, all things being equal, there is a general presumption that earlier manuscripts are more likely to pass on the original reading compared to later manuscripts because of the simple fact that, over time, there is opportunity for more and more transcription errors to creep in.

This papyrus dates to the late second century or early third century, and what remains is from the Pauline corpus. Regarding Galatians, P46 contains the following intact portions: 1:1–8, 10–24; 2:1–9, 12–21; 3:2–29; 4:2–18, 20–31; 5:1–17, 20–26; 6:1–8, 10–18.We have over one hundred ancient papyri that contain biblical texts, many of which can be dated to the third century CE (NB: we do not have much that comes from the second century). Text Types:

“As individual NT books were received and circulated in the early Christian church, various copies were made and deployed throughout the ancient world. As manuscripts were circulated within particular geographic regions they began to take on particular characteristics/readings, unique to their location, resulting in localized text-types or textual families. Four major textual families have been identified and studied by NT textual critics: (1) Alexandrian, (2) Western, (3) Caesarean, and (4) Byzantine.”^[1]

A large group of relatively early manuscripts is called majuscules. These are written in uppercase letters, with no spaces between words and no punctuation. A small number of these can be dated to the fourth century CE. Many more are from the fifth to tenth centuries. We have a plethora of manuscripts that are in the minuscule (lowercase) script; these date largely from about the ninth to the fifteenth centuries and beyond.

When factoring in external evidence, text critics consider the strongest readings to be those for which manuscript support is early and for which such support comes from a wide geographic distribution. Sometimes consideration is given to which “text type” the reading comes from; manuscripts associated with the so-called Alexandrian text type are considered by many scholars to be more reliable than manuscripts from other text types.

Internal Evidence. Another consideration in weighing variants involves how the text reads in and of itself (without looking at the age or origins of the manuscript[s]). The goal of internal analysis is to explain what may have given rise to a particular variant, then to work backwards to an original reading. There are a few factors that guide these considerations. For example, some scribal changes that are unintentional include dittography (i.e., a scribe may have accidentally written the same letter twice, thus possibly changing the next word). We get a strong sense that some scribes changed their texts on purpose, presumably with the noble intention of clarification or perhaps to correct what they thought were mistakes in the texts in front of them. Two important principles that relate to intentional scribal editing include lectio brevior and lectio difficilior. Lectio brevior means “shorter reading”—that is, all things being equal, the shorter reading is most likely to be original because a scribe is more likely to add to a biblical text than to remove wording. Lectio difficilior means “more difficult reading.” That is, all things being equal, a scribe is more likely to simplify what he thought was a convoluted text than to make it more confusing. Thus, if confronted with a variant that is more convoluted, seemingly less orthodox, or in any way “troubling,” compared to a variant that reads more comfortably, the chances are that the original reading is the more “difficult” one—simply because the easier reading fits the concerns and motives of a scribe. No sensible scribe would willingly complicate a biblical text.

Reading the Greek Text with a (Textual) Critical Apparatus

The Greek New Testament Nestle-Aland (twenty-eighth edition; hereafter NA28) contains a scholarly reconstruction of the (presumed) original Greek text. This means that teams of scholars sifted through textual variants and analyzed and weighed the evidence that would lead to choosing the strongest readings in any given case. The text presented is the result of their decisions, but at the bottom of the text is the “critical apparatus” (hereafter CA) where the reader can find more information about the debated variants (not all variants, but those that are the strongest contenders for the most likely original readings or variants that are especially controversial). The various codes and symbols in the CA can be confusing and overwhelming, so the NA28 contains a lengthy guide to the CA.

In this lesson, we will look at only a handful of instances of textual variation, though there are hundreds of variants for the Greek text of Galatians and nearly forty occasions where scholars believe it is worthwhile to have a discussion about the best options.