Textual variants in the Epistle to the Ephesians

Textual variants in the Epistle to the Ephesians are the subject of the study called textual criticism of the New Testament. Textual variants in manuscripts arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to a text that is being reproduced. An abbreviated list of textual variants in this particular book is given in this article below.

Most of the variations are not significant and some common alterations include the deletion, rearrangement, repetition, or replacement of one or more words when the copyist's eye returns to a similar word in the wrong location of the original text. If their eye skips to an earlier word, they may create a repetition (error of dittography). If their eye skips to a later word, they may create an omission. They may resort to performing a rearranging of words to retain the overall meaning without compromising the context. In other instances, the copyist may add text from memory from a similar or parallel text in another location. Otherwise, they may also replace some text of the original with an alternative reading. Spellings occasionally change. Synonyms may be substituted. A pronoun may be changed into a proper noun (such as "he said" becoming "Jesus said"). John Mill's 1707 Greek New Testament was estimated to contain some 30,000 variants in its accompanying textual apparatus[1] which was based on "nearly 100 [Greek] manuscripts."[2] Peter J. Gurry puts the number of non-spelling variants among New Testament manuscripts around 500,000, though he acknowledges his estimate is higher than all previous ones.[3]

Legend

A guide to the symbols used in the body of this article.

Notable manuscripts

Notable textual variants

Ephesians 1:1

ἐν Ἐφέσῳ – אc, A, B3, D*, G, K, P, Ψ, 33, 81, 88, 104, 181, 326, 330, 436, 451, 614, 629, 630, 1241, 1877, 1881, 1962, 1984, 1985, 2127, 2492, 2495, Byz, Lect, it, vg, syr, cop, goth, arm
omitted by – 𝔓46, א*, B*, 424c, 1739

Ephesians 1:7

χαριτος – majority
χρηστοτητος – Α 365 copbo

Ephesians 2:1

αμαρτιαις – majority
επιθυμιαις – Β

Ephesians 2:15

καινον – majority
κοινον – 𝔓46 F G
και μονον – K

Ephesians 2:20

Χριστου – 𝔓46 Β G 88 436 1739 1881
του Χριστου – D K 181 326 614 629 630 1877 1984 2495
Κυριυ – א A P Ψ 33 81 104 330 451 1241 1962 2127 2492 surh copbo arm eth
του Θεου – 1985
omit – C

Ephesians 4:14

του διαβολου – Alexandrinus
της πλανης – rest of mss.

Ephesians 4:28

ταις χερσιν το αγαθον – 𝔓46, אb, B, a, vgst
το αγαθον – Porphyrianus, 6, 33, 1739, 1881
το αγαθον ταις χερσιν – L, Ψ, 323, 326, 614, 630, 945
το αγαθον ταις ιδιαις χερσιν – K, 2495
εν ταις χερσιν αυτου το αγαθον – 629
ταις ιδιαις χερσιν το αγαθον – Sinaiticus, A, D, F, G, 81, 104, 365, 1175, 1241, 2464, vgcl

Ephesians 5:9

φωτός – 𝔓49, א, A, B, D*, G, P, 33, 81, 330, 629, 1739*, 1877, 1881, 1962, 2127, 2492, Lect, it, cop
πνεύματος – 𝔓46, Dc, K, Ψ, 88, 104, 181, 326, 436, 451, 614, 630, 1241, 1739mg, 1877, 1984, 1985, 2495, Byz, ℓ 809, syrh

Ephesians 6:12

μεθοδιας – 𝔓46
αρχας προς τας εξουσιας – rell

See also

References
  1. Adam Fox, John Mill and Richard Bentley: A Study of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament 1675–1729 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954), pp. 105–115; John Mill, Novum Testamentum Graecum, cum lectionibus variantibus MSS (Oxford 1707)
  2. Metzger and Ehrman (2005), p.154
  3. Peter J. Gurry, "The Number of Variants in the Greek New Testament: A Proposed Estimate" New Testament Studies 62.1 (2016), p. 113

Further reading
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