Textual variants in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Textual variants in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians 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

1 Thessalonians 2:7

νήπιοι (babies) – 𝔓65, א*, B, C*, G, I, Ψ*, 104*, 326c, 451, 1962, 2495, it, vg, cop, eth
ἢπιοι (gentle) – אc, A, C2, Dc, K, P, Ψc, 33, 81, 88, 104c, 181, 326*, 330, 436, 614, 629, 630, 1241, 1739, 1877, 1881, 1984, 1985, 2127, 2992, Byz, Lect

1 Thessalonians 3:2

και συνεργον του θεου εν τω ευαγγελιω του Χριστου (Gods co-worker in the Gospel of Christ) – D Byz f m vg syr cop
και συνεργον εν τω ευαγγελιω του Χριστου (co-worker in the Gospel of Christ) – B 1962
και διακονον του θεου εν τω ευαγγελιω του Χριστου (Gods servant in the Gospel of Christ) – א A Π Ψ 81 629 1241 1739 1881
διακονον και συνεργον του θεου εν τω ευαγγελιω του Χριστου – G itf,g
και διακονον του θεου συνεργον ημων εν τω ευαγγελιω του Χριστου (Gods servant and our fellow laborer in the Gospel of Christ) – Dc K 88 104 181 326 330 436 451 614 629 630 1877 1984 1985 2127 2492 2495 Byz Lect

1 Thessalonians 3:9

θεω (to God) – אb A B D2 Ψ Byz f m vg syr cop
κυριω (to the Lord) – א* D* F G a b vg bo

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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