Thinking to Believe

I would highly recommend you read a couple of blog posts (1 and 2) from Daniel Wallace at Parchment and Pen on the topic of textual criticism. Few are better equipped to address the issue than Wallace. He is very involved in the study of the Greek manuscripts, and very knowledgeable in the field of textual criticism.

Wallace notes that many Christians falsely define what a textual variant is, and misunderstand how textual critics have arrived at the conclusion that the NT text contains 300-400K variants. It is commonly believed that this number is so large because any given textual variant, when it appears in multiple manuscripts, is counted multiple times. So if a single variant in Romans 5:1 appears in 10 different manuscripts, it is counted as 10 variants. Not so. Read Wallace’s posts to uncover the truth about how textual variants are counted.

I just finished reading an illuminating article by Daniel Hays about Goliath’s height. I was not aware that there is a textual variant at this point in the text (as well as many other points in 1-2 Samuel, and the story of David and Goliath in particular), but there is. While the Masoretic Text contains the 9’9” version we are all familiar with (most English translations of the OT use the Masoretic text), there are earlier manuscripts and translations that say he was 6’9”. Hays shows how both the external and internal evidence support the 6’9” reading over the 9’9” reading. Check it out.