Textual variants in the Epistle to the Colossians

Textual variants in the Epistle to the Colossians 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.

Minuscule 321, first page of Colossians

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
Codex Claromontanus, Colossians 1:28b-2:3

Colossians 1:14 (see Ephesians 1:7)

απολυτρωσιν δια του αιματος αυτου (redemption through the blood of him) – 383 424 614 630 1505 1912 2200 2344* 2464 Byzpt (i.e., 76 206 221 223 330 876 1518 1611 1960 2005 2412) ℓmss vgcl syrh arm slav Gregory Cassiodorus
απολυτρωσιν (redemption) – rell (all other extant MSS and Church Fathers)

Colossians 1:28

Χριστω – 𝔓46 א* A B C D* F G 33 81 1241 1739 1881 2464
Χριστω Ιησου – א2 D2 H Ψ Byz

Colossians 3:13

κύριος – 𝔓46, A B D* G ℓ 809 it vg Pelagius Augustine
Χριστός – אc C Dc K P Ψ 81 88 104 181 326 330 436 451 614 629 630 1241 1739 1877 1881 1962 1984 1985 2127 2492 2495 Byz Lect it syr cop goth eth
θεός – א*
θεός ἐν Χριστῷ – 33 arm Augustine

Colossians 4:8

γνωτε τα περι ημων – A B D* F G P 048 33 81 365 1175
γνωτε τα περι υμων – א*
γνω τα περι υμων – 𝔓46 א2 C D1 Ψ Byz
γνω τα περι ημων – 451 ℓ 598 and ℓ 1356

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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