Textual criticism of the New Testament

Textual criticism of the New Testament compares surviving manuscripts and other witnesses to assess the wording of the earliest recoverable form of its texts.

Textual variant: A difference in wording among copies or witnesses to a text. Each variant is a specific reading that textual critics compare.
New Testament manuscript: A handwritten copy of all or part of a New Testament book or collection. Manuscripts provide the primary material evidence for textual reconstruction.
Textus Receptus: The family of printed Greek New Testament editions that underlies many early modern translations. Its limited manuscript base differs from the broader evidence used in modern editions.
Mark 16:9–20: The longer ending of the Gospel of Mark, absent from some of its earliest surviving Greek manuscripts. Its manuscript evidence raises the question whether these verses belonged to Mark's earliest text.
Textual stemmatics: A method for inferring relationships among texts by studying shared errors and readings. Shared variants can reveal which manuscripts descend from common exemplars.
New Testament papyri: Papyrus manuscripts containing portions of the New Testament, mostly copied in antiquity. Their surviving fragments preserve some of the earliest Greek witnesses.
Novum Testamentum Graece: A scholarly critical edition of the Greek New Testament published by the German Bible Society. Its changing apparatus records evolving editorial judgments and evidence.
John 7:53–8:11: The story of the woman accused of adultery, which appears in varying locations or is absent from early witnesses. Its shifting placement illustrates how a familiar passage can circulate outside its original context.
Lectio difficilior potior: A textual criticism principle that favors the more difficult reading when it plausibly explains easier alternatives. The principle helps explain how scribes may have smoothed an awkward original reading.
Codex Vaticanus: A fourth-century Greek Bible manuscript preserving most of the Old and New Testaments. Its early text is a major witness in many disputed passages.

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