Juckel's study

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Abudar,

Notice this:

Out of the 118 "variants" Juckel argues for in the book of Mattai alone, here is the breakdown by category:

(1) Missing Diacretic Points: 10 instances. Scribal error.

(2) Missing Daleth, Waw or Lamedh Proclitic: 21 instances. Scribal error.

(3) Missing Anticipatory Pronominal Suffix: 2 instances. Scribal error.

(4) Two words reversed in order: 8 instances. Scribal error.

(5) Misspellings: 18 instances. Scribal error.

(6) Missing Words (i.e., "he said" vs. "said"): 34 instances. Scribal error.

(7) Use of synonyms (i.e., "with them" vs. "among them"): 19 instances. Scribal error.

As you can plainly see, 113 of the 118 so-called "variants" are simply the result of poor scribal work.

The other five real "variants" are, in fact, the scribe's attempt to harmonize with other related synoptic passages. (4:8, 15:36, 19:7, 19:11 and 26:31) These, I agree, are a no-no and the scribe should have been skinned alive in the old Assyrian fashion.

So there you have it - 113 of 118 so-called "variants" are not real variants after all, at least not in the Greek sense of "variants!" The meaning, in the vast majority of the cases, remains unaltered so that the passage reads no differently.