Bible; hereafter BHS) approximately one textual note appears for every ten words; thus 90 percent of the text is without significant variation.3 According to Shemaryahu Talmon, even the errors and textual variations that exist “affect the intrinsic message only in relatively few instances.”4 Similarly in the New Testament, the fourth edition of the United Bible Societies’ (hereafter UBS) Greek New Testament text notes variants regarding approximately 500 out of 6,900 words, or only about seven