Textual variants in the Gospel of Matthew
So, imagine you drew a picture of a cat. Then, your friend saw the picture and wanted to copy it. But, they didn't copy it exactly the same. Maybe they added some stripes on the cat's fur or made the eyes bigger. That's kind of like what happened with the Bible.
The Bible is a book that lots of people wrote a long time ago about God and Jesus. One part of the Bible is called the Gospel of Matthew, which tells the story of Jesus. Over time, people copied the Gospel of Matthew, but sometimes they changed things a little bit.
These changes are called "textual variants." They're like the stripes your friend added to your cat picture. Sometimes the changes are just small differences in spelling or punctuation, but other times they can be bigger changes to the actual words in the Gospel of Matthew.
These textual variants can be tricky because they make it hard to know for sure what the original Gospel of Matthew really said. But, scholars use different versions of the Gospel of Matthew to try and figure out what is most likely the original version.
But, even though there are these changes, the overall message of the Gospel of Matthew stays the same. It's still all about Jesus and the important things he did while he was on Earth.
The Bible is a book that lots of people wrote a long time ago about God and Jesus. One part of the Bible is called the Gospel of Matthew, which tells the story of Jesus. Over time, people copied the Gospel of Matthew, but sometimes they changed things a little bit.
These changes are called "textual variants." They're like the stripes your friend added to your cat picture. Sometimes the changes are just small differences in spelling or punctuation, but other times they can be bigger changes to the actual words in the Gospel of Matthew.
These textual variants can be tricky because they make it hard to know for sure what the original Gospel of Matthew really said. But, scholars use different versions of the Gospel of Matthew to try and figure out what is most likely the original version.
But, even though there are these changes, the overall message of the Gospel of Matthew stays the same. It's still all about Jesus and the important things he did while he was on Earth.