What is Internal Evidence?

The fact that there are 400,000 textual variants (differences between manuscripts) in the
manuscripts of the Greek New Testament is astounding. It is extremely important to note
though, that the number of variants is so big due to the fact that there are about 5,000 known
Greek New Testament manuscripts preserved to our day (this is often called the Embarrassment
of Riches). Each of them was carefully copied by hand, which inevitably introduced mistakes to
the text.
The other important fact is that almost all of these textual variants are spelling variations
or just nonsense-readings (a reading created by the addition or omission of words or changes in
spelling, intentional or not). This leaves us with less than 1% of textual variants that are both
meaningful and viable!
The discipline of textual criticism deals with the variant readings of the text with the goal
to determine the earliest recoverable text of the books of Greek New Testament. According to
the traditional view, it is the text of the New Testament books after each of them was sent to the
original readers by the authors.
In order to accomplish this goal, scholars who work in the area of textual criticism
implore methods from its two broad sections known as External Evidence and Internal Evidence.
These two categories may be described in terms of hard data (the manuscripts, versions, and
church fathers writings) and the soft data (what an author most likely would have written and
what a scribe most likely would have done). The evaluation of these two blocks of data helps
scholars to make text-critical decisions.
The examination of Internal Evidence has two aspects: intrinsic probability, and
transcriptional probability. The first one is focused on what the biblical author most likely had
written and the second is an examination of scribal tendencies.
One example of how the internal evidence is evaluated related to transcriptional
probability is the issue in the text of Romans 8:1. It is a well-known fact that scribes had a
tendency to add some text rather than intentionally omit parts of existing text, in order to unpack
the short statements that looked obscure to them. Thus in Rom 8:1, the earliest manuscripts read
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus 1. In the later
manuscripts the phrase who do not walk according to the flesh is added. The third group of
even later manuscripts has yet another addition but [who do walk] according to the Spirit. It is
important to note though, that Paul provides these qualifiers later in the same chapter (Rom 8:4).
Does this mean that he includes the same text in the beginning?
The evaluation of internal evidence is usually performed after the evaluation of external
evidence. Due to the tendency of scribes to explain and simplify complex readings the shorter

Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical
Studies Press, 2006), Rom 8:1.

and harder readings are regarded as original readings. Another rule for evaluation of internal
evidence is that the original reading should be able to account for the origin of the other readings.
In the passage discussed earlier it is evident that the two additional phrases were added
by scribes for the clarification of the apparently obscure (from their point of view) description of
those who are in Christ Jesus. The presence of the same phrase that was later added to the
verse 1 in Rom 8:4 is an excellent evidence of the longer reading in the verse 1 being the
interpolation and harmonization. Thus, the short reading of Rom 8:1 is shorter than the other
two, more difficult and provides explanation for the rise of the others (especially considering
Rom 8:4).
In combination with external evidence, the internal evidence help scholars who work in
the area of the New Testament Textual Criticism to establish the most probable original word of
the text of the Greek New Testament.