The main characteristic of the Western text is a love of paraphrase: "Words and even clauses are changed, omitted, and inserted with surprising freedom, wherever it seemed that the meaning could be brought out with greater force and definiteness." One possible source of glossing is the desire to harmonise and to complete: "More peculiar to the Western text is the readiness to adopt alterations or additions from sources extraneous to the books which ultimately became canonical." This text type often presents longer variants of text, but in a few places, including the end of the Gospel of Luke, it has shorter variants, named Western non-interpolations. Only one Greek Uncial manuscript is considered to transmit a Western text for the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, the fifth centuryCodex Bezae; the sixth centuryCodex Claromontanus is considered to transmit a Western text for the letters of Saint Paul and is followed by two ninth century Uncials: F and G. Many "Western" readings are also found in the Old Syriac translations of the Gospels, the Sinaitic and the Curetonian, though opinions vary as to whether these versions can be considered witnesses to the Western text-type. A number of fragmentary early papyri from Egypt also have Western readings, 29, 38, 48; and in addition, Codex Sinaiticus is considered to be Western in the first eight chapters of John. The term "Western" is a bit of a misnomer because members of the Western text-type have been found in the Christian East, including Syria.
Witnesses
Other manuscripts: 25, 29, 41, 066, 0177, 36, 88, 181, 255, 257, 338, 383, 440, 614, 913, 915, 917, 1108, 1245, 1518, 1611, 1836, 1874, 1898, 1912, 2138, 2298, 2412. Compared to the Byzantine text-type distinctive Western readings in the Gospels are more likely to be abrupt in their Greek expression. Compared to the Alexandrian text-type distinctive Western readings in the Gospels are more likely to display glosses, additional details, and instances where the original passages appear to be replaced with longer paraphrases. In distinction from both Alexandrian and Byzantine texts, the Western text-type consistently omits a series of eight short phrases from verses in the Gospel of Luke; the so-called Western non-interpolations. In at least two Western texts, the Gospels appear in a variant order: Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. The Western text of the Epistles of Paul - as witnessed in the Codex Claromontanus and uncials F and G - does not share the periphrastic tendencies of the Western text in the Gospels and Acts, and it is not clear whether they should be considered to share a single text-type. Although the Western text-type survives in relatively few witnesses, some of these are as early as the earliest witnesses to the Alexandrian text type. Nevertheless, the majority of text critics consider the Western text in the Gospels to be characterised by periphrasis and expansion; and accordingly tend to prefer the Alexandrian readings. In the letters of St Paul, the counterpart Western text is more restrained, and a number of text critics regard it as the most reliable witness to the original.
Textual variants
Mark 13:2
και μετα τριων ημερων αλλος αναστησεται ανευ χειρων — D W it
Mark 13:33
omitted phrase και προσευχεσυε by codices B, D, a, c, k
Mark 15:34
ὠνείδισάς με — D, itc,, k, syrh
ἐγκατέλιπές με — Alexandrian mss
με ἐγκατέλιπες — Byzantine mss
John 1:4
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἐστίν — Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Bezae and majority of Vetus Latinamanuscripts and Sahidic manuscripts.
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ᾓν — this variant is supported by mss of the Alexandrian, Byzantine and Caesarean texts
