Scale of Differences between Texts

The Center for New Testament Restoration offered an interesting tool that allows the user to compare two witnesses to the text of the New Testament.  They don't offer all the possible witnesses, or even all the possible Greek witnesses, but they do offer an impressive collection.  

Tale these results with a grain of salt, because they are automated results, and because it's hard to put much weight in their outcome.  However, I ran a few comparisons on P47, one of the earliest witnesses to the text of Revelation.

P47 vs. 01 (Codex Sinaiticus)

Variant unit differences: 257 of 525

Word differences: 425 / 3138 (13.54%)

P47 vs. the KJTR (I believe this is Scrivener's TR)

Variant unit differences: 248 of 525

Word differences: 359 / 3138 (11.44%)

P47 vs. 02 (Codex Alexandrinus)

Variant unit differences: 233 of 521

Word differences: 330 / 3138 (10.52%)

P47 vs. NA (28th, I think)

Variant unit differences: 200 of 525

Word differences: 279 / 3138 (8.89%)

As you can probably see, I've sorted the results in terms of decreasing word differences.  With that in mind, it is interesting to see the overall similarity amongst the various witnesses and particularly the fact that by this measure (the significance of which has not been established), the KJTR is closer to P47 than Codex Sinaiticus is. 

I wanted to the same comparison with the NA as the base text, but the challenge is that there is not an option to limit to the text of Revelation.  Nevertheless, here are a few of the comparisons:

NA vs. KJTR

Variant unit differences: 6207 of 20991

Word differences: 7992 / 137606 (5.81%)

NA vs. 01

Variant unit differences: 4466 of 20991

Word differences: 5689 / 137606 (4.13%)

NA vs. 02

Variant unit differences: 4379 of 18346

Word differences: 5692 / 119102 (4.78%)

NA vs. 03 (Codex Vaticanus)

Variant unit differences: 1946 of 18816

Word differences: 2239 / 121223 (1.85%)

Finally, we might as well compare the KJTR to the big three:

KJTR vs. 01

Variant unit differences: 8702 of 20991

Word differences: 11563 / 137939 (8.38%)

KJTR vs. 02

Variant unit differences: 5094 of 18346

Word differences: 6383 / 119102 (5.36%)

KJTR vs. 03

Variant unit differences: 6823 of 18816

Word differences: 8758 / 121223 (7.22%)

Once again, a word of caution.  Statistics can be fun, but there is a limit on the value of counting "variant unit differences" and "Word differences".