All About The Variants
I’ve received a few emails about textual variants in the Greek New Testament (GNT) from one of my readers and I’ve decided to answer those questions here. If I leave any out or these bring up other questions, feel free to leave more in the comments and I’ll answer them if I can.
How Many Variants Are There?
All guesses to the number of variants in the GNT are just that, guesses. This number is quite knowable; it would just take a massive amount of work to collect the data. This is being done, but it is a slow process. Of course people aren’t collating just so they can come up with the exact number of variants; that’s just a piece of trivia. The number of variants does not tell you much of anything about how difficult it will be to reconstruct the original of a document. You have to look at the number of manuscripts and the nature of the variation to come to that determination.
So what numbers are floated about? The numbers I have heard have been in the several hundred thousand range. Are there 200,000 variants? 300,000? Whatever the actual number, since new manuscripts are being discovered all the time, it will grow. But no one can be more specific than "a few hundred thousand". That would require work that has not been done.
Also, as far as I know, these numbers thrown around are guestimates of the variants in the Greek manuscripts. There are a ton of Latin, Coptic, Syriac, et al. that also count as variations, even though they are different languages.
What Counts As A Variant?
So what do people put in this list of several hundred thousand variants? Good question. Do they count punctuation? No. Periods, commas, etc. are not considered by any as textual variation.
What about accents and breathing marks? Well, I am not sure on this one. As a general rule, no, these are no considered. However, differences in accent (occassionally) and breathing mark (more commonly) can denote different words in Greek, so some do consider these variations significant. Personally, I do not pay attention to them. Whether scribe Bob thought a word was τίς or τις does not at this point strike me as significant enough to distract myself with them. I am already paying attention to enough when collating that I don’t want to mess with it. Mistake? I’ll let you decide. Feel free to comment.
Are nomina sacra considered variants? No. These I do note in my collations, but not because I consider them variations. If you check Metzger’s Manuscripts of the Greek Bible
Along the same line of thinking, ligatures would also not be considered variants. They are great to pay attention to as they can tell you quite a bit about the scribe and the dating of the manuscript, but ligatures are not variants.
The Character of the Textual Variation
So there are differences among the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There are a lot. Why does this not tell us that the textual tradition is corrupt and we should just give up on this whole process?
Let us take two fictional examples. Let us say that you have two manuscripts of an ancient work. You collate one of those manuscripts against the other and find that there is only one variation. Great! That means you have a good chance of figuring out what the original text was! Well, no. What if that variation included the entire second half of the manuscripts. Let’s say the second half of the one compared to the other was manifestly a complete rewrite of the ending of the work for some reason, like accidental destruction or something. Which one do you go with? If there is nothing intrinsic about the contents or style of the second half that can help, you might as well toss a coin. And this does not take into any consideration one of the most important questions, what is the date of the manuscripts. If you have two manuscripts that are, say, a thousand years distant from the writing of the work, how do you know they represent the original? You don’t, even if you only have one variant.
So let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum. Say you have an ancient work that has, say, around 6,000 manuscript copies of it extant, and the document is fairly large. And lets say there are 500,000 variants between them. 6,000 manuscripts, 500,000 variants...wow. That’s a lot. But what are the nature of the variants? If you look at them all and they’re minor, like spelling variations, or if they are simple mistakes that are easy to recognize, it does not matter how many variations you have. You will still be able to reconstruct the documents pretty well.
So the number of variants is an interesting piece of trivia, but it doesn’t say much of anything about the difficulty of the task of textual criticism.
We Have Proven That We Know The Text of the New Testament!
Okay, so obviously not.
First, as far as I can tell and from what I hear, the majority of variants are insignificant for various reasons. And there are also another large group of variants that are not truly insignificant, like most spelling variants, but do not change the meaning of the text. That’s great news. However, that’s not to say that there are not significant variants. There certainly are! That is why textual criticism remains a significant discipline within the realm of New Testament studies.
Second, you can only go back a little farther than your oldest manuscripts. Let’s say for the sake of argument that we didn’t have any manuscripts composed previous to the fourth century. Does that mean we can only go back to the fourth century? No. If you have a number of them and it can be demonstrated that they do not come from the same parent manuscript, then you can guestimate what the text was, say, in the third century. How far can you go back? That is debatable. But the most significant point is this: you can only go back as far as the physical evidence allows. Let’s say we have a thousand manuscripts of the New Testament from the fourth century, many copied from different parent manuscript and in diverse geographic areas. How far can we go back with that? Well, you can gather from that a great deal of what the manuscripts of the third century looked like. Can you go back to the second century? The first? Not really. You can only go back as far as the evidence will take you, and fourth century manuscripts simply would not take you back to a first century autograph.
Because of this last point, we need to have some humility when it comes to claims of knowing the text of the NT. I think we have a lot of data, and I do not personally think we know it 100%.
The Problem of Theoretical Significant Non-Extant Variation
This last point brings up a significant issue: if we can pretty confidently take the text back to the second century (which I don’t think is a stretch), we are still missing somewhere between fifty and a hundred years of manuscript testimony. What was going on then?
This is what I call the problem of theoretical significant non-extant variation. Wordy, is it not? But every word is important. Were there any significant revisions in the missing time period in our documents that we have no manuscript evidence for? Well, we don’t know for sure because we have no textual evidence...obviously. But there is nothing to prove that a major revision of the text of the New Testament could not have happened, as a whole or in part. Arguing for a revision of the whole is pretty far-fetched; a wholesale recension with no evidence rather hard to believe. But there is no reason why a document, or a few documents, never went through any sort of revision.
On Editions and the Proper Use of the Term
So is there any evidence that this did happen? I only know of three lines of evidence to say that it did, in fact, happen. Of course others have theorized more, but many are nothing more than just empty speculation. The first example below is obvious hard evidence for it happening. The latter two are theories only.
[Update: Shortly After Hitting the Post Button] I just want to make it clear that there are plenty of other theories and not all of them are just crazy speculation. These are just the only ones I a) know of AND b) take seriously at the moment. I’m not dwelling on them or researching them. I just know these exist and at least have some level of plausibility to them. [End Update]
One alternate edition that we do have evidence for is the so-called "western text of Acts." If you want to see what it was like, you can apparently find it here. Very interesting. Some say both editions came from Luke. Some would say one comes later from someone else. I am not informed enough to make a judgment. Regardless, there were two editions of Acts in circulation at one point. This is the only book for which we have this kind of hard textual evidence.
Another line of evidence is the theory that the Gospel of John went through a number of revisions, judged not by textual evidence but by internal evidence only. I would imagine any modern critical commentary would have a discussion of this, so finding information should be relatively easy if you are interested.
There are also theories, supported by internal evidence, that 1st and 2nd Corinthians are a conglomeration of three letters, not two. Which is the combination of two I do not at the moment recall.
When I think about these kind of things the word "edition" makes sense. It expresses that there is a significant textual variation between two documents, and in all three cases this word fits (if the latter two are real, which I must repeat, we cannot prove via textual evidence). But a little variation does not make an edition, in my mind. Perhaps in a technical sense you could say it did, but that would mean every manuscript is a different edition. If that’s the case then the word has no independent or significant meaning. Just call it "manuscript", because that is what it is. The same holds true for calling something with small variation another "version". I ran across this the other day in Ehrman’s generally very fine but occasionally irksome Lost Christianities. He says that we know that Mark did float about in various versions (pg. 78), pointing out the variant in Mark 1:41 of Jesus being either angry or feeling compassion as evidence of this. It’s a significant variation, but should we really say that the gospel circulated in various versions for this reason? Characterizing it that way seems to me to say more about what is happening with the text than what is really there.
Conclusion
All that being said, an ounce of evidence is greater than a pound of theory, so the default position should be that as far as we know, the documents we have today as the NT likely represent very closely what they were when they were penned. That’s where I stand and will stand until someone can bring good evidence forward to the contrary. I don’t think we can ever be 100% sure, but I am personally very optimistic.
Comments
Bryan 2008-07-15 02:52:08
Thanks for the wonderful little primer on Text Crit.
I believe that the Corinthians letter which is considered a conglomeration is 2 Corinthians- I don’t hold this myself, but I’m taking a course on Greek Ex of 2 Cor. in the fall- I’m pretty sure I remember seeing that in Murray’s NIGTC commentary, and from Carson and Moo’s Intro book on the NT.
Wieland Willker 2008-07-15 02:56:56
In my opinion we have currently reached a point where the question of canonicity becomes evident.
Let’s say that we will find a very early copy of John without ch. 21. What then?
Do we all accept ch. 21 as a secondary addition and remove it from our bibles?
After that we may find an even earlier copy of John. His very early first draft, basically only about half of the current Gopsel of John. What then? Is this the real Gospel of John? Perhaps we find even several of these early drafts.
If we think this to an end we could go back to the first sheet of papyrus John has written. The question is, at what stage of the development of the text do we say "STOP" and declare it THE gospel of John?
I think these are questions that cannot be solved by TC. They are a question of the canon.
Another, general observation is that we tend to accept the longer versions. Note how we have difficulties to completely remove the endings of Mark and the PA and some other stuff from our Bibles. Here we actually have quite convincing evidence and still, we cannot really get rid of it.
And if it’s a question of the canon, how do we answer it? With another synod?
Perhaps it is good that we cannot go back to the first century with all its drafts ...
Best wishes
Wieland
Scott Ferguson 2008-07-15 03:03:40
Had never heard about the Western vs Alexandrian vs Byzantine texts of Acts. Very interesting. This, along with the floating story of the Women Caught in Adultery, give a pretty good indication that individuals were adjusting the text to fit their own needs/interpretations. The Theoretical Significant Non-Extant Variation looms large here. What serious variants have left no trace ... ?
Eric 2008-07-15 03:38:59
Bryan: Hope you enjoy the class. Be sure to blog about the highlights.
Wieland: That’s a question that I have seen asked more recently. I tend to think that much of the church would initially go with just taking what is considered canonical now. I think this would especially be true for groups that have made the move from infallible text to infallible collection, and so would reject any change, even if the change was from a demonstrably (that would sure be hard to prove) apostolic document.
That’s not really my perspective though. Going back to the original canon discussions, it seems that the ultimate issue was the "who" in regard to authorship. They didn’t have to be an apostle, but they needed to be close to one. There was also the issue of its use in the churches, but to me the first seems to be of the primary importance. And under that paradigm, every edition of the Gospel of John in your scenario would be considered authoritative. But would that cause other problems?
Of course your example of the PA and the endings of Mark is a prime example of why the church would be slow to remove them. Will the church ever, as a whole, finally decide they need to be dropped? Scholarship has been pretty decided on the issue for quite a while. Which translation committee will push it out and be the trend starter?
I WISH we had more documents from the first century, but not having them does make some things simpler.
Scott: Thanks for dropping in. I’m trying to think if I’d seen your blog before. Anyway, yeah, some clearly felt the need to add and change some things. I still haven’t read Ehrman’s Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, but it is supposedly very thorough in proving that point, but there isn’t much of a surprise in this. It’s more of a question of extent, and with the exception of some very notable exceptions, it doesn’t seem to be a major source of variants. Most seem to arise for other reasons.
Brett 2008-07-15 04:43:34
Eric: Thanks for this post. I have added my comments and questions below.
How Many Variants Are There?
“Also, as far as I know, these numbers [200,000 to 400,000 variants] thrown around are guestimates of the variants in the Greek manuscripts. There are a ton of Latin, Coptic, Syriac, et al. that also count as variations, even though they are different languages.”
BW: I think you are correct, but Dan has said that textual critic scholars count variants from Greek mss, ancient versions, and Church Fathers. The majority of people writing on this subject are not necessary TC scholars, so who knows what numbers they are using. See Dan’s critique (Reclaiming the Mind) of N Geisler’s number of variants in Geisler’s Introduction to the New Testament (or Bible, I don’t remember).
Here is where I think the estimate originates. John Mill (1707) in his Greek New Testament examined 100 mss and found about 30,000 variants. From this number, it appears that the total variants of all Greek mss (5500+) approaches 200,000 to 300,000. Add to that the versions and Church Fathers. There’s the 400k variants. Trying to confirm this is not an easy task.
The classical scholar Bengel, when he read about Mill’s 30,000 variants, wanted to see for himself. After his own investigation, he concluded the number of variants were fewer than Mill suggested, but more importantly, they did not “shake any article of evangelic doctrine.” I think Mill is the one who caused the first stir on the vast number of variants, but the stir was a result of ignorance. The variants are that many, but none are of any significance.
I think he was a bit shocked to see the number of variants, but was equally pleased to see that no cardinal doctrines were in doubt.
What Counts As A Variant?
“So what do people put in this list of several hundred thousand variants? Good question. Do they count punctuation? No. Periods, commas, etc. are not considered by any as textual variation.”
BW: Thanks for this. I was reasonably sure this was the case.
“What about accents and breathing marks? Well, I am not sure on this one. As a general rule, no, these are no considered. However, differences in accent (occasionally) and breathing mark (more commonly) can denote different words in Greek, so some do consider these variations significant.”
BW: Since the earliest mss don’t have these, all these accents would represent is scribes’ interpretations, right? However, this reminds me that some variants are not even related to the originals.
The Character of the Textual Variation
“Let us take two fictional examples. Let us say that you have two manuscripts of an ancient work. You collate one of those manuscripts against the other and find that there is only one variation. Great! That means you have a good chance of figuring out what the original text was! Well, no. What if that variation included the entire second half of the manuscripts.”
BW: I think most amateur critics would consider all the words in the second half as variants. Dan considers such as this only “one variant,” but I’m not sure most amateur text critics do. I think this is a case of some scholars using terms differently than the majority of those who dabble in it.
“So let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum. Say you have an ancient work that has, say, around 6,000 manuscript copies of it extant, and the document is fairly large. And lets say there are 500,000 variants between them. 6,000 manuscripts, 500,000 variants...wow. That’s a lot.”
BW: That’s exactly my question! Is 500,000 variants a lot? I don’t know since I have no other ancient writings to which I can compare it. For all I know, after someone did a variant check on Homer’s epics, we may find out that 500,000 variants is not that much. It may even be unexplainably low!
“So the number of variants is an interesting piece of trivia, but it doesn’t say much of anything about the difficulty of the task of textual criticism.”
BW: That’s a welcomed comment and most insightful. Because this is generally hidden by the skeptics, people like Ehrman can bully the masses.
We Have Proven That We Know The Text of the New Testament!
“First, as far as I can tell and from what I hear, the majority of variants are insignificant for various reasons. And there are also another large group of variants that are not truly insignificant, like most spelling variants, but do not change the meaning of the text. That’s great news. However, that’s not to say that there are not significant variants. There certainly are! That is why textual criticism remains a significant discipline within the realm of New Testament studies.”
BW: So far, in my studies, I’ve not found this to be true. But this is another place where I’m hoping you will help me. Of course, before we went round and round, it might save us a lot of time by simply defining “significant variants.” I think you are correct that many variants are “significant” as far as textual critics are concerned, but I doubt these would be deemed significant by the majority of students of the word.
We hear a lot of the Romans 5:1 significant variant. Do we have peace or not? Is it an Indicative or Subjunctive? Well, yes, that’s somewhat significant, but is it significant when all other passages on the same subject are considered in a systematic way. I don’t think so.
Why do you think some are “significant”? Can you give an example of one.
“Because of this last point, we need to have some humility when it comes to claims of knowing the text of the NT. I think we have a lot of data, and I do not personally think we know it 100%.”
BW: You know, I really don’t see what difference it would make if we did have 100% confidence that the mss were exactly as the originals. What would we gain from that? TC would cease, but how to interpret the text is the issue, right?
The Problem of Theoretical Significant Non-Extant Variation
“Were there any significant revisions in the missing time period in our documents that we have no manuscript evidence for? Well, we don’t know for sure because we have no textual evidence...obviously. But there is nothing to prove that a major revision of the text of the New Testament could not have happened, as a whole or in part. Arguing for a revision of the whole is pretty far-fetched; a wholesale recension with no evidence rather hard to believe. But there is no reason why a document, or a few documents, never went through any sort of revision.”
BW: I find myself again in disagreement with this. Today, it is hard to understand the significance played by “oral teachings” (I don’t like the word “tradition” in light of its present meaning) in the first/second century. These oral teachings acted just like written mss in that the teachings were geographically dispersed and known by large, independent groups (this is why I would disagree with Willker’s hypothetical reconstruct). If a subsequent written ms appeared in stark disagreement to the oral teachings of the apostles, that ms would have to be authenticated AS WELL AS the contradictory oral teachings, that were so widely held, would have to be explained. I think we tend to put more emphasis on written testimony today, but I’m not convinced, like Papias, that written testimony is always better.
“Another line of evidence is the theory that the Gospel of John went through a number of revisions, judged not by textual evidence but by internal evidence only. I would imagine any modern critical commentary would have a discussion of this, so finding information should be relatively easy if you are interested.”
BW: To me, revisions represent changes to the original. Any changes to the Gospel of John without John’s consent should be rejected. Dan has argued this point already (pericope adulterae), right? I might not be understanding your idea of a “revision.” I wouldn’t have a problem with John revising his own work, although I might find that hard to believe that John, writing under the inspiration of the HS, would need to revise it. But, assuming John put his gospel together piecemeal, and his final version we call the original, then I guess that is possible. I just can’t think of any reason for that. But I would certainly not buy into the idea of some Johannine community revision.
“He [Ehrman] says that we know that Mark did float about in various versions (pg. 78), pointing out the variant in Mark 1:41 of Jesus being either angry or feeling compassion as evidence of this. It’s a significant variation, but should we really say that the gospel circulated in various versions for this reason?”
BW: Here is an illustration of what I mean by significant. Why would this be a significant variant? That Jesus got angry elsewhere in the Gospels, even Mark, is not disputed. So, for this to be significant, I would think it would need to give us a different picture of Jesus than we see anywhere else. Jesus being angry here is consistent with his behavior elsewhere. This is why I am having a hard time understanding “significant.”
Eric, as you can see, I’m still a novice in TC. I am reading a good bit now, but have a long way to go. Thanks again for this post. Keep them coming.
Brett
Brett 2008-07-15 09:20:33
I thought I lost this post. It changed pages on me before I got a chance to review what I had written and to give it proper spacing. Should I try again? I hate when people type in all one paragraph myself!! If it is confusing, let me know and I’ll space it better. At least I was able to start of each of my comments with BW. I don’t know what html tabs are obviously. I’ll experiment with that next time.
Eric 2008-07-15 09:41:48
The html fairy paid a visit and formatted it a little. You should thank him next time you see him.
That’s a whole lotta commenting. I’ll answer some of these in different posts. I’ve got one ready now. When you come back and visit you’ll probably see it. Questions I don’t answer separately I’ll come back and answer here.
Chuck Grantham 2008-07-15 11:30:47
Short and Long Acts of the Apostles:
I know Joe Fitzmyer notes the differences in his Anchor Bible _Acts_. I believe F.F. Bruce does in his NICNT _Acts_. The extra length is usually put at eight to ten percent, but that ten percent counts for a huge chunk of the textual critical issues in the NT. Metzger’s _Textual Commentary on the Greek NT_ spends 223 pages on Acts out of 691 pages total-- nearly a third of the book.
I haven’t said much about the textual variants in Acts in my Sunday School notes because the HCSB and KJV in our literature don’t vary so much. That and most of my Sunday School classmates’ eyes glaze over as sound as I say "textual variant".
Wieland Willker 2008-07-16 02:04:11
Eric: "under that paradigm, every edition of the Gospel of John in your scenario would be considered authoritative. But would that cause other problems?"
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Probably. But nevertheless interesting to contemplate. I think you’re right.
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Brett wrote: "These oral teachings acted just like written mss in that the teachings were geographically dispersed and known by large, independent groups (this is why I would disagree with Willker’s hypothetical reconstruct)."
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I don’t understand what you are referring to.
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Generally, regarding the significant variants: I have a file in the online commentary that lists the top-5, the top-20 and the top-50 variants in the Gospels. Look for yourself and you will see that already the top-50 include rather minor stuff. When you then go to the main commentary, which discusses about 1500 variants you will see what we are talking about.
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Link:
Brett 2008-07-17 07:03:38
Dr. Willker:
My view of Inspiration extends beyond the actually words written to the entire process, from beginning to end. As such, there would not be any "inspired fragments" floating around.
Eric 2008-07-18 05:03:01
Is there any particular reason why you would have that detailed of a doctrine of inspiration? There is nothing I can think of in Scripture that would lead one that direction. The NT definitely claims inspiration for the OT, and parts of the NT may claim it for other parts of the NT, but as far as I can see nothing detailed in terms of explanation is going on.
I ask that because of the following issue: Is your doctrine of inspiration going to keep you from honestly approaching a theoretical historical event? If you found historical evidence for it, would you re-examine your understanding of inspiration?
Brett 2008-07-18 10:53:18
Detailed? I’m not following you here. I’m not sure I understand your take on Inspiration. What you’ve said above, however, I simply reject. I see no basis for seeing Inspiration differently in the first half of the Bible compared to the last half. And I would emphatically deny that only “part” of the NT is inspired. I really don’t know where I could take this question without something of more substance to interact with. But I’m interested in what you have to say on this.
ES: Is your doctrine of inspiration going to keep you from honestly approaching a theoretical historical event?
BW: No. The biblical view of Inspiration is established by Christ and his apostles. I would use this paradigm to analyze historical “evidence.” Remember, facts or evidence are not self-interpreting. We have to put on our worldview glasses when evaluating historical finds.
So, rather than take a wild stab at this second question, I think it prudent for me to wait for a more specific situation to address. I do hate getting into theoretical situations and then evaluating doctrines in light of these hypothetical constructs. What specifically do you have in mind?
Brett 2008-07-19 06:34:54
Have you noticed that your posts ONLY are formatted? Dr. Willker is using "-" to create a line space, and I’ve formatted mine now twice without the format showing up when it finally posts.
For line spaces separate this sentence from the one above...testing.
Eric 2008-07-19 10:21:49
Wieland is actually html formatting most of his comments. He is surrounding his dashes with <p> tags like this: <p> - </p>. It is not the dash that is causing the line break. It is the p tags.
The reason why you don’t understand my take on inspiration is that I haven’t actually talked about it :). To be honest, I’m trying to work out some of the details anyway, so I’m not sure what "my take" on inspiration will ultimately be.
You are right. Facts and historical evidence are not self-interpreting. So true! It’s a good thing that the Bible and our theology is. It is nice to have a firm place to analyze that ambiguous historical stuff!
Of course, since it is not always easy express sarcasm with just text, I will go ahead and point out that the last part was, indeed sarcastic so I won’t be misunderstood. And now, that being said, the point I would make is that your understanding of Jesus’ view of inspiration definitely goes beyond what he actually says and is an extrapolation or interpretation of His words, not just a "plain" reading of them. Jesus obviously believed the OT was inspired, as did the apostles and the early church. I do not recall where they said "The OT is inspired, and I mean by that statement that none of the OT documents ever went through editing stages, but if they did, only the last copy that was distributed was inspired."
To sum it up, I think we should give historical (and theoretical historical) data a fair hearing and allow those things to critique our understanding of Scripture, just like we do the opposite. To not do so, I think, is inherently Gnostic. I don’t mention the term in the attempt to villainize. I say it because God’s work is done within the context of history, and though there are exceptions with a few thinks like election and decrees and so forth, this is basically always true. Therefore if we don’t give such things a good hearing, we are implicitly denying that. But that’s a longer discussion...
Brett 2008-07-19 12:10:55
Eric:
You wrote:
... your understanding of Jesus’ view of inspiration definitely goes beyond what he actually says and is an extrapolation or interpretation of His words, not just a "plain" reading of them.
Yes. All my views are the result of interpreting the text. I have no idea what you mean by "plain" reading.
Sometimes this illustration is helpful:
Two men see Jesus exit the tomb after his crucifixion (death?). One man says, "Look, he’s alive. He never died." The other man says, "Look, he’s alive. It’s a miracle." There is not disputing the plain words or the facts!!!!!
Here is something which you and I may disagree on, but I can think of no "plain" meaning of any word/phrase...discourse/book, etc.
Words do not have inherent meaning; they have usages. And apart from context, style, genre, discourse analysis features (order of what is said, the quantity of what is said, etc), the "plain" word has zero meaning. If it did, more people would not be Calvinistic, like me :o ) [Yeah, that was being sarcastic... all in good fun]
Off to a birthday party, let’s keep these discussions going.
δεδομένου ότι ο σίδηρος ακονίζει το σίδηρο
Eric 2008-07-19 02:22:08
Yes, the idea of a plain reading is stupid. That’s why I put it in quote :)
All I am saying is this: If you say "this reconstruction of the historical state of the text is not valid because of my interpretation of the text" you are saying, in essence, that your interpretation is not assailable by historical inquiry. If that’s not the direction you were going, then I apologize, because that’s how I interpreted you.