One of the most controversial figures in the ranks of biblical scholarship in the eighteenth century was J. J. Wettstein (1693–1754). At a young age Wettstein became enthralled with the question of the text of the New Testament and its manifold variations, and pursued the subject in his early studies. The day after his twentieth birthday, on March 17, 1713, he presented a thesis at the University of Basel on “The Variety of Readings in the Text of the New Testament.” Among other things, the Protestant Wettstein argued that variant readings “can have no weakening effect on the trustworthiness
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