The very word “variant” implies a deviation or change from something else taken for a norm. […] So what is commonly done in practice? Some particular text is chosen – often at random – for the norm. Either we use a printed text such as the Textus Receptus, sometimes an edition by Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, or Nestle; or, we may use the text of a particular MS whose textual affinities are already known, e. g., Vaticanus or Alexandrinus. It is against these norms that other Greek texts are usually compared. And it is this process of comparison which gives rise to a set of variant readings for the text under consideration.