Howard points to some twenty single-letter variations in the Greek New Testament manuscripts between and , among the hundreds of other appearances of these two "nomina sacra". In response to a correspondent who said that Howard "cited the large number of variants involving theos and kurios as evidence for the originality of the divine name in the New Testament itself", Larry Hurtado replied: "Well, maybe so. But his theory doesn't take adequate account of all the data, including the data that 'kyrios' was used as a/the vocal substitute for YHWH among Greek-speaking Jews. There's no indication that the Hebrew YHWH ever appeared in any NT text." He also noted the choice by the author of the "Acts of the Apostles" to use Θεός rather than Κύριος when reporting speeches to and by the Jews. Nearly half of the variants in question are from the "Acts of the Apostles".