When you look at manuscripts dated before the 5th century—especially the papyri from the 2nd through 4th centuries—the overwhelming majority fall into the Alexandrian text tradition.
The file’s catalog of papyri shows the trend clearly. The earliest strata are packed with Alexandrian witnesses: 𝔓1, 𝔓4, 𝔓5, 𝔓9, 𝔓12, 𝔓13, 𝔓15, 𝔓16, 𝔓18, 𝔓20, 𝔓22, 𝔓23, 𝔓27, 𝔓28, 𝔓30, 𝔓32, 𝔓37, 𝔓39, 𝔓40, 𝔓45, 𝔓46, 𝔓47, 𝔓49, 𝔓52, 𝔓53, 𝔓64, 𝔓65, 𝔓66, 𝔓70, 𝔓72, 𝔓75, 𝔓77, 𝔓78, 𝔓80, 𝔓87, 𝔓90, 𝔓104, 𝔓115, and others—all listed with an Alexandrian profile in the textual category field. These cluster heavily in the 2nd–4th century range.
Please look at New Testament Manuscript Explorer 1 & 2
The Alexandrian character of early material isn’t some mystical accident; it’s the natural result of geography, literacy, and preservation. Egypt—with Alexandria as its intellectual hub—had the climate to preserve papyri and the scribal culture to produce them in the first place. Because of that, what survives from the earliest centuries is largely Egyptian, which means largely Alexandrian.
By the time you reach the 5th century and beyond, the manuscript tradition diversifies. Byzantine copies balloon in number, Western texts poke their heads in, and “Eclectic” becomes a catch-all for the scribal fireworks of later hands. But in the first four centuries, the surviving witnesses overwhelmingly belong to the Alexandrian stream.
This simply reflects whose libraries survived the centuries. It does, however, explain why modern critical editions lean heavily on the Alexandrian family when reconstructing the earliest recoverable text.
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