The Majority are Late

The Majority are Late: While there are a handful of very early Byzantine witnesses, the vast majority of the 5,800 total Greek New Testament manuscripts we possess today date from the medieval period (9th to 15th centuries), making them Byzantine in their text-type.

Purpose and Character of the Text

The nature of the Byzantine text-type itself made it suitable for widespread ecclesiastical use.

• Clarity and Completeness: The Byzantine text is often characterized by its smooth, expansive, and harmonized readings. Scribes often sought to eliminate grammatical ambiguities, fill in details, and harmonize parallel accounts (especially in the Gospels). This made the text clear and suitable for public reading and instruction.

• Liturgical Use: The primary purpose of copying was for the Church's liturgical life. Textual readings that were polished and doctrinally clear were preferred and perpetuated.

Summary of Text Types by Age

It is important to note that the term Majority Text refers only to the numerical majority of extant manuscripts, which are late.

Text-Type	Geographical Focus	Dominant Period of Surviving MSS	Primary Characteristic
Alexandrian	Egypt (Alexandria)	2nd – 4th Century	Short, concise, often considered the most primitive (oldest readings). Includes Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
Western	Western Europe/North Africa	2nd – 5th Century	Tendency toward paraphrase and expansion.
Byzantine	Constantinople/Asia Minor	9th – 15th Century	Majority Text. Full, harmonized, smooth, and clear. Represents the vast bulk of surviving manuscripts.

The earliest textual witnesses (the fragments and papyri from the 2nd and 3rd centuries) primarily reflect the Alexandrian and Western traditions, but they were vastly outnumbered by the later, mass-produced Byzantine manuscripts.