Evidence for thoroughgoing alternation
of the New Testament text is very limited, however, and seems largely to be
restricted to the first couple of centuries when the nature and form of the
corpus were still under development (e.g. the assembly of letter collections,
the production of an early harmony of the gospels, editorial activity such as
that associated with Marcion). The translation of biblical books into other
languages in this period also contributed to their textual diversity, in that
this process inaugurated new traditions which could represent several potential
wordings in the source language and which then went on to develop in their own
ways. The scarcity of documents surviving from these centuries makes it
difficult to establish the extent of textual variation commonly present in the
earliest copies and the degree to which these writings may have circulated in ‘free’
forms alongside a more controlled tradition. Nevertheless, if the manuscripts
which have been preserved are representative of the situation in antiquity,
there are no grounds for serious doubt as to the consistency of the New Testament
tradition. (H. A. G. Houghton, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New
Testament: A Companion to the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies’
Greek New Testament [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025], 1*)