Categories of New Testament manuscripts

New Testament manuscripts in Greek are categorized into five groups,^[1] according to a scheme introduced in 1981 by Kurt and Barbara Aland in The text of the New Testament. The categories are based on how each manuscript relates to the various text-types. Generally speaking, earlier Alexandrian manuscripts are category I, while later Byzantine manuscripts are category V. Aland's method involved considering 1000 passages where the Byzantine text differs from non-Byzantine text. The Alands did not select their 1000 readings from all of the NT books; for example, none were drawn from Matthew and Luke.^[2]

Description of categories[]

The Alands' categories do not simply correspond to the text-types; all they do is demonstrate the 'Byzantine-ness' of a particular text; that is, how much it is similar to the Byzantine text-type, from least (Category I) to most similar (Category V). Category V can be equated with the Byzantine text-type, but the other categories are not necessarily representative of a text-type. Even though most texts in Category I agree with the Alexandrian text-type, they are not necessarily Alexandrian themselves; they are just very non-Byzantine.^[3]

The Alands introduced the following categories (Aland & Aland category description according to the 1989 English translation, p. 106, between quotation marks):^[3]

Category I: "Manuscripts of a very special quality which should always be considered in establishing the original text."^[3] This category includes almost all manuscripts before the 4th century.^[3] These manuscripts have almost no Byzantine influence, and often agree with the Alexandrian text-type (but are not necessarily Alexandrian themselves, for example P⁴⁵, P⁴⁶, B, and 1739).^[3] Some 4th-century and earlier papyri and uncials are in this category, as are manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type. The manuscripts in this category are important when considering textual problems and are considered by many scholars to be a good representation of the autograph, due to their early dating.^{[citation needed]}

Category II: "Manuscripts of a special quality, but distinguished from manuscripts of Category I by the presence of alien influences."^[3] The manuscripts in this category are similar to category I manuscripts, and are important in textual consideration of the autograph. However, the texts usually contain some alien influences, such as those found in the Byzantine text-type. Egyptian texts fall in this category.^{[citation needed]}

Category III: "Manuscripts of a distinctive character with an independent text... particularly important for the history of the text."^[3] The manuscripts in category III are important when discussing the history of the textual traditions and to a lesser degree for establishing the original text. The manuscripts usually contain independent readings, and have a distinctive character. f¹, f¹³ are examples of manuscript families that fall within this category. Manuscripts of this category usually present mixed or eclectic text-type.^{[citation needed]}

Category IV: "Manuscripts of the D text."^[3] Category IV contains the few manuscripts that follow the text of the Codex Bezae (D). These texts are of the Western text-type.^{[citation needed]}

Category V: "Manuscripts with a purely or predominantly Byzantine text."^[3] This category may be equated with the Byzantine text-type.^[3] Byzantine and mostly Byzantine texts fall under this category.^[3]

Uncategorised: Some manuscripts studied by the Alands were not categorised, for example because they were too short to determine which group they belonged to, or fell somewhere in between.^[3] The unclassified manuscript could be representative of the Western text-type, the "Caesarean text-type" (a term proposed by certain scholars to denote a consistent pattern of variant readings of the four Gospels), or anything else.^[3]

Distribution of Greek manuscripts by century and category[]

See Aland, pp. 159–162.

Date (CE)	I	II	III	IV	V
150	WIKI

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