Page "The Bible and history" Paragraph 4

According to the dominant theory called Greek primacy, the New Testament was originally written in Greek, of which 5, 650 handwritten copies have survived in Greek, over 10, 000 in Latin.

When other languages are included, the total of ancient copies approaches 25, 000.

The next ancient text to come close to rivaling that number is Homer's Iliad, which is thought to have survived in 643 ancient copies.

Recognizing this, F. E. Peters remarked that " on the basis of manuscript tradition alone, the works that make up the Christians ' New Testament texts were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of antiquity ".

( This may be due to their preservation, popularity, and distribution brought about by the ease of seaborne travel and the many roads constructed during the time of the Roman Empire ).

When a comparison is made between the seven major critical editions of the Greek NT verse-by-verse – namely Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, Von Soden, Vogels, Merk, Bover, and Nestle-Aland – only 62. 9 % of verses are variant free.