XI. The Huge Disparity Among the Few Modern Version Manuscripts
A hugely disproportionate amount of the variation is to be found among the relatively few manuscripts supporting the Aleph-B text. The critical editors, Barbara Aland and Klaus Wachtel admit this:
The papyri and majuscules are for the most part individual witnesses: despite sharing general tendencies on the forms of their texts, they differ so widely from one another that it is impossible to establish any direct genealogical ties among them. (“The Greek Minuscule Manuscripts of the N.T.”, The Text of the N.T. in Contemporary Research, p.46. Emphasis mine).
If these few cannot agree among themselves, then why do footnotes in modern versions call them “The Best Manuscripts”? As so little of an Aleph-B kind of manuscript is available, clearly early scribes did not think them best. Nor did the scribes of the 8th/9th Centuries think them best when they transferred the text from uncial to minuscule script. Further, as we have said, the manuscripts that were widely copied are known to be strongly cohesive, with narrow variation margins. Their variation is usually just enough to let us know that they are independent productions with long transmissional lines.