The publication of the Revised New Testament by the two University Presses on May 17, 1881, was the most sensational in the annals of publishing.

It is indeed a striking proof of the essential soundness of the tradition that with which all these thousands of copies, tracing their ancestry back to so many different parts of the earth and to conditions of such diverse kinds, the variations of text are so entirely questions of detail, not of essential substance.

The apostles were scattered, and even the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem had neither the power nor the means to impose uniformity.In these circumstances, we must imagine the literature of Christianity as spreading gradually, irregularly, and in a manner which variations inevitable.

Throughout, the work of Tyndale formed the foundation, and more than anyone else he established the rhythms and furnished much of the language which is familiar to us in the Authorised Version.

The last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.

The history of the Bible text is a romance of literature, though it is a romance of which the consequences are of vital import and thanks to the succession of discoveries which have been made of late years, we know more about it than of the history of any other ancient book in the world.

The aim of the scholarly editor is not to produce the the easiest text for the reader, but to get as near as he can to the text of the author.