The inclusion of both manuscripts and texts in the title is important. If one were to restrict the study of the documents to the texts which they contain, it would be possible to limit their use to the practice of textual criticism, that is to the study of variant readings and their placing in a chronology by which one, therefore to be adjudged the oldest, accounted for the formation of the others. But documents consist of more than the texts they contain, and their layout, their design and the material of which they are made, their ink and script, their marginalia and the ornamentation, paintings and bindings with which they may have been adorned all provide evidence about cultural as well as religious history and even cast light on economic, social and political matters. . . . The variant readings which are not the oldest are not therefore without interest. They provide information about subsequent interpretations of the text and understandings of Christian faith and practice, including the fact that the oldest form had been modified. The title is intended to reflect this wider value of the manuscripts for historical study.

D. C. PARKER, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS AND THEIR TEXTS, 7.