Other New Testament editions have a much fuller apparatus, but we believe that this edition’s chief significance, like that of Westcott and Hort, lies not in its apparatus but in the text itself. The limited apparatus is designed primarily to illustrate the decision-making process, which has focussed [sic] on Greek witnesses of the first millennium. We recognize, of course, that versional and patristic witnesses add significantly to our knowledge of the history of the transmission of the New Testament text. Nevertheless, we have not felt that at any point their witness was strong enough to change the decisions we made on the basis of the Greek manuscripts. We are also aware that our focus on early Greek manuscript testimony differs from recent trends shown in the editing of the Catholic Epistles in the Editio Critica Maior produced under the auspices of the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster. We acknowledge that at times a late manuscript may contain a text that is logically prior to and ancestral to that in the earliest extant manuscripts. However, our aim has been to produce a text with a high degree of directly verified antiquity so that users of this edition will have the benefit of knowing that any reading printed in this text rests on early testimony. Throughout the text, the editors sought to consider the most ancient Greek testimony wherever feasible. This has included seeking ancient testimony for several different features of the text, including paragraphing, spelling, breathings, and accents.

Introduction to The Greek New Testament (Produced at Tyndale House Cambridge)