Western non-interpolations

Because New Testament scholars have generally preferred the shorter reading – lectio brevior – of textual variants since the 19th century, B. F. Westcott and F. J.

A. Hort concluded that these shorter readings in Western manuscripts represented the authentic original Biblical text.

When they printed The New Testament in the Original Greek (1882), in almost all cases, it followed the Alexandrian text (which critical scholars agree is the most reliable text-type) with the few exceptions that use these Western non-interpolations instead.

In 1968, "the editorial committee (or more precisely its majority) decided to abandon the theories of Westcott-Hort and the Western non-interpolations.

[citation needed] Ehrman (1996) claimed that Westcott and Hort's observations still largely held merit, although he suggested that a better term for the alleged longer readings would be "non-Western interpolations".