Introduction

11.1. Introduction
The New Testament was completed in period of about 50 years. With the spread of Christianity there was also a need to copy the writings of the apostles. In earlier days, individual copyists copied the manuscripts. In later times, it was the practice to dictate the text to a group of scribes. By doing that, a number of manuscripts were prepared at the same time. Just like in the case of the Old Testament, words in these manuscripts sometimes differ from each other. In order to establish the text as closely as possible to the original, scholars apply the discipline of textual criticism to it.