Although we can't date the writings of the NT with real certainty, it appears that most of them were written between 50 and 150 CE. These writings were copied and recopied by members of various Christian communities. Some writings were preserved, while others were lost or deliberately suppressed.
There are almost five thousand manuscripts of the Greek NT. Some of these are complete collections of the entire NT canon, some are single books or groups of books, and some are only very small fragments.
There are almost eight thousand manuscripts in Latin.
Plus, there are over a thousand additional manuscripts in other ancient languages.
In deciding which readings are the best, scholars use Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethopic, Gothic, and Arabic translations in addition to the Greek texts. They use old Greek lectionaries, citations from the early fathers, and other citations as well. The Greek witnesses, however, are by far the most important. The great number of NT texts that we have makes the task more complicated, because the manuscripts are not often entirely in agreement with one another. "Even in the book of Revelation, which is the most poorly attested writing in the New Testament, over three-hundred manuscripts have been preserved" (Black, 18).
Mark 5.1 - Some versions read, "And they came to the other side of the sea into the region of the Gerasenes." Other versions, however, read, "And they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes" which brings this passage into agreement with the Matthew 8.28.
Mark 16.8 - The best manuscripts indicate that this is the end of Mark's gospel. The longer ending was probably added much later.
In 1516, the priest and scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam put together (in haste) an edition of the Greek New Testament. In the West, the NT had been primarily read in Latin for centuries, so Erasmus' endeavor to put together a Greek NT out of ancient texts was somewhat of a new one. Unfortunately, Erasmus didn't have access to many of the best texts, and he actually had to supply missing segments of the Book of Revelation. After only sixth months of preparation, his version of the Greek NT had been printed. In Paris, a printer named Robert Estienne (Stephanus) published the same basic text, as did the Elziver brothers who lived in Holland. In the preface to the 1633 edition of the Elziver brothers' work, we find the words, "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum," which means "You have therefore the text now received by all." From this statement, we get the famous name Textus Receptus, which served as the text underlying the KJV of 1611 and served as the Greek NT until 1881. This text is also called the Beza text.
