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A hand edition like the Nestle-Aland cannot comprehensively document the textual history of the Greek New Testament and list all significant witnesses with all their variants. This can only be achieved by the Editio Critica Maior. For those parts of the NT for which the ECM has appeared, it both complements and relieves the hand editions, as it provides full representation of the relevant source material. The present edition provides the reader primarily with the basis for studying the text and evaluating the most important variants. The apparatus also offers a wealth of readings which are only indirectly of value for establishing the text, but which may often signal the presence of a textual problem. Variants of lesser significance are also valuable for revealing the causes and motives involved in the origin of textual variants.

Consequently the support of witnesses is indicated in two different ways.

A positive apparatus is given for all the substantive variants, including those important for establishing the text. In these instances the evidence both for and against the text is shown, with the support for the text (= txt) always appearing last.

A negative apparatus is given for variants which are cited mainly for their relevance to the history of the text or its interpretation. For these readings only the evidence against the text is shown.

The selection of consistently cited witnesses remains largely the same as in the 27th edition, except in the case of the Catholic Letters.5 It is now immediately clear whether a variant is supported by a witness of this category, because there is no longer any distinction between consistently cited witnesses of the first and second orders. It was an important guideline for the revision of the apparatus to display these witnesses and their variants as clearly and simply as possible, and so the variants were rendered in full unless there were good reasons not to do so. Greek manuscripts not counted among those consistently cited were not included unless they contribute special readings of text-historical interest.

Naturally, a manuscript can be cited only if its text is legible. Major lacunae in the text of consistently cited manuscripts are indicated in the List of Manuscripts (Appendix I). The contents of fragments are described positively.6

Consistently cited witnesses are listed in III. 2 (cf. below, pp. 62*ff.).