Categories of New Testament manuscripts text (i.e. the four Gospels combined into a single narrative). Categories of New Testament manuscripts New Testament manuscripts in Greek are categorized into five groups, according to a scheme introduced in 1981 by Kurt and Barbara Aland in "The text of the New Testament". The categories are based on how each manuscript relates to the various text-types. Generally speaking, earlier Alexandrian manuscripts are category I, while later Byzantine manuscripts are category V. Aland's method involved considering 1000 passages where the Byzantine text differs from non-Byzantine text. The Alands did not select their 1000 readings from all of the NT books;
Testament of Ba of Ba" was transmitted in manuscript form over many centuries, and so there are many different recensions of the text, but not one single, canonical printed version. Two early versions of the text have been identified by scholars: The "Testament of Ba" is also widely quoted in later Tibetan historigraphical works, for example the "Scholar's Feast" ("mkhas pa'i dga' ston"). The author of the "Scholar's Feast" calls the "Testament" the "Rba bzhed" (with an 'r' prefix to the Ba clan name), and refers to 'genuine', 'impure', 'large' and 'medium' versions of the text. A later, expanded version of the "Testament