preserve it for themselves and for those who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they inherited.5 Since theological tampering with the text was not typical, where doctrinally motivated alterations do occur they rarely affect the reconstruction of the text in a substantial way, since the majority of witnesses will not evidence theological revisionist tendencies. The major conclusion in terms of text-critical