Β. 284—286. General relations of Β and א to other documents
284. When the various subordinate groupings which arise by the defection of one or another member of the leading groups of primary Greek MSS described as mainly Non-Western are tested by the prevalent character of their readings, the results thus obtained are for most of them as well marked as in the cases where the primary Greek MSS agree together. Two striking facts here successively come out with especial clearness. Every group containing both א and Β is found, where Internal Evidence is tolerably unambiguous, to have an apparently more original text than every opposed group containing neither; and every group containing B, with the exception of such Western groups as include Β in the Pauline Epistles, is found in a large preponderance of cases, though by no means universally, to have an apparently more original text than every opposed group containing א.
285. Thus Internal Evidence of Groups conducts us to conclusions respecting these two MSS analogous to, and confirmatory of, the conclusions obtained independently by ascertaining to what extent the principal extant documents severally represent the several ancient lines of text. We found א and Β to stand alone in their almost complete immunity from distinctive Syrian readings; א to stand far above all documents except Β in the proportion which the part of its text neither Western nor Alexandrian bears to the rest; and Β to stand far above א in its apparent freedom from either Western or Alexandrian readings with the partial exception in the Pauline Epistles already mentioned more than once (§§ 204 ff.).
