Western non-interpolations

Western non-interpolations is a term coined by F. J. A. Hort^[1] for certain phrases that are absent in the Western text-type of New Testament manuscripts, but present in one of the two major other text-types. The Alexandrian text-type is generally terse or concise; the Western text-type is larger and paraphrased at places (using more words to convey a similar meaning); the Byzantine text-type is a combination of those two. Nevertheless, the Western text is in certain places shorter than the Alexandrian text. All these shorter readings Hort named Western non-interpolations. Because New Testament scholars have generally preferred the shorter reading – lectio brevior – of textual variants since the 19th century, B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort concluded that these shorter readings in Western manuscripts represented the authentic original Biblical text. When they printed The New Testament in the Original Greek (1882), in almost all cases, it followed the Alexandrian text (which critical scholars agree is the most reliable text-type) with the few exceptions that use these Western non-interpolations instead. According to Westcott and Hort, on some rare occasions Western textual witnesses have preserved the original text, against all other witnesses.^[2]