..."IN 1707, when an Oxford scholar named John Mill published an edition
of the Greek New Testament that contained a critical apparatus
systematically and graphically detailing the differences among the
surviving witnesses of the NT. Mill had devoted some THIRTY YEARS of his
life to examining a hundred or so Greek MSS, the early versions of the
NT, and the citations of the NT in the writings of the church fathers.
His apparatus did not include all of the differences that he had
uncovered in his investigation, but only the ones that he considered
significant for the purposes of exegesis or textual reconstruction.
These, however, were enough. To the shock and dismay of many of his
contemporaries, Mill's apparatus indicated SOME 30,000 PLACES OF
VARIATION, 30,000 places where the available witnesses to the NT text
differed from one another. * * *
"We have nearly 50 times the number of MSS that John Mill had at his
disposal in 1707, and we know of possibly 100 TIMES AS MANY TEXTUAL
VARIANTS--far more variants among our manuscripts than there are words in
the New Testament...."
Ehrman gives a cogent example from the Mss. of Luke 22:17-21 ("last
supper"), showing that the references to "drink my blood" and "new
covenant" were later additions.