Older is better when it comes to manuscripts, right? Not necessarily. Consider the first page of Ephesians in Papyrus 46 (the oldest extant copy). It shows no signs of having been proofread by a
diorthotes (scriptorium supervisor and proof-reader). Whether one compares it to the same passage in the
Textus Receptus, the Byzantine Text, or the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation (which are all vary similar here), P46 has the inferior text - it's missing a large part of verse 2, in addition to four other omissions of words. The takeaways from this are
(1) the text in proofread copies tends to be more accurate than the text that is not proofread
(2) age should not be assumed to imply accuracy; the canon to prefer the reading with the oldest attestation must be applied thoughtfully, never mechanically.
