Hi Shelly,
Part of the reason we have certain manuscripts (MSS) -- I am thinking in particular of those from Egypt upon which the "Alexandrian" texttype is based -- is that a) they were written on velum, very expensive antelope skin finely prepared and far more durable than the parchment used for most MSS; b) the climate in Egypt was dry, and thus conducive to the preservation of MSS, unlike the damper climates of Europe and Asia Minor; the climate was such in Egypt that even some of the far more fragile papyri MSS survived; and c) it is a factor that much use wore out some MSS.
I recently purchased a new Bible; when I finish the long and tedious process of copying all my 40 years worth of notes/cross-references/etc from my two other Bibles into it, I will likely set the almost-worn-out one aside and use it very little. The pages are brittle and breaking.
In the 9th century all of a sudden appear a vast number of manuscripts in a new form, the smaller cursive Greek script as opposed to the uppercase uncials of the previous centuries -- and NO ancient uncials of the same texttype as the majority of these miniscules (mss), which happen to be of the Byzantine (or Majority, or Traditional) texttype. It has been noted by text critics that the likelihood is very high the scribes copying the old MSS into mss form destroyed the exemplars they used, much in the way I am going to set aside my old Bible when I am finished copying the annotations.
The things I am saying are a hypothetical reconstruction of the history of the transmission of the NT text from the various manuscripts. For certain periods we are lacking in much information regarding the history of the manuscripts, and according to our presuppositions (our foundational view of what is real and how we know what is real) we interpret the data we have to make the best sense of it. The link I give here opens on a post which discusses something about how these presuppostions determine our views of which texts are best:
http://www.puritanboard.com/showpost...7&postcount=31
This matter of the texts is an area where one must delve deeply into the writings of those who propound the arguments for the various views. This "Translations and Manuscripts" board has a lot of information from differing viewpoints on the subject. Peruse it if it is an area of interest to you. We ALL start out "over our heads" when we approach any new field, so don't let that dismay you! I am in "over my head" on some topics here at PB, and so I just set myself to learn.
May the Lord guide you and give you light.
Steve