With the advent of the printing press, the consistency of the New Testament increased dramatically. No longer were manuscripts subject to the errors or editorial whims of the copyists, as they had been previously. This substantially decreased, if not altogether stopped manuscript variations, but it left the issue of which manuscript to use as source.
Presently, the near total ubiquity of printed versions of the New Testament creates a perception of a textually invariant Bible, with the possible exception of translation variation. Popularly, however, translation variations are perceived to be primarily in style of language (``was the father of'' v. ``begat''), rather than actual content. This, combined with social taboos against questioning textual reliability of the Bible, have created the illusion of a perfect, unchanging text.
On the other hand, electronic versions of the
Bible
have made contrasting
translations substantially easier. Similar work has been done for
comparison of
manuscripts.