![]() ![]() Greek manuscripts survive from a wide range of countries, historical situations and legal jurisdictions, and the constant quotation of the New Testament, its use within liturgy and the variety of languages into which it was translated mean that any possibility that books were changed substantially long after composition must be excluded. Even the least well-attested book of the New Testament - Revelation - has a level of attestation which for any work from the Classical period (roughly 8th century BC to 5th century AD) would be considered abundant. Can we be confident of the New Testament text?Ĭompared with other literary works from antiquity, the New Testament has an enormously rich body of supporting manuscripts (or “attestation”). Such impressions need to be replaced with more accurate and precise knowledge. Often scholars have been working only with general impressions of the sort of mistakes that were common. In each era and for each manuscript and type of manuscript we need to document the sorts of copying mistakes which were made. For many important manuscripts we still do not know how many scribes were involved in writing them. The study of the behaviour of scribes in copying (generally known as their “scribal habit”) is still in its infancy. What is there still to study about manuscripts? The list is maintained by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, which is rightly regarded as the world’s leading centre for information about New Testament manuscripts. The official scholarly list of Greek New Testament manuscripts is called the Kurzgefasste Liste (the ‘concise list’) and is found here. ![]() Counting manuscripts hides these distinctions. Also, a manuscript might consist of only a few surviving letters or of hundreds of complete pages. So while the number of surviving manuscripts of Revelation has been quoted at about 300, there are thought to be more than 1,600 of John 18. A large number are lectionaries, containing passages used for church services.ĭepending on how you define “manuscript” there are more than 5,000 Greek New Testament examples, but these are not evenly spread across the New Testament. Even if the number of manuscripts can be agreed upon, manuscripts aren’t equal, some being whole New Testaments, others being tiny fragments. Then there is debate over whether writing on broken pottery ( ostraca), mosaics or buildings should be counted as sources of evidence alongside the manuscripts. Pages may become split, so that one manuscript becomes multiple manuscripts, or manuscripts may be destroyed or lost and yet still remain on lists. The number of New Testament manuscripts is difficult to determine. However, some manuscripts are just single sheets. Quires were then bound at the fold end to make a multi-quire codex. The most common form was to fold four sheets of papyrus or leather to produce a collection of eight leaves known as a quire. Most New Testament manuscripts are in codex form, which means that they consist of leaves folded at the spine (like a book). Generally papyrus manuscripts come from no later than the seventh century and paper ones from no earlier than the tenth. Manuscripts can be written on papyrus, animal skin or paper. However when we talk about New Testament manuscripts, we’re normally speaking of copies that were made before the invention of printing or early enough after its invention for them to have been made from other handwritten copies. Technically, therefore, whenever you write out any part of the Bible by hand, you’re creating another manuscript. The term manuscript refers to something written by hand. ![]() Given that there are various differences between the earliest documents, and experts differ in their views, how do we know that our New Testament is the New Testament? What do we actually mean when we talk about “the New Testament”? For Christians, the concept has a meaning beyond the particular translation in their hand, and refers to 27 books or letters written by a collection of different authors two millennia ago. If experts differ about which sources are the most accurate, how can we have confidence in our Bible translations? ![]()
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