The Manuscript Evidence for the New Testament

No other ancient document has as much manuscript evidence substantiating it as does the New Testament. The current number of ancient New Testament manuscripts (including lectionaries) sits at 24,970. In second place comes Homer's Iliad at 643 manuscripts.

The chart below (from Josh McDowel's "Evidence That Demands a Verdict") illustrates the fact that the writings of some of the greatest names in literary history are not nearly as well attested as that of the New Testament.

To date, there are more than 24,970 ancient New Testament manuscripts. Here is a quick breakdown:

Greek manuscripts:

Ancient Greek manuscripts total 5,686

Other languages:

The Most Significant New Testament Manuscripts

From Among the Dead Sea Scrolls:

(The sources for information of the Christian contents found among the DSS are "The Baker Encyclopdea of Christian Apologetics", by Norman Geisler, "Eyewitness to Jesus", by Carsten Thiede and Matthew D'Cona, "Survey of the Old Testament", by Gleason Archer)

Dead Sea Scroll 7Q5: This is a portion of Mark's Gospel. For it to be deposited in Qumran where it was discovered, it had to be placed there no later than AD 68. AD 68 is the year the Khirbet of Qumran and the nearby area of the caves were overrun by the Tenth Roman Legion. It's also interesting to note that before the contents of cave seven were identified as Christian, papyrologists had already identified the palaeographic script on the scroll fragments as being "Zierstil" in style - which peaked at the turn of the first century. Colin H. Roberts acting on behalf of the editorial team, stated that 7Q5 is a late example of that style and should be dated no later that AD 50. We might add a few years if we suppose that the style fell out of use more slowly, still, a date of AD 68 is the most recent we can get, due to the destruction of that region by the Roman forces at that time.

Even a Jewish member of the editorial board of the Qumran scrolls, Shemaryahu Talmon, supports the identification of 7Q5 as Mark's Gospel. Orsolina Montevecchi, Honorary President of the International Papyrologists' Association also attested to identification of 7Q5 as Mark's Gospel. Spanish Papyrologist Jose O'Callagan, who was the first to suggest that the contents of cave 7 were Christian, is a publishing scholar whose work is open to public scrutiny.

The Methodology Used in Identifying 7Q5 as Markan:

7Q5 contains 4 letters on line four: "nu / nu / eta / sigma /." O'Callaghan searched for Greek words that had this letter sequence and at first considered the word "egennesen" ("gave birth") and considered whether the text might be part of a geneaological list. The problem with this idea was that it didn't account for the other letters on the fragment. A list of this kind simply could not be found in extant Greek literature. He then thought of other words with the same letter sequence and came up with "Gennesaret" - the famous lake in Galilee. The only place in the entire Greek Old Testament that contained this spelling of the lake was found in 1 Maccabees 11:67. The problem of course, is that none of the others letters on 7Q5 would fit 1 Maccabees. If O'Callaghan was a scholar and not a papyrologist, he would have never considered that 7Q5 could have been a portion of a Gospel given its date, but he did. Its identification as Markan, in my mind, is sound.

Objections to 7Q5's Markan Identification and Rebuttals

1. The date. Wallace himself uses the date of 50 CE to argue against 7Q5 being Markan. This argument is based on the fact that the data goes against the scholar's abstract theories. It's a lunatic sort of logic to embrace the subjective while sacrificing the concrete.

2. The size of the Fragment. Yes, 7Q5 is small. It contains 20 letters, 10 of them are fragmentary, on five lines. However, other manuscripts from among the Dead Sea scrolls have been identified which are comparable in size. Even in the same cave, 7Q2 has just one more letter - 21 - on five lines, yet no one has disputed its identification as Baruch (letter of Jeremiah) 6:43-44. This in spite of the fact that there are significant variations against the standard text of the Greek Old Testament. Much more than the variation we will soon consider which exists in 7Q5. There are other examples which Thiede cites in his book, "Eyewitness to Jesus" (which I am working from) but the point is clear. The identification of 7Q5 as Markan is being disputed purely on philosophical grounds.

3. The tau / delta change. In order for 7Q5 to be regarded as Markan, the first letter after the "kai" should be a "delta", as it is in all other extant manuscripts of Mark's Gospel. In 7Q5, the next letter is a "tau." Some critics state that this exchange of "tau" for "delta" is "unparalleled." This is not so.

   When Herod the Great rebuilt the temple, he placed an inscription on the second wall prohibiting the entry of non-Jewish persons on pain of death (Josephus mentions this - Antiquities 15.417). Archaeologists have discovered two verbatim copies of this stone: One complete inscription now in Instanbul, and one at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The spelling is significant. The Greek medena "nobody" is spelled "methena". The word, dryphakton "barrier stone" is spelled "tryphakton". In both cases the scribes turned the soft "d" into a hard "t" or "th". Moreover, Thiede cites F.T. Gignac, "Grammer of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, vol. 1, Phonology (Milan, 1976), pp 80-83. This source mentions the existence of a text, dated to AD 42, which contains the word "tikes" which should otherwise be spelled "dikes." This particular instance is important because we see that the change of "d" to "t" also preceded the same vowel as in 7Q5. To sum up, it was entirely possible to switch from "t" to "d" before 70 AD.

4. The Missing Words. The critics are correct in stating that in order for 7Q5 to be Markan, we must account for three words which appear missing from the text. Specifically, 7Q5 may be considered to be a fragment of Mark 6:52-53 if only we could account for the phrase "epi ten gen"(onto the land). There's imply no room for these words on 7Q5. The critic also rightly points out that no other Markan Gospel has these words missing. There is a reasonable explanation.

   Mark 6:52-53 follows the miracle of the loaves (when Jesus fed 5000 people.) After this verse 53 reads, "after they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret." The question is, is it possible that Mark's Gospel was written without the phrase "onto the land"? The answer, I believe, is yes. Between AD 68 - 74, the Roman forces destroyed Qumran, the Jerusalem temple, and Masada as well as many other parts of the country. One of the places they destroyed was the town of Gennesaret - the very region being described by Mark. So here we have a town and a lake with the same name, "Gennesaret." In texts written before the destruction of the town, the words "onto the land" would not have been necessary since Gennesaret was in daily range of the people living at Capernaum (where Jesus and His disciples lived and worked for some time). After 70 AD, the phrase "onto the land" would have been needed to avoid confusion (remember, the town of Gennesaret is gone by this time, only the lake remains). Indeed, finding this phrase in a Markan manuscript, which predates 70 AD, would raise even more serious questions than its absence. Beyond this, according to Thiede, are the attestations of philologists, which agree that the text without the "epi ten gen" phrase is a better version. Its insertion creates an awkward reading and, what one commentator has called, "a tormented text."

5. Unlikely letter Reconstructions Some contend that the fragmentary letters were given "unlikely" reconstructions. The approach used by O'Callahan, Thiede, Hunger and others seems perfectly sound to me. Everone ust formulate their own opinion. It is noteworthy that one of these so called "unlikely reconstructions" was finally settled in 1992. One of the damaged letters, thought to be a "nu" was claimed by critics to be an "iota." This, they contended, was a strong argument against 7Q5 being Markan. Thiede demonstrated that, using the legible "nu" from line 4 as a "yardstick", the damaged letter could easily be a "nu". In april 1992, the fragment was taken to the Investigations department, Division of Identification and Forensic Science, at the Israel National Police in Jerusalem. There under the electronic stereo microscope, the remains of the diagonal ink line came into view. The letter was a "nu" after all. In short the controversy that surrounds this document has nothing to do with papyrology, but everything to do with people not wanting to give up their worldviews.

Other Possible New Testament MSS Fragments From Qumran:

Geisler rightly cautions ("The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics", p.533):

"O Callahan's critics object to his identification and have offered other possible sources for them. The fragmentary nature of the manuscripts makes it difficult to be dogmatic about their true identification."

Geisler continues,

"Eighty-eight undisputed papyri manuscripts have so far been found…The papyri witness to the text is invaluable, because it comes from within the first 200 years after the New Testament was written." (Geisler p.533)

Some Manuscripts From Within 200 years of the Original New Testament Composition:

1) The John Rylands Fragment (P52): This manuscript is located in the John Rylands Library in Manchester England. It was discovered in Egypt and assigned a date of AD 130. This is a late date actually. There are many that content that this manuscript is older. Regardless, even a date of 130 AD supports the Christian position that John penned his Gospel about the end of the first century. Why? Because the traditional place of writing (according to Church historians) was Ephesus in Asia Minor, some distance from Egypt, where the Rylands Papyrus was discovered. Whether we accept what early church history says about where and when John wrote his Gospel, the fact remains that we have a manuscript, said to be an eyewitness account, dated at 130 AD.

2) The Huleatt Fragments: This mss consists of three fragments of Matthew's Gospel. The date assigned to them originally was between 180 to 200 AD. Dr. Carston Theide (papyrologist, director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany) has set forth a strong case to argue for a date closer to AD 60 (See "Eyewitness to Jesus"). Even the late date of 200 AD is manuscript evidence attesting to the reliability of the New Testament.

3) The Bodmer Papyri: These manuscripts are located in the Bodmer Library of World Literature; it contains most of John's Gospel. It was assigned a date by Papyrologists of 150 - 200 AD. Also acquired by the Bodmer Library is two other important mss: A codex (book) of both Luke and John's Gospel. The dates assigned to these Gospels have been estimated at between 175 and 225 AD.

• P66 John 1:1-6:11; 6:35-14:26; 14:29-30; 15:2-26; 16:2-4, 6-7; 16:10-20:20; 20:22-23; 20:25-21:9.
• P72 1 Pet 1:1-5:14; 2 Pet 1:1-3:18; Jude 1-25.
• P75 Luke 3:18-4:22; 4:34-5:10; 5:37-18:18; 22:4-24:53; John 1:1-11:45, 48-57; 12:3-13:1, 8-9; 14:8-30; 15:7-8.

4) The Chester Beatty Papyri: Several codices, this collection is located in the C. Beatty Museum near Dublin. Contained are three codices (P45, P46, P47) that contain major portions of the New Testament. These papyrus codices have been dated at about 200 AD.

• P45 This manuscript contains the following verses or portions of them:
• Matt. 20:24-32, 21:13-19, 25:41-26:39;
• Mark 4:36-40, 5:15-26, 5:38-6:3, 6:16-25, 36-50, 7:3-15, 7:25-8:1, 8:10-26, 8:34-9:8, 9:18-31, 11:27-12:1, 12:5-8, 13-19, 24-28;
• Luke 6:31-41, 6:45-7:7, 9:26-41, 9:45-10:1, 10:6-22, 10:26-11:1, 11:6-25, 28-46, 11:50-12:12, 12:18-37, 12:42-13:1, 13:6-24, 13:29-14:10, 14:17-33;
• John 4:51, 54, 5:21, 24, 10:7-25, 10:31-11:10, 11:18-36, 43-57;
• Acts 4:27-36, 5:10-20, 30-39, 6:7-7:2, 7:10-21, 32-41, 7:52-8:1, 8:14-25, 8:34-9:6, 9:16-27, 9:35-10:2, 10:10-23, 31-41, 11:2-14, 11:24-12:5, 12:13-22, 13:6-16, 25-36, 13:46-14:3, 14:15-23, 15:2-7, 19-26, 15:38-16:4, 16:15-21, 16:32-40, 17:9-17.

Unlike many of the major papyri, it is not a single-quire codex, but rathe uses gatherings of two leaves. This suggests that many more leaves were present at the end. It is possible that the codex once contained other New Testament epistles.

5) P46 Dated to c AD 200, this manuscript consists of 86 leaves out of an estimated original total of 104. It contains portions of Romans 5:17-1 Thessalonians 5:28, with Hebrews, following Romans). Here's the breakdown of extant verses:

Romans 5:17-6:3, 6:5-14, 8:15-25, 27-35, 8:37-9:32, 10:1-11, 11, 24-33, 11:35-15:9, 15:11-end (note that 16:25-27 follows chapter 15);

1 Corinthians 1:1-9:2, 9:4-14:14, 14:16-15:15, 15:17-16:22;

2 Corinthians 1:1-11:10, 12-21, 11:23-13:13;

Gal. 1:1-8, 1:10-2:9, 2:12-21, 3:2-29, 4:2-18, 4:20-5:17, 5:20-6:8, 6:10-18;

Eph. 1:1-2:7, 2:10-5:6, 5:8-6:6, 6:8-18, 20-24;

Phil. 1:1, 1:5-15, 17-28, 1:30-2:12, 2:14-27, 2:29-3:8, 3:10-21, 4:2-12, 14-23;

Col. 1:1-2, 5-13, 16-24, 1:27-2:19, 2:23-3:11, 3:13-24, 4:3-12, 16-18;

1 Thes. 1:1, 1:9-2:3, 5:5-9, 23-28;

Heb. 1:1-9:16, 9:18-10:20, 10:22-30, 10:32-13:25

6) P47 Consists of ten slightly mutilated leaves of the book of revelation. Only the middle portion, 9:10 - 17:2 survives.

Other Significant Manuscripts within 200 Years of Original composition:

7) P20 Housed in the Princeton University Library and dated paleographically to the third century, this manuscript fragment contains Portions of James 2:19-3:9

8) P28 This manuscript fragment resides in the Palestine Institute Museum, Berkeley. It is paleographically dated to the third century and contains portions of John 6:8-12, 17-22.

9) P39 Dated paleographically to the third century and located in the Ambrose Swabey Library, Rochester (New York, USA), this manuscript fragment contains portions of John 8:14-22.

10) P48 Housed in the Laurenxian Library, Florence, this manuscript contains portions of Acts 23:11-17, 25-29. Also dated paleographically to the third century.

Ancient Vellum and Parchment Manuscripts

11) Codex A (Codex Alexandrius) Now in the possession of the National Library of the British Museum, this codex is probably the work or fifth century scribes in Alexandria. Codex A contains the whole Old Testament with the following exceptions:

Several mutilations in Genesis 14 - 16

1 Samuel 12 - 14

Psalms 49:19 - 79:10

Missing from the New Testament:

Matthew 1:1 - 25:6

John 6:50 - 8:52

2 Corinthians 4:13 - 12:6

Codex A also includes 1 and 2 Clement and the Psalms of Solomon (some parts missing).

12) Codex B (Codex Vanticanus) Dated at 325 - 350, codex B is owned by the Catholic Church and is housed in the Vatican Library, Vatican City. Codex B contains:

Most of the Old Testament Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament). Missing from the Old Testament:

• Genesis 1:1 - 46:28
• 2 Kings 2:5-7, 10-13
• Psalm 106:27-138:6

The New Testament in Greek, with the following missing:

• I Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews 9:14 - end of the New Testament, and the General Epistles.

Purposely omitted from codex B are:

• Mark 16:9-20
• Mark 16:9-20

The Apocrypha is included in Codex B with the exception of 1 Macabees, 2 Macabees, and the Prayer of Manasses.

13) Codex C (Codex Ephraemi) This codex probably originated in Alexandria Egypt about 345. Housed in Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, Codex C contains:

Most of the Old Testament except parts of:

• Job
• Proverbs
• Ecclesiastes
• Song of Solomon
• Two Apocryphal books: Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiaticus

The New Testament is missing:

• 2 Thessalonians
• 2 John
• parts of other books (See Geisler, "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics", p. 535)

Of interest, this manuscript is a palimpset, that is, because of paper's valuable nature, manuscripts were rubbed out and the material reused. In this case, Ephaream had erased the biblical manuscript and recorded his sermons. Through chemical reactivation, the almost invisible text could be deciphered.

14) Codex Aleph (Sinaiticus) Geisler states ("Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics", p. 535), "Codex Sinaticus or Aleph, a fourth century manuscript is generally considered to be the most important witness to the text because of its antiquity, accuracy, and lack of omissions."

Aleph consists of Codex Fredrico-Augustanus, which contains portions of the Septuagint housed in the University Library at Leipzig, Germany. This codex contains 43 leaves of vellum containing 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and Esther.

The remainder of Aleph remains in the British Museum, and consists of over half of the Septuagint, and all of the New Testament, except:

• Mark 16:9-20
• John 7:53-8:11

Included in Aleph are the Apocrypha, the Epistle of Barnabas, and a large portion of The Shepherd of Hermas.

16) Codex D (Codex Bezae) Probably written 450-550, Codex D is the oldest known bilingual manuscript, written in Greek and Latin. In 1581 it was given to Cambridge University, now housed in The Cambridge University Library. Codex D consists of the four Gospels, Acts, and 3 John vv 11-15. Missing from the Greek text are:

• Sections of Matthew 1, 6-9, and 27
• John 1-3
• Acts 8-10, 21, and 22-28

Missing from the Latin text are:

• Matthew 1, 6-8, 26-27
• Acts 8-10, 20-21, 22-28
• 1 John 1-3

Other (later) New Testament Manuscripts in Chart Form

Leo Deuel ("Testaments of Time: The Search for Lost Manuscripts & Records", 1965, p. 347) states:

"Truly, the time gap between these manuscripts and the apostolic age has almost been closed. It has shrunk to as little, perhaps, as thirty of forty years. From the Codex Sinaiticus to the Chester Beatty papyri and beyond them to the Rylands fragment, modern discoveries have, at least by implication, no more dramatic story to tell."

Addressing Manuscript Variations

Not all the New Testament manuscripts are word-for-word identical. Variations do exist, but these are so minor (i.e. the spelling of certain names of people and places, phrases transposed or obvious scribal copying errors) that no doctrine of scripture is affected.

"Not," as Dr. Warfield says, "that there are 200,000 places in the New Testament where various readings occur, but that there are nearly 200,000 readings all told, and in many cases the documents so differ among themselves that many various readings are counted on a single word, for each document is compared in turn with one standard and the number of its divergences ascertained, then these sums are themselves added together and the result given as the number of actually observed variations." Dr. Ezra Abbott was accustomed to remark that "about nineteen-twentieths of the variations have so little support that, although there are various readings, no one would think of them as rival readings, and nineteen-twentieths of the remainder are of so little importance that their adoption or rejection would cause no appreciable difference in the sense of the passages in which they occur." Dr. Hort's view was that "upon about one word in eight, various readings exist supported by sufficient evidence to bid us pause and look at it; about one word in sixty has various readings upon it supported by such evidence as to render our decision nice and difficult, but that so many variations are trivial that only about one word in every thousand has upon it substantial variation supported by such evidence as to call out the efforts of the critic in deciding between the readings." The oft-repeated dictum of Bentley is still valid that "the real text of the sacred writings is competently exact, nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost, choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings."
-Charles Fremont Sitterly, "Text and Manuscripts of the New Testament," in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Chicago: Howard-Severance Co., 1915).

"The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact indeed in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings … Make your 30,000 [variations] as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and a serious reader, who isthereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same."
-Richard Bentley, Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking, in a Letter to F.H., D.D., by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis (London, 1713), Part I, Section 32.

"This received text contains undoubtedly all the essential facts and doctrines intended to be set down by the inspired writers; for if it were corrected with the severest hand, by the light of the most divergent various readings found in any ancient MS. or version, not a single doctrine of Christianity, nor a single cardinal fact would be thereby expunged……If all the debated readings were surrendered by us, no fact or doctrine of Christianity would thereby be invalidated, and least of all would the doctrine of Christ's proper divinity be deprived of adequate scriptural support. Hence the interests of orthodoxy are entirely secure from and above the reach of all movements of modern criticism of the text whether made in a correct or incorrect method, and all such discussions in future are to the church of subordinate importance."
-Robert L. Dabney, "The Doctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek," in Discussions by Robert L. Dabney: Volume I: Theological and Evangelical, edited by G. R. Vaughn (Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1890), pp. 351, 389.

"In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture", by p.242:

"In the sixteenth century, the best editions of the Greek New Testament were based on manuscripts dating from no earlier than the tenth century. Since then, many new manuscripts have been discovered, of which the most famous is the Codex Sinaiticus, probably written in the fourth century. This was found in the monastery at St. Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1844, as now held in the British Museum. The Codex Alexandrius, probably written in the fifth century, was presented to King Charles I in 1627 by the patriarch of Alexandria. Theodore Beza himself presented an early Greek New Testament to the University of Cambridge in 1581; this contains the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in both Greek and Latin, and thought to date from the fifth and sixth centuries. A vast range of papyri have also been found. The result of is that we now have access to a much more accurate edition of the text of the New Testament than the King James translators knew. [Whether these older manuscripts reflect a "better" version, that is, a reading closer to the original New Testament documents, is debatable J.F.]

"It must be made clear immediately that this does not call into question the general reliability of the King James Bible. The issue concerns minor textual variations. Not a single teaching of the Christian faith is affected by these variations, not is any major historical aspect of the Gospel narratives or early Christianity affected. The important point is that in general, the King James Bible was based in the textus receptus. Scholarly fashions have changed, and the Alexandrine text - named after the Codex Alexandrinus - is now preferred within the scholarly community to the Byzantine text, which the textus receptus reflects."

Conclusion: The charge is often laid that the New Testament has been changed to meet the changing doctrines of the church. The manuscript evidence does not support this charge, but supports the belief in the immutability of Scripture.