![]() Outside of the New Testament, more manuscript discoveries have been made of Homer’s Iliad than any other classical work. Yet the New Testament manuscripts would stack to more than one-mile high.įor many ancient books, there are often a few dozen existing manuscripts, and sometimes even a few hundred. How do the New Testament documents compare with other ancient books? A stack of existing manuscripts from the average classical writer would measure about four feet high. ![]() Non-Greek Manuscripts (Armenian, Latin, etc.): 18,130+ *Earliest manuscript: AD 130 (John Rylands Papyrus: P52) We list the numbers for other classical works and specific biblical manuscripts in the updated Evidence. Still, for a variety of reasons, these numbers are educated guesses. We had a team of researchers and scholars help us with this endeavor. It is extremely laborious to track down the number of both classical and biblical manuscripts. Scholars use different sources, such as the Leuven Database or the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Since people still regularly cite manuscript numbers from the 1999 "New" Evidence, I thought it might be helpful to write a post with the most recent numbers from the updated Evidence (2017). ![]() For any particular work or collection of works, the greater the number and the earlier the dating of the manuscripts, the easier it is to reconstruct a text closer to the original and identify errors or discrepancies. ![]() Since we do not have the original New Testament writings (the autographa), textual critics aim to determine the reliability of existing copies. Essentially, the bibliographic test examines the textual transmission by which a document reaches us. With the initial release of Evidence that Demands a Verdict in 1972, my father helped popularize the “bibliographic test” for the reliability of the New Testament. What is the Most Recent Manuscript Count for the New Testament? ![]()
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