![]() Very few could be safely attributed to an earlier date, and none to a date before c. Nearly all of the extant MSS were written after a.d. On the other hand, there seemed to be no way of tracing it with much certainty to an earlier period. It was therefore felt that one could be quite certain as to the precise text of the OT as it existed a thousand years ago. with their comparison of the readings of hundreds of MSS had shown extremely few variations of any importance in the consonantal text of the OT. On the one hand, the collations that Kennicott and De Rossi had published in the latter part of the 18th cent. Nonetheless, it reveals that the text held within a document was read, copied, and kept during the witness’s day.TEXT AND MANUSCRIPTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.įifty years ago research into the history of the OT text seemed to have reached a dead end in two important directions. It may witness to all twenty-seven books or just a few verses. Each New Testament manuscript may be helpfully understood as a “witness.” Each manuscript witnesses to the text that passed on from generation to generation. The differences between the common concept of the New Testament today and the reality of how they existed in history may seem slightly confusing, and may even cause a bit of pause in the consideration of what we previously thought the copies of the New Testament in the first millennium. For instance, the presence of more Gospel books indicates a priority in copying, and therefore using them. More broadly, looking at a survey of the contents of manuscripts over time, we can observe interesting trends. Tommy Wasserman observes that the contents appear to proceed from liturgical material. The collection of works contained in P72 (mentioned above) has inspired investigations for decades. Scholars have considered how the unusual order of the contents may reveal the developing use of the codex and compiling collections of scripture (see Edgar Ebojo’s “A Scribe and His Manuscript”). P46, the earliest manuscript of Paul’s letters, orders the books differently than any other manuscript, placing Hebrews just after Romans and Ephesians before Galatians. Content and arrangement of material can indicate habits of a manuscript’s scribe or the exemplar(s) he copied from. The contents of a New Testament manuscript provide a glimpse into the lives of each individual document and the larger context of their history. While scholars have discovered some broken and scattered pages to belong to the same manuscript others remain yet to be reunited. Finally, we know that manuscripts were sometimes dismantled. While the compilations probably grew more common with time, we also must consider that older manuscripts have probably experienced more wear and could lack portions simply because time and the elements took them. New Testament books copied in later centuries are more likely to contain a collection of books or even an entire New Testament. Also, we find that certain books, namely John, appear to have been copied more than others, such as Mark, especially among earlier copies. The papyrus codex, the earliest book material used for New Testament scriptures, was physically limited to a smaller amount of content than the later parchment codex. In early centuries, the books likely circulated individually or in smaller collections. That means 99.9 percent of Greek New Testament manuscripts contain a collection of some of the books, a single book, a few leaves, or even just a fragment of New Testament text.Ī few different reasons may account for the different content arrangements found among Greek New Testament manuscripts. ![]() In fact, only 61 manuscripts hold the entire New Testament. The great majority of manuscripts on the K-Liste contain only a portion of the New Testament. ![]() To help keep track of these manuscripts, the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Munster maintains a catalog called the “Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments,” or the “Short List of Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament.” (For convenience, many scholars simply call it, the “K-Liste” or “Liste.”) And thousands of these “witnesses” exist around the world. Today, we have evidence of this preservation tradition in the form of ancient manuscripts, each bearing witness to the words of its source. For these individuals, the New Testament is a body of literary work, written by the followers of Jesus and then preserved through the centuries via a manuscript tradition. ![]() New Testament scholars, however, think of the New Testament in broader terms. Mention the New Testament in conversation, and most people likely think of the final third of a printed Bible, available in almost any bookstore or library in a variety of translations and languages. ![]()
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