![]() Material from the gospels is found in 2,328 manuscripts, Acts and the universal letters in another 655 manuscripts, Paul’s writings in 779 manuscripts and the Book of Revelation in 287. Two other uncial manuscripts and another one hundred forty-seven minuscule manuscripts contain the entire New Testament except for the Book of Revelation. There are fifty-six minuscule manuscripts that contain the entire New Testament. For example, of 5,500 Greek manuscripts that have been catalogued, most are fragmentary. When we speak of manuscripts, we are not necessarily speaking of complete manuscripts. They Are Not Necessarily Complete Manuscripts The surviving Greek manuscripts can be catalogued as follows: Uncial 299, Minuscule 2,812, Lectionaries 2,281 and Papyri 120. Fragments of lectionaries come from as early as the sixth century A.D., while complete manuscripts are found as early as the eighth century. These fixed portions are the lectionaries. In the same manner, Christians developed a practice where they would read a fixed portion of the gospels and the New Testament letters every Sunday as well as upon Holy Days. The church followed the custom of the synagogue which had a fixed portion of the Law and the Prophets read each Sabbath. The fourth witness to the New Testament text are Scripture portions known as lectionaries. Minuscule writing was in use from the ninth to the sixteenth century. By using minuscule writing, books could be turned out much faster. ![]() Minuscule writing was a script of smaller letters not as carefully executed as uncials. In the ninth century A.D., uncial writing began to be replaced by a faster method known as minuscule writing. The uncial manuscripts were basically written between the fourth and tenth centuries-there are five fragmentary uncials that date from the third century. There was no punctuation in the sentence and no space between the words. Uncial writing consists of upper-case letters that are deliberately and carefully written. It has been estimated that it would have taken the hides of about 360 sheep and goats to produce Codex Sinaiticus (an uncial manuscript that contained the entire Greek Old Testament and New Testament). There are approximately three hundred uncial manuscripts of the New Testament-all written on parchment (animal skins). The name is derived from the inch high size of the letters. The second line of evidence to reconstruct the text of the New Testament is the uncial (inch high) manuscripts. p75 or by a capital P followed by the number, e.g. These papyrus manuscripts are designated by the letter “p” followed by a superscript Arabic number (e.g. There are now some one hundred and fifteen. At the turn of the twentieth century there were only nine known papyrus fragments that contained parts of the New Testament. In fact, sixty-five of the earliest New Testament fragments we possess were written on papyri (all dating before A.D. The papyrus fragments that have survived contain some of the earliest witnesses to the New Testament text. Strips of the papyrus reeds were pressed together to make this writing material-which is extremely perishable, surviving only in warm, dry climates. Papyrus is the surface upon which the originals (autographs) of the New Testament were composed. The first group of manuscripts, the papyri, is named after the material they were written upon. These manuscripts are categorized according to writing material (papyri), the style of the letters (uncial and minuscule manuscripts) and the format of the document (lectionaries). The oldest and most important evidence to reconstruct the New Testament text are the Greek manuscripts. They are the Greek manuscripts, the versions and the writings of the church fathers. In the case of the New Testament there are three lines of evidence available to reconstruct the original. There Are Three Lines of Evidence to Establish the Text Thus, we are left with hand-written copies (manuscripts) and copies of copies to establish the original text. What Different Sources Are Used to Establish the Text of the New Testament?Īs far as we know, the autographs (originals) of all of the New Testament books have perished long ago.
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