![]() 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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