Dan Wallace is professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM), the purpose of which is digitizing all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament via digital photographs. According to Wallace, “The total number of catalogued Greek New Testament manuscripts now stands at 128 papyri, 322 majuscules, 2926 minuscules, and 2462 lectionaries, bringing the grand total to 5,838 manuscripts.”
Papyri were written on papyrus and are generally considered to be the most ancient witnesses to the Greek New Testament. A minuscule is a copy of a portion of the New Testament written in a small, cursive Greek script. Most of the minuscules are still written on parchment. A style of writing called Majuscule or Uncial is a section of the New Testament in Greek or Latin majuscule letters (i.e. all capital letters), written on parchment or vellum, also more ancient than minuscules. The image above is Minuscule 2445 (Gregory-Aland), a page of the codex with text of Mark 8:13-29 from the 12th century. A New Testament Lectionary is a handwritten copy of a lectionary, or book of New Testament Bible readings. Lectionaries may be written in uncial or minuscule Greek letters, on parchment, papyrus, vellum, or paper.
Yesterday [August 26, 2013], Wallace reported on the latest Greek New Testament minuscules: Gregory-Aland 2916, 2925, and 2926. Wallace writes:
In the summer of 2012, a team from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (www.csntm.org) photographed several Greek New Testament manuscripts at the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Among the manuscripts digitized were two new Gregory-Aland members: 2916 and 2925. Codex 2916 is a thirteenth (or possibly later) century Gospels manuscript on parchment, comprising 270 leaves of text. Its shelf number is Gennadius Κυριαζις 20 or K 20.
Gennadius 266 has now been given the catalog number 2925. It is sixteenth-century Gospels manuscript written on paper, comprising 99 leaves of text. Up until a couple of weeks ago, it was the latest addition to the INTF’s inventory of minuscule manuscripts, but a codex at the Jerusalem Greek Orthodox Patriarchate is now numbered 2926. It also is from the sixteenth century, written on paper, and comprising just 74 leaves.
Between 2916 and 2925 eight other minuscules have been catalogued. They are housed at the Biliotheque nationale Paris, the Vatican, and Biblioteca nazionale Marciana Venice, Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, the monasteries of Esphigmenou and Iviron on Mt. Athos, and the Biblioteca de el Escorial. (source)
Once again, this brings the grand total of New Testament manuscripts to 5,838. This figure far surpasses any other classical literature. In fact, the average classical author’s literary remains number no more than twenty copies! According to Wallace,
We have more than 1,000 times the manuscript data for the NT than we do for the average Greco-Roman author. Not only this, but the extant manuscripts of the average classical author are no earlier than 500 years after the time he wrote. For the NT, we are waiting mere decades for surviving copies. The very best classical author in terms of extant copies is Homer: manuscripts of Homer number less than 2,400, compared to the NT manuscripts that are approximately ten times that amount. (source)
Below is a chart adapted by Justin Taylor of the Gospel Coalition from something Dr. Wallace compiled in his book Re-Inventing Jesus. This demonstrates how other ancient Greco-Roman works can’t compare to the New Testament in terms of number of surviving copies as well as the date of oldest existing manuscripts:
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