There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament. Look at these comparisons: Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph) Pliny the Younger's Natural History (7 manuscripts 750 years elapsed) Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts 1,300 years elapsed) Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts 1,350 years elapsed) Plato (7 manuscripts 1,300 years) and Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts 1,000 years). Interestingly, this manuscript evidence far surpasses the manuscript reliability of other ancient writings that we trust as authentic every day. 4 Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original autographs and our earliest existing fragment being a remarkably short 40-60 years. The manuscript evidence for the " New Testament" is also dramatic, with nearly 25,000 ancient manuscripts discovered and archived so far, at least 5,600 of which are copies and fragments in the original Greek. 2 The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Israel in the 1940's and 50's, also provide astounding evidence for the reliability of the ancient transmission of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. 1 In addition, these texts substantially agree with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which was translated from Hebrew to Greek some time during the 3rd century BC. Remarkably, there are thousands of existing Old Testament manuscripts and fragments copied throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean and European regions that agree phenomenally with each other. In the end, it might just end up back on eBay after all - though the starting price might be a bit more than $99.Dramatically, when the Bible manuscripts are compared to other ancient writings, they stand alone as the best-preserved literary works of all antiquity. Smith wants him to donate it to a research library. The seller has reportedly been "harassed by collectors offering him absurd amounts of money," while Dr. Smith has had a chance to analyze the rare find, it isn't clear what will happen to the fragment. The eBay seller, who is a descendant of the late professor, recently found the small piece of papyrus while going through Dr. After his death in 1962, his private collection, which included numerous other ancient texts, went into storage. Willoughby, who was a professor of early Christianity at the University of Chicago. Codexes, an early form of the book, was overwhelming used by early Christians - up to 97 percent of all known examples of ancient biblical texts come from such documents.īut where did this eBay seller find such a rare piece? It turns out the fragment came from the collection of Harold R. It turns out the fragment is not just any Greek New Testament papyrus - it's special because it appears to come from a scroll, rather than a codex. Now, the religion scholar is getting ready to publish his research. He met with the buyer, who let the researcher analyze the ancient text. It will just disappear into a private collection." According to The New York Times, he reached out to the seller and encouraged him to take down the listing. ![]() ![]() Smith immediately decided, "This can’t be allowed to sell on eBay. And searches in a database of known New Testament manuscripts showed no such artifact - this was a "new" find for the scholarly community.ġ,700-year-old papyrus was unknown to the academic communityĭr. It was John I, 50-51, from the New Testament. The fragment had six partial lines of text on it, written in Greek. Back in January, Geoffrey Smith, an assistant professor of early Christianity at the University of Texas, came across one such item: a 1,700-year-old papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John. While you're scouring eBay for Christmas presents, there are scholars and collectors out there who are keeping an eye out for one-of-a-kind finds.
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