In this video Dan Wallace discusses the recent discovery of seven New Testament manuscripts. All of these are less than a leaf so they are not very long but the dating is what is extraordinary. If Dan’s estimations prove correct these could be some of the earliest extant manuscripts. He says they have seven total: one from Matthew, one from Luke, one from Mark and four from Paul (one from Hebrews, one from 1 Corinthians and one from Romans). If the dating is right all four of these Pauline manuscripts will be older than our oldest current manuscript which is P46 (dated around 200). The highlight of this discovery is the Markan fragment which could be as early as first century. The Luke fragment could be as old as P52 (a fragment of John 18) which is dated between 100 -150. A book will be released some time in 2013 from E. J. Brill.
Nobody seems to ask where the fragments were found, so I’ll do it. Where were they found? What’s the story?