Christian apologists for years have appealed to what is called the bibliographic test to demonstrate the reliability of the transmission of the New Testament documents when compared to other ancient documents. I first encountered this argument in John Warwick Montgomery’s book History and Christianity (pp. 26-29) and Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict (pp. 47-48). Needless to say, things have changed since both of these authors compiled their materials. (McDowell’s book was published 1972 and the material from Montgomery dates back to 1964.) In a recent article in the Christian Research Journal Clay Jones has updated the comparisons noting some interesting changes. I’ll give four examples. The number of manuscripts reported of Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey was only 643. Clay notes that “the most recent number of Iliad manuscripts is 1,757.” (33) With regard to Plato, “The Plato Microfilm Project lists 210 manuscripts, rather than the previously reported seven. The oldest surviving manuscript was copied by John the Calligrapher in 895, leaving the gap unchanged.” (33) “Thucydides chronicled the Athenian war against the Peloponnesians. The text of Thucydides is still based primarily on eight manuscripts but it is important to note that some papyri fragments with a third century BC date. These papyri narrow the previously reported date by 1,150 years!” (33) Finally, we come to Pliny the Elder. “Instead of seven, there are approximately two hundred MS of his Natural History, mostly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, an MS fragment from the end of the fifth century survives, which narrows the previous gap by 250 years.” (33)

In spite of many of these updates the New Testament still offers an embarrassment of riches with an additional 429 manuscripts to report. The latest tally from February 4, 2010 shows “minuscules (lower case letters) = 2,903; majuscules (uncials or capital letters) = 320; papyri = 127; lectionaries = 2,445 for a total of 5,795. The earliest NT Greek MS we have is still the John Ryland’s Papyrus (P52), which Bart Ehrman dates to ‘125-130, plus or minus twenty-five years.’” (34)

Clay Jones is associate professor in the master of arts in Christian apologetics program at Biola University. You can find his blog here. The post for this material can be found here.

A Comparison of Ancient Works with the New Testament

(Numbers in parenthesis are the previously reported dates as found in Josh McDowell’s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 1999).

Author

Work

Earliest MSS

Time Gap

Old #

New
Homer

Iliad

c. 400   BC

400

643

1,757
Herodotus

History

10th   C

1,350

8

109
Sophocles

Plays

3rd C BC

100-200

100

193
Plato

Tetralogies

895

1,300

7

210
Caesar

Gallic Wars

9th   C

950

10

251
Livy

History of Rome

Early 5th   C

400

1   Partial, 19 copies

150
Tacitus

Annals

1st   half: 850,

2nd:   1050 (AD 1100)

750-950

20

2 + 31   15th C
Pliny, the Elder

Natural History

5th   C. fragment: 1; Rem 14-15th C

400(750)

7

200
Thucydides

History

3rd   C BC (AD 900)

200 (1,350)

8

96
Demonsthenes

Speeches

Some   fragments from 1 C. BC. (AD 1100)

1,100 +   (1,400)

200

340
NT

AD 130   (or less)

40

5,366

5,795