Links to Various NT Manuscripts and Sites

[GandalfTheWise]

For those who are interested, here are some links to sites dedicated to studies of NT manuscripts.  Few Christians ever take the time to see what real manuscripts look like.  We are at the beginning of a new era in manuscript studies.  In the past, seeing manuscripts was usually restricted to scholars with access to museums.  Now, some groups are committed to creating high quality digitization of NT manuscripts so that anyone can access them.

http://www.csntm.org/manuscript/View/GA_P46_Mich  is a link to images of P46, a papyrus manuscript containing much of Paul's writings.  It is dated between 175-225 AD.  It is in the Alexandrian family of text types.  It is at the University of Michigan.  It is the existence of extant papyrus manuscripts like this that support earlier datings of the NT books.  Finding very old handwritten collections of Paul's writings on more fragile materials like this is solid evidence for earlier datings of the NT.  

http://www.csntm.org/Blog/Archive/2017/9/6/HelpsforReaders_GA773  This is a blog entry at the CSNTM (Center for Study of New Testament Manuscripts) describing a rather unique manuscript.  This is an interesting post to read.

http://images.csntm.org/PublishedWorks/Erasmus_1516/Erasmus1516_0001a.jpg shows the first page of Matthew in Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum.  This is the first edition of the family of eclectic texts collectively referred to as the Textus Receptus.   http://images.csntm.org/PublishedWorks/Stephanus_1550/Stephanus_1550_0001a.jpg is the first page of Matthew in Stephanus' 1550 3rd edition.  http://images.csntm.org/PublishedWorks/Bezae_NT_1588/Bezae_NT_1588_0001a.jpg is the link to Beza's 1588 version of the NT.  His 1598 version is the one heavily relied upon by the KJV translators.  

http://images.csntm.org/PublishedWorks/JohnMillNovumTestamentum1707/Mill_NovumTestamentum_1707_0001a.jpg  is the first page of Matthew in  John Mills' version of the Greek New Testament.  This sadly largely unknown work was a 30 year labor where Mills used 100 manuscripts and documented 30000 variations among the various texts.  To a large extent, Mills was the one of the first textual scholars who seriously started considering the differences between manuscripts and tried to systematically document those differences.

The csntm.org site contains a wealth of information about various NT manuscripts.  It is interesting to explore this site and just see what various manuscripts look like.

http://digital.bib-bvb.de/view/bvbmets/viewer.0.6.1.jsp?folder_id=0&dvs=1520192375694~807&pid=6970294&locale=en&usePid1=true&usePid2=true is an interesting link.  It is to the sole manuscript Erasmus had for Revelation.  folio 94r (abbreviated fol94r in the TOC) is the final page.  This manuscript appears to be a commentary on Revelation so the text is mixed with commentary.  It is interesting that it appears that this manuscript was not completed.  The final few verses and commentary on them were not written.  There are blank pages following the final page.  This single manuscript is the primary source of the text of Revelation found in the KJV.  EDIT[You might need to click the reload session link if the main display does not load for this page.]

https://greekcntr.org/manuscripts.htm is an interesting project collating and comparing all manuscripts dated prior to 400AD.   Alan Bunning  is writing some interesting code and pioneering some interesting methods for comparing large numbers of manuscripts.  Note that this site is primarily the work of one person who is exploring new ways of working with texts of ancient manuscripts.  I would read his material and comments as a work in progress.  As more people get involved, this type of methodology has the potential of turning the entire world of textual studies upside down.  Computers have all but made concordances and old reference works such as Nave's topical Bible and the Thomson Chain Reference Bible obsolete.  This type of work might very well make some aspects of text comparison similarly obsolete.

A few observations most people miss when talking about manuscripts.  

The earliest Christians copying manuscripts were concerned with the word and message.  These were likely hand copied by individuals or local churches and those passionate about spreading the gospel.  For these Christians, these handwritten copies were their only source of the NT.  This was their NT that they read.  My guess is that many of these earliest ones (of which P46 mentioned above is possibly an example) were the primary NT that many local churches used.   

As the church became more institutionalized (and grew in influence and had more monetary resources), more effort could be spend on more ornate copies of scripture.  Hence, 1000  years later, manuscripts like GA773 (in the CSNTM blog post above) became more common.  Professional copyists could be hired to produce many copies.  In addition, 1000 years later, the Greek speaking world had shrunk from much of the eastern Mediterranean to the Byzantine empire (largely centered around Greece).   The combination of most Greek speakers in the world being concentrated in one location with the relative wealthiness of the church in the Byzantine empire lead to them produce huge numbers of Greek copies of the NT compared to anywhere else in the world.