NUMBER OF MANUSCRIPTS: [1916]

Old Testament

• Few Copies in existence
• Antiquity and destructibility
• Animal skins do not survive long under normal climactic conditions
• Hebrews lived out of a "suitcase"
• Jerusalem conquered 47 times form 1800 B.C. until 1947 A.D.,
• Scribal Laws
  • Demanded burial of old, worn manuscripts
  • If it contained an error it was systematically and religiously destroyed
• Masoretes systematically and completely destroyed all manuscripts which did not conform to their vocalized and standardized text.

New Testament

• Many copies & pieces
• Earliest P52 John Rylands Fragment (A.D. 117-38)
  • Portion of John 18:31-33, 37-38
• Most of New Testament in P45, 46, 47 (A.D. 250)
• Where the old testament had few copies the New Testament has many copies which can be compared.

(Lesson adapted in part from your text and A General Introduction to the Bible by Norman Geisler and William Nix)

Last Updated 24 February, 2000