Principal Manuscript Evidence for
the Greek New Testament

No ancient literature has survived in its original form; everything we have is derived from copies of the originals. The NT is no exception. However, in comparison with any other ancient literature, the NT is without a peer—both in terms of the chronological proximity and the surviving number. Several ancient authorities are preserved in only a handful of manuscripts. Not so with the NT. There are approximately 5,500 Greek witnesses, ranging in date from the second century AD into the middle ages. Besides the Greek evidence, there are nearly 30,000 versional copies (e.g., Latin, Coptic, and Syriac), and over 1,000,000 quotations from the NT in the church Fathers. NT textual criticism has always had an embarrassment of riches unparalleled in any other field.

The Greek Witnesses

The Greek witnesses are by far the most important, since in large measure they represent some of our earliest witnesses and since they involve direct reproduction from Greek to Greek. There are four kinds of Greek witnesses: papyri, uncials (or majuscules), minuscules (or cursives), and lectionaries. The first three are important enough to warrant some discussion here.

Papyri

These documents are written on the cheap writing materials of the ancient world that were roughly equivalent to modern paper. Literally thousands of papyrus fragments have been found of which approximately 100 contain portions of the New Testament. Actually, taken together, these 100 fragments constitute over half of the New Testament and all but four are in the form of codices (i.e., four are scrolls rather than the book-form [codex]). All NT papyri were written with uncial or capital letters. They range in date from the early second century through the eighth century. About 50 of them are to be dated before the fourth century. Though many of them are somewhat fragmentary, and at times the copying was looser than one would like (i.e., they were done before the canon was officially recognized), they are nonetheless extremely important for establishing the text of the New Testament—if for no other reason than the fact that they represent some of the most ancient witnesses we possess. Six important papyri are illustrated in the chart below. The symbol for each papyrus is Ì followed by a number (e.g., Ì45). The most important papyri cited in the NET NT footnotes are as follows:

Papyri
Name
Date
NT Books Covered
General Characteristics
Ì45
Chester Beatty papyrus
3rd century AD
Gospels, Acts 4-17
Mark (Caesarean); Matt, Luke, John (intermediate between Alexandrian and Western texttypes)
Ì46
Chester Beatty papyrus
c. AD 200
10 Pauline Epistles (all but Pastorals) and Hebrews
Overall closer to Alexandrian than Western
Ì47
Chester Beatty papyrus
3rd century AD
Revelation 9:10-17:2
Alexandrian; often agrees with Sinaiticus (Í)
Ì66
Bodmer Papyrus
c. AD 200
John
Mixed text between Western and Alexandrian
Ì75
Bodmer papyrus
Early 3rd century
Luke and John
Alexandrian, often agrees with B

Uncials

There are approximately 300 uncials known to exist today that contain portions of the New Testament and one uncial that contains the entire NT. Like the papyri, these manuscripts were written with uncial or capital letters, but unlike the papyri they were written on animal skins or vellum. For the most part they are beautiful manuscripts, elegantly written and routinely done in scriptoria and often for special purposes. Generally speaking, they range in date from the fourth through the ninth centuries. Our oldest complete copy of the NT is an uncial manuscript, Í (see chart below). The symbol for each uncial is either a capital letter (in Latin or Greek letters [though one MS has a Hebrew letter, Í) or a number beginning with 0 (e.g., 01, 0220, etc.). The most important uncials cited in the NET NT footnotes are as follows:

Uncial
Name
Date (approx.)
NT Books Covered
General Characteristics

Í (01)
Aleph or Sinaiticus
fourth century
The entire NT
Alexandrian; best in epistles
A (02)
Alexandrinus
fifth century
Most of the NT
Important in the Epistles and Revelation
B (03)
Vaticanus
fourth century
Most of NT except Hebrews 9:14ff, the Pastorals, Phlm, Rev
Alexandrian; best in Gospels
C (04)
Ephraemi Rescriptus
fifth century
Portions of every book except 2 Thess and 2 John
mixed
D (05)
Bezae/Cantabrigiensis
5th century
Gospels and Acts
Western
D (06)
Claromontanus
6th century
Pauline Epistles and Hebrews
Western
F (010)
Augiensis
9th century
Pauline Epistles
Western
G (012)
Boernerianus
9th century
Pauline Epistles
Western
L (019)
Regius
8th century
Gospels
Often agrees with Vaticanus
W (032)
Washingtonianus
early fifth century
Gospels
mixed; earliest representation of Byzantine text-type. Alexandrian in John 5:12-21:25.
Q (038)
Koridethi
ninth century
Gospels
The text of Mark is similar to that used by Origen and Eusebius in the third and fourth centuries at Caesarea
Y (044)
Athous Laurae
8th/9th century
Gospels/Acts/Paul/
General Epistles
Contains Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine influences

Minuscules

There are approximately 2813 NT Greek minuscule manuscripts known to us today. These copies range in date from the ninth to sixteenth centuries, were produced on vellum or paper, and were written in cursive or a lower-case, flowing hand. They are the best representatives of the medieval ecclesiastical text, that is, the Byzantine text. There are approximately 150-200 that deviate from the Byzantine standard, almost always representing an earlier transmissional stream and hence are quite important for NT textual criticism. The symbols for the minuscules are of four kinds: (a) arabic numbers (e.g., 1, 565, 1739), each of which represents one manuscript; “family 1,” [Ë1] “family 13” [Ë13] (involving a group of closely associated manuscripts); Byz (involving the majority of Byzantine minuscules); Ï (representing the majority of minuscules). The following are among the more important witnesses cited in the NET NT notes:

Minuscule
Date (approx.)
NT Books Covered
General Characteristics
33
9th century
Gospels, Acts, Paul, Catholic Epistles
Alexandrian
81
AD 1044
Acts, Paul, Catholic Epistles
Very important for establishing the text of Acts. Agrees substantially with the Alexandrian texttype.
1739
10th century, but probably goes back to a late 4th century ms
Acts, Paul, Catholic Epistles
Alexandrian
Family 1 (Ë1)
12th-14th centuries
Gospels
Caesarean (of the 3rd or 4th centuries)
Family 13 (Ë13)
11th-15th centuries
Gospels
Important in the discussion of the authenticity of the pericope adulterae (i.e., John 7:53-8:11)