A question for Christians about the Greek manuscripts?

Question

I just wanted to ask a question about the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. We know that we don't have the originals, but we have over 5,000 copies written in Greek. I read how a part of the gospel of John dates back to about 125 A.D. But my question is, how far back do the the Greek copies date back to? They must have found a load of Greek copies for every single book in the New Testament, otherwise we would have it today. But how far back do these over 5,000 copied manuscripts date back? Anybody know?

Answer 1

Of New Testament extant manuscripts, the earliest go all the way back to around A.D. 125, though most are probably extant to the 3rd and 4th centuries. In any regard, this is remarkable. There is no other writing of antiquity where the copies are so close to the originals. Even standards that we think nothing about, like Plato, the extant copies of Plato are 1200 years after Plato's death. For the New Testament it is mere decades giving the New Testament an unheard of historical and documentary veracity.



In order for Protestants to exercise the principles of sola Scriptura they first have to accept the antecedent premise of what books constitute Scripture - in particular, the New Testament books. This is not as simple as it may seem at first, accustomed as we are to accepting without question the New Testament as we have it today. Although indeed there was, roughly speaking, a broad consensus in the early Church as to what books were scriptural, there still existed enough divergence of opinion to reasonably cast doubt on the Protestant concepts of the Bible's self-authenticating nature, and the self-interpreting maxim of perspicuity. The following overview of the history of acceptance of biblical books (and also non-biblical ones as Scripture) will help the reader to avoid over-generalizing or over-simplifying the complicated historical process by which we obtained our present Bible.



A Visual Diagram of the History of the New Testament Canon (all sources are Protestant)

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/11/new-testament-canon.html

Answer 2

I'm not sure where you get your figures. I think the last I heard, which was quite a few years ago, we have over 500 Greek manuscripts dating to before 500 AD, and over 5000 manuscripts in Greek latin and other languages dated before 1000 AD. I think there is a lot of variation in what these contain. Some may contain just the Gospel of Mark; some may contain just the Pastoral Epistles of Paul; some may contain just portions of various books. Relatively few contain all the books. These are weighed by scholars as having varying degrees of authority when coming up with a most reliable Greek text for translation. Nevertheless the New Testament is by far the best attested set of documents from the ancient world. I understand besides these, the writings of the New Testament are quoted so often in the Church Fathers that even if we had no ancient manuscripts of the books of the New Testament, we could reconstruct almost the entire New Testament just from the quotes of the early Church Fathers.



http://www.bible.ca/b-new-testament-documents-f-f-bruce.htm

Answer 3

The Greek manuscripts date back to just after the death of Christ, so I would assume around 40-50 A.D.

Answer 4

מחמד = Muhamad (transliteration)



מ = M = م



ח = H = ح



מ = M = م



ד = D = د

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prophesised in the Bible in several places.



Deuteronomy 18:18

Isaiah 29:12

Song of Solomon 5:16

John 16:7

John 16:12-14



محمد = The four Arabic Letters above being linked into 1 Word which is Prophet Muhamed in Arabic.





Use a dictionary or online translation link to check the meaning of the Hebrew word "מַחֲמַדִּ" in English:

http://www.freetranslation.com/



One of the signs of the prophet to come from Paran (Mecca) is that he will come with "ten thousands of saints" (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV). That was the number of faithful who accompanied Prophet Muhammad to Paran (Mecca) ..

Muhammad was predicted to come in the Gospel of John:

Answer 5

Here's a pretty good, short resource: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html



We know that John was written sometime less than 80 years after the events it details, but that's a conservative estimate. The book is more likely written within 50 years.

Answer 6

ok we could see. KJV...John 3:16For God so enjoyed the international, that he gave his in basic terms begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shouldn't perish, yet have eternal existence. New dwelling Translation...sixteen “For God enjoyed the international lots that he gave his one and in basic terms Son, so as that all of us who believes in him won't perish yet have eternal existence. The King James is 499 years previous. Do you rather think of God further his word our of obscurity and gave it to us in basic terms to permit it to fall decrease back into obscurity by fact of shifting languages? the King James Bible is great, however the definitions of many many English words have replaced by fact it become written and so which you will besides be analyzing Latin.

Answer 7

@ Batman



Morning, my friend. I saw no undercurrent in what you wrote at all, but it could be misinterpreted. To those who choose to misinterpret, now is not the time for theopolitical point-scoring. We're all in this together.

Answer 8

how they made copies?

Answer 9

i.