Five years ago, I published a series of blogposts on the earliest New Testament manuscripts, in one of which I tabulated all Greek manuscripts of all 27 NT books that have been dated to between 2nd and 4th century by both LDAB and NTVMR[1]. This particular post and the series have become the most viewed posts of my otherwise obscure blog. Recently, one reader posed a question, “Where can I find Bible manuscripts in typed text / digital form and not in images?” This is my attempt to answer that question:
The following table lists all New Testament manuscripts in Greek that have been dated to between 2nd and 4th century, and have been meticulously transcribed, by NTVMR. Every book of the New Testament have at least one transcript, with John, Matthew, Acts, Luke and Revelations having the most, i.e., at least 10. Under “NTVMR Transcript”, there are links to transcript pages at NTVMR, as well as links to manuscript workshop, where readers can compare the manuscript image with the transcript, and even contribute to the on-going transcription effort.
Incidentally, a documentary video titled “Fragments of Truth” was recently published on YouTube, which gives a helpful introduction to the New Testament manuscripts, and includes interviews with prominent scholars, albeit not all of them, in the related disciplines.
Related Posts:
References:
- ^1. New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room – INTF. Accessed May 6, 2023. http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de.