From the third and up to the tenth century, all of the identified Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were called uncials as they had been copied using capital letters. The characters were written one letter at a time with each letter unconnected to the adjacent ones, and without punctuation or separating marks. By the 1990’s there had been approximately two hundred fifty such manuscripts identified. From the ninth century onward through to the advent of movable type other manuscripts were found which were then known as minuscules for their size. These had been copied in cursive script. By the end of the twentieth century there were about twenty five hundred of these Koine or Byzantine texts that had been made available to scholars.
As mentioned in my last post there are literally thousands of fragments of either portions or the full text of every book in the New Testament. Through the fragments scholars have assembled the bulk of Acts and Romans, all of First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Titus, Philemon, most of Hebrews, all of James, First and Second Peter, First, Second and Third John, Jude, and two-thirds of Revelation. Through these means we possess good copies of the entire New Testament.
Once again, the archaeological and historic finds continue to demonstrate the completeness of God’s Word and the remarkable effort that was made through the preceding two millennia to maintain the purity of the documents. The New Testament is the most thoroughly documented and available of all ancient texts.
Those who deny the accuracy and historicity of the text of the New Testament simply have no ground upon which to stand. We can have the greatest confidence in what we possess, if we will but take the time to scrutinize and to understand the words placed before our eyes and given now in our own tongues. And we can verify the accuracy of the original text should we choose to.
We have God’s Word. What do you suppose we should be doing with it?
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will by no means pass away.
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
(John 14: 5, 6)