What is the oldest known ancient copy of the New Testament, what is its date? where can it be found?

Answer 1

The oldest known fragment is the John Ryland papyri. It's a fragment from the gospel according to John. Most people date it around 120 CE. You can just do google search on it and find plenty. You might also want to search for p-66.

Answer 2

There are no ancient copies of the New Testament. The 27 books weren't consolidated until the fourth century.

The earlier versions of the individual books have a high degree of variation, meaning none of the copies are the same.

What you are reading in a modern - post KJV New Testament is a highly edited, highly creative selection and translation of the available stories.

Answer 3

The New Testament consist of 27 books written over a 50-55 year period. It was originally existed has scrolls, not books, so it was limited in length. No complete collections of all 27 "books" in a single volume were made until after 200AD, when the codex (an early form of a book) was invented.

The early manuscripts (again before 200AD and the invention of vellum) are all on papyrus, which tends to disintegrate with age. So few manuscripts remain of the New Testament (or any books) from before 250AD. Those that do are often in fragments.

So of those that do exist include fragments from which 72% of the letters of Paul have been reconstructed, including all 13 of his known writings. Working on the remain fragments of the scroll may recover more or all of the letters. They manuscript (called p47) appears to date from aroun 100-125AD

A copy of the gospel of John from which 809 of the 893 verses can be reconstructed. Appears to date from around 125 AD (John was written around 90-100AD). A recently found fragment of John chapter 8 which appears to date from 117AD (based on the date of the tomb in which it was found).

There exist two incomplete (due to damage) copies of Matthew and an incomplete copy of Luke (due to damage) that appear to date from the late first century.

There are additional fragments that date from earlier times, but most as no more than a dozen words on faded papyrus.

The early "complete" New Testament comes from around 200 AD. It contains all 27 books in codex form, and read identical to the text used today for translating Bibles.

From 200 on to around 350AD, and the Council of Nicene, the number of manuscripts explodes. There are over 2,300 different manuscripts (from whole NTs to single books) from before the time of the first "official" New Testament. They have been found all across Europe, Asia and Africa, show the distance to which the Christian faith had travelled. Many were held by groups that were not part of the "Roman" faith, nor participated in the Nicene Counsel which allegedly rewrote the NT. Yet these books are word for word indentical to what the Council would officially approve.

From there, to the time of the printing press, over 7,500 other Bible manscripts still exist. This does not include the Latin version (made in 400AD) which was more commonly distributed, or any other languages.

If the entire New Testament were disappear today, it would be possible to reconstruct it from letters, quotes, commentaries, teaching books, litergies, hymnals, prayer books, etc. all produced before 300AD.

Besides the manuscripts, there are quotes of the New Testament in other works known to have been written as far back as 70 AD. (Kind of hard to quote a book that wasn't written yet).

Answer 4

The New Testament as a whole was published by Constantine in the early 4th century.

The New Testament was organized by Iraneus of Lyons in the late 2nd century.

The books of the New Testament was written between the years 47-and 120 A.D.

Answer 5

Under fiction.

Answer 6

The Dead sea scrollls.