ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT
COMPARISON CHART
Author
Date
Written
Earliest Copy
Approximate Time
Span between
original & copy
# of
Copies
Accuracy of
Copies
Lucretius
died 55 or 53
B.C.
1100 yrs
2
----
Pliny
A.D. 61-113
A.D. 850
750 yrs
7
----
Plato
427-347 B.C.
A.D. 900
1200 yrs
7
----
Demosthenes
4th Cent. B.C.
A.D. 1100
800 yrs
8
----
Herodotus
480-425 B.C.
A.D. 900
1300 yrs
8
----
Suetonius
A.D. 75-160
A.D. 950
800 yrs
8
----
Thucydides
460-400 B.C.
A.D. 900
1300 yrs
8
----
Euripides
480-406 B.C.
A.D. 1100
1300 yrs
9
----
Aristophanes
450-385 B.C.
A.D. 900
1200
10
----
Caesar
100-44 B.C.
A.D. 900
1000
10
----
Livy
59 BC-AD 17
----
???
20
----
Tacitus
circa A.D. 100
A.D. 1100
1000 yrs
20
----
Aristotle
384-322 B.C.
A.D. 1100
1400
49
----
Sophocles
496-406 B.C.
A.D. 1000
1400 yrs
193
----
Homer (Iliad)
900 B.C.
400 B.C.
500 yrs
643
95%
New
Testament
1st Cent. A.D.
(A.D. 50-100)
2nd Cent. A.D.
(c. A.D. 130 f.)
less than 100 years
5600
99.5%
NOTES:
There are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing.
The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure.
In addition, there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic
languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.
SOURCE: Christian Apologetics and Resource Ministry - https://carm.org/manuscript-evidence
EVIDENCE THAT THE NEW TESTAMENT
WAS WRITTEN IN THE 1
st
CENTURY
In the 1830s German scholars of the Tübingen school tried to date the books as late as the 3rd
century, but the discovery of some New Testament manuscripts and fragments from the 2nd and 3rd
centuries, one of which dates as early as 125 AD (Papyrus 52), disproves a 3rd-century date of
composition for any book now in the New Testament.
Additionally, a letter to the church at Corinth in the name of Clement of Rome in 95 AD quotes from
10 of the 27 books of the New Testament, and a letter to the church at Philippi in the name of
Polycarp in 120 quotes from 16 New Testament books.
Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.) was a student of the Apostle John. He was martyred, killed by Lions
in the arena in Rome. After his arrest and during his transportation to Rome, he wrote seven letters
(later, some obviously spurious additional letters were attributed to him – these are ignored here).
The letters of Ignatius, written very close to 107 A.D., quote from several New Testament books as
well.
EVIDENCE FOR JESUS AND THE EARLY
CHURCH FROM NON-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in
A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:
Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus,
from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ...
Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in
Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome....
Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of
Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In
one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to
conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians. Pliny says that he needed to
consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood
accused of Christianity. At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has
learned about these Christians:
They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a
hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to
commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to
deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an
ordinary and innocent kind.
Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early
Christians as follows:
The Christians ... worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and
was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers,
from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live
after his laws.
Sometime after 70AD, a Syrian philosopher named Mara Bar-Serapion, writing to encourage his
son, compared the life and persecution of Jesus with that of other philosophers who were persecuted
for their ideas. The fact Jesus is known to be a real person with this kind of influence is important.
Mara Bar-Serapion refers to Jesus as the “Wise King”:
What benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as
judgment for their crime. Or, the people of Samos for burning Pythagoras? In one moment their country was
covered with sand. Or the Jews by murdering their wise king?…After that their kingdom was abolished. God
rightly avenged these men…The wise king…Lived on in the teachings he enacted.
We can learn quite a bit about Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus, two famous historians who were
not Christian. Almost all the following statements about Jesus, which are asserted in the New
Testament, are corroborated or confirmed by the relevant passages in Tacitus and Josephus. These
independent historical sources—one a non-Christian Roman and the other Jewish—confirm what we
are told in the Gospels:31
1. He existed as a man. The historian Josephus grew up in a priestly family in first-century
Palestine and wrote only decades after Jesus’ death. Jesus’ known associates, such as
Jesus’ brother James, were his contemporaries. The historical and cultural context was
second nature to Josephus. “If any Jewish writer were ever in a position to know about the
non-existence of Jesus, it would have been Josephus. His implicit affirmation of the
existence of Jesus has been, and still is, the most significant obstacle for those who argue
that the extra-Biblical evidence is not probative on this point,” Robert Van Voorst observes.
And Tacitus was careful enough not to report real executions of nonexistent people.
2. His personal name was Jesus, as Josephus informs us.
3. He was called Christos in Greek, which is a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, both
of which mean “anointed” or “(the) anointed one,” as Josephus states and Tacitus implies,
unaware, by reporting, as Romans thought, that his name was Christus.
4. He had a brother named James (Jacob), as Josephus reports.
5. He won over both Jews and “Greeks” (i.e., Gentiles of Hellenistic culture), according to
Josephus, although it is anachronistic to say that they were “many” at the end of his life.
Large growth in the number of Jesus’ actual followers came only after his death.
6. Jewish leaders of the day expressed unfavorable opinions about him, Josephus records.
7. Pilate rendered the decision that he should be executed, as both Tacitus and Josephus
state.
8. His execution was specifically by crucifixion, according to Josephus.
9. He was executed during Pontius Pilate’s governorship over Judea (26–36 C.E.), as
Josephus implies and Tacitus states, adding that it was during Tiberius’s reign.
