The information below comes form Andrews, Edward D. The New Testament Documents: Can They Be Trusted? Kindle ed., Christian Publishing House, 2017. pp. 29–94, 794–804. Footnotes 1–57. The purpose of this article is to explain how the New Testament and ancient books more broadly were written, copied, and produced in the first century and beyond, with a particular focus on the New Testament.

CHAPTER 1 The Making of New Testament Books

As Luke, Paul, Peter, Matthew, James, or Jude handed their authorized text off to be copied by others, i.e., published, what would it have looked like? What is the process that the New Testament writers would have followed to get their book ready to be published, copied by others? Once they were prepared for publication, how would they be copied throughout the centuries, up until the time of the printing press of 1455 C.E.?

As we open our Bible to the Gospel of Matthew, or the letter to the Romans, or any of the 27 books of the New Testament, how can we have confidence that what we are reading is a reflection of the original in our language? If we were to bring home from a bookstore a copy of the KJV, ASV, RSV, ESV, CSB, LEB, NASB, NLT, NIV, NRSV, UASV, or any of the other one hundred and fifty plus English translations, could we have confidence that what we are reading is, in fact, the Word of God? Some translations have footnotes throughout that say, “Other ancient MSS read ….” What exactly does that mean, and which is the Word of God: the words in the main text of our Bible, or the others below in the footnote?

The science and art of textual criticism have answered these questions and more. It is a science because there are rules and principles and a method or process that is to be followed if the textual scholar is to get back to the original reading. It is an art because the human agent needs to be balanced with those rules and principles. It is like driving a car. The driver needs to follow all driving rules as he stays between the lines of his side of the road to reach his destination. So too, the textual scholar needs to stay within the rules to reach his destination of establishing the original words of the original texts. However, the designers of the roads were not rigid to the point of making those two lines so narrow that there was no room for the driver to miss obstructions, which might be in his path. This extra room would help the driver to avoid objects that could result in a crash. The same holds true for the textual scholar having room within the lines of his field to prevent a wreck, causing him not to reach his desired destination, i.e., the original reading.

From ancient times until 1455 C.E., anything that was authored was done literally, by hand. A “manuscript” is a handwritten text. It did not matter if it were a poem, letter, receipt, book, or marriage certificate; it would still have been produced and copied by hand. In addition, it would mostly have been done one copy at a time in the early decades of Christianity. In the second century C.E., it may have been copied in a scriptorium, i.e., a room in a monastery for storing, copying, illustrating, or reading manuscripts. In the scriptorium, there would have been a lector (reader) who would have read aloud slowly as multiple scribes or copyists took down what he was saying.

The modern-day young person is far removed from the 1920s to the 1980s where people actually used physical paper, pens, pencils, and envelopes to write letters. The same material was used for homework in school. Today, everything is digital: Microsoft Word Docx, PDFs, laptops, tablets, social media, and smartphones. A twenty-year-old today would likely find it challenging to write a letter with merely pen and paper. He would find it tedious and physically taxing. His lack of practice in writing would make it more difficult to be proficient in making the letters, and it would not be aesthetically pleasing. The hand, wrist, and forearm would get very tired to the point where he would need to take a break.

In early Christianity, manually copying a Bible text would be far more arduous than what was just described. There would be many different physical and mental tasks involved in the process of Tertius copying the book of Romans as the apostle Paul dictated to him, which would have been laborious and strenuous. The same would be even more true of the copyists who would then use Romans’ original copy to make other copies. He would not have had the luxury of having the words dictated, and he would have to look at the exemplar back and forth thousands of times as he made his copy that contained 7,000+ words. Imagine if he were copying the entire Greek New Testament of 138,162 words.

Additionally, far more was involved than simply reading the exemplar and writing a word or phrase in the copy. The material that was being written on was papyrus or parchment. Papyrus was a material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing. Parchment was a stiff, flat, thin material made from the prepared skin of an animal and used as a durable writing surface in ancient and medieval times. More on this later.

When the materials used and the working environment are understood, we will fully appreciate why ancient people hired secretaries (scribes). The scribe would lay out a layer of strips that he had cut from the papyrus plant. The pithy juices of the plant would be put in the strips. Another layer would have been placed at right angles over top of the first layer. Something flat and heavy would be placed on the papyrus sheet so the two could be bonded by pressure, which would have produced what we would consider a sheet of papyrus paper. It was no easy task writing on the surface of this papyrus sheet, as the material was rough and fibrous.

The scribe could be seen sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, a board laying over his knees. He would be hunched over, holding the exemplar sheet of papyrus with the fingers of, say, his left hand and his thumb of the same hand resting on the papyrus sheet he was using to make his copy. Or, if a professional scribe, he would pin his sheets of papyrus down. To the other corner of the board would be a small container of ink that he had personally made from a mixture of soot and gum. If this scribe were not experienced at making documents, or he was using below-average level materials, his calamus, or reed pen, could very well snag and tear the papyrus, or the writing could be unreadable. To the right of this scribe, we would see a sharp knife, which would have been used to sharpen his reed pen, and a damp sponge that would be used to erase any errors he might make. Since he is copying a New Testament book, he would likely be doing his level best to write every letter with the greatest of care, meaning he would be writing slowly, all of this bringing with it some difficulty. Imagine the constant sharpening of his pen with his knife and the continuous replenishing it with ink to keep the strokes even.

Working as a scribe or copyist for long hours each day can cause back, neck, and shoulder pains, headache, eyestrain, and overuse injuries of the arms and hands. When the scribe constantly bends his head forward, the muscles in his neck, chest, and back become almost stiffened in that position, giving him rounded shoulders and making it more challenging for him to stand upright. Bad posture from the life of a copyist can lead to bad balance. The average human head weighs almost 12 pounds (5.44 kg). This is equal to a bowling ball! When the copyist has his neck bent to 45 degrees, his head exerts nearly 50 pounds (ca. 23 kg) of force on his neck. The weight and pressure affect his breathing and mood, aside from straining joints and muscles in his neck and shoulders.

As we can mentally picture, this scribe was carrying out many simultaneous tedious tasks as he went about copying a book of the New Testament. If he had some experience or a professional in making documents and copying literature, he would have had to consider the page before him to calculate the proper word division. He would be using stichoi notations at the end of the copying process, that is, notes on how many lines were copied to get paid, which means that he had to keep track of his lines. The scribe would always have to be conscious of an imaginary upper and lower line that he sought to keep his text between. Unlike our notebooks today, papyrus and parchment sheets did not come with ruled lines. The scribe would use an unsharpened instrument to draw 25–30 pressure lines on his page to receive the text. Before he even began the above, he would have to have the ability to estimate just how many sheets would be needed for the project. This would change if he were making a copy of an individual gospel or a codex of all four gospels, or the gospels and Acts, or a copy of Paul’s epistles, or even one of Paul’s epistles such as Romans. He would have to determine how he would construct the codex: was it to be one gather or multiple gathers? If it were multiple gatherings, how many sheets would he need in each gathering? To estimate these things, he would have to determine the size of the letters, how many letters to a line, how big were the margins. These are just some fundamental difficulties involved as early scribes made copies of our New Testament books.

One of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts: p⁶⁶ Papyrus

The Scroll or Roll Book

A scroll is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or other material, used for a written document. Even though it was continuous, the scroll was generally divided into pages by gluing separate sheets at the edges. Usually, the reader or lector and the writer unrolled the scroll one page at a time, leaving it rolled up on both sides of the current page that was showing. The scroll is unrolled from side to side, with the text being written or read, from top to bottom. For example, if it were Hebrew, it would be written from right to left, and one would open that scroll by rolling to the right. On the other hand, if it were Greek, it would be written from left to right, or even in an alternating direction with other languages. Boustrophedon is an ancient method of inscribing and writing in which lines are written alternately from right to left and from left to right. Usually, professional scribes would justify both sides of the pages, aligned with both left and right margins. On the papyrus scroll, Harold Greenlee writes:

“Papyrus scrolls are mentioned several times in the New Testament; references are usually translated as ‘book.’ Luke 4:17 speaks of the scroll (biblion) of the prophet Isaiah. John uses the same word to refer to his gospel in John 20:30. The ‘books’ or ‘scrolls’ mentioned in 2 Tim 4:13 may be either parchment scrolls or leather scrolls of the Old Testament. Rev 6:14 describes the sky as vanishing like ‘a scroll when it is rolled up.’”

—Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 23)

The parchment scroll used by Moses to pen the first five books of the Old Testament goes back to about the late sixteenth-century B.C.E. The scroll was the first form to receive writing, which was in a format that could be edited by the author or scribe and was used in the Eastern Mediterranean ancient Egyptian civilizations. The codex (bound book) got its start from Latin authors in the first-century C.E. (widely used in the second-century), some 1,500 years after the scroll. The early Christians popularized the codex in the second-century C.E. Some would even argue that the Christians invented it. However, it appears that Christians mainly began using the roll, or scroll, at least until about the end of the first century C.E. Nevertheless, from the close of the first to the third century C.E., there was a struggle between those who encouraged the use of the codex and those preferring scrolls. Traditionalists, familiar and comfortable with using the scroll, were unwilling to give up deep-rooted conventions and traditions. Nevertheless, the popularization of the codex played a significant role in the displacement of the scroll. Therefore, the scroll continued to be used for centuries.

Scrolls were used for literary works. Continuous rolls were twenty or thirty feet would construct the codex: was it to be one gather or multiple gathers? If it were multiple gatherings, how many sheets would he need in each gathering? To estimate these things, he would have to determine the size of the letters, how many letters to a line, how big were the margins. These are just some fundamental difficulties involved as early scribes made copies of our New Testament books.

One of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts: p⁶⁶ Papyrus

The Scroll or Roll Book

—Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 23)

Scrolls were used for literary works. Continuous rolls were twenty or thirty feet long and nine to ten inches high. (Psa. 40:7) The text was written in columns, which formed the pages. (Jer. 36:23) Our English word “volume” literally means something rolled up. Imagine being in the synagogue of Nazareth when Jesus was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, where he skillfully unrolled with one hand while simultaneously rolling it up with the other hand until he reached the place he wanted to read. (Lu 4:16–17; Isa. 61:1-2) The ink used on the surface of the scrolls had to withstand being rolled and unrolled, so special ink was developed. In addition, the Jews would discard any scroll that had too many letters missing from wear and tear. It was not until about the fifth-century C.E. that the codex finally outnumbered the scroll by a ten to one margin in Egypt. When we consider the surviving examples, we also see that the scroll had almost vanished by the sixth-century C.E.

The Codex Book

A typical four-leaf quire can be formed from a single sheet of papyrus, parchment, or paper by folding and then cutting the sheet.

A codex is a collection of ancient manuscript texts, especially of the Biblical Scriptures, in book form. It is made up of papyrus sheets or parchment inscribed with handwritten material, which is created by folding a single sheet of standard-sized pages, giving the scribe two leaves or four pages.

Indications of Universality

All of the early papyrus was in codex (book) form. (125–400 C.E.)
The standardization of the nomina sacra (sacred names) very early on: God (θεός), Lord (κύριος), Jesus (Ἰησοῦς), Christ (Χριστός), Spirit (πνεῦμα), being in a contracted format and with a horizontal line above the letters. Eventually, it would be 15 sacred names. The following second-century manuscripts that clearly show these nomina sacra are as follows: 𝔓⁴+𝔓⁶⁴+𝔓⁶⁷ dates to (150–175 C.E.), 𝔓³² dates to (150–200 C.E.), 𝔓⁴⁶ dates to (150 C.E.), 𝔓⁶⁶ dates to about (150 C.E.), 𝔓⁷⁵ dates to about (175 C.E.), and 𝔓⁹⁰ dates to (150–200 C.E.). This means that the nomina sacra for Lord, Jesus, Christ, God, and Spirit are standard by 150 C.E.
Initially, there were some inconsistencies in the application, but universally it was soon decided to use the nomina sacra regardless of whether the referent, meaning, or context was mundane or sacred in its use.
By the late first century, New Testament books were being collected in codex form: the Gospels or the Gospels and Acts. The early second century saw the collection of the apostle Paul’s letters, which included Hebrews.
There was the standardization of the codex size for the Gospels, like our 8.5 x 11 inches today. The standard size in the second/third centuries was 11.5–14 cm (4.5–5.5 inches) Width × 14.5–17 cm (5.7–6.7) Length. A new standard size began to develop in the third century. Just the fact that they had a standard size for the Gospels is unusual because this is not the case for Paul’s letter or any other books.

The first codices were made with waxed-coated wooden tablets. The people of Greece and Rome used waxed tablets before the Christian era. Schoolboys were sometimes given waxed tablets on which the teacher had written letters in model script with a stylus. Today, we have the blackboard (UK) or chalkboard (US), initially made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark gray slate stone. In the early part of the 20th century, schoolchildren even had smaller slate tablets. They had a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings could be made with sticks of calcium carbonate, i.e., chalk.

Roman Tablet and Stylus

To make the waxed tablets of Jesus’ day, one would slightly hollow out a flat piece of wood and fill that void with wax. These tablets were also used for temporary writing like modern chalkboards. They were also commonly used for corresponding with others. Greenlee writes:

“They were also used at times for legal documents, in which case two tablets would be placed face to face with the writing inside and fastened together with leather thongs run through holes at the edges of the tablets. In one of his writings, St. Augustine mentions some tablets he owned, although his were made of ivory instead of wood.”¹

An example of temporary (short-term, momentary) writing is found in the Gospel of Luke. Zechariah, having lost his ability to speak, was asked what name he wanted his son to have. Luke 1:63 reports, “And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’”

Polyptychs [pol-yp-tych /ˈpälipˌtik/] is an arrangement of three or more panels with a painting or carving on each, usually hinged together. Some were discovered at Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town near modern Naples that was destroyed along with Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.

In time, sheets of foldable material replaced rigid tablets. The codex has been viewed as the most significant advancement in the development of the book, aside from the printing press. Some of the earliest surviving codices were made of papyrus, being preserved in the dry sands of Egypt.

When we consider the thought of unrolling and using a scroll instead of the codex, we can likely think of many advantages of one over the other. The codex can contain far more written material; it is much easier to carry and more convenient. Some in the early days of the codex even mentioned these advantages. Nevertheless, some were slow to move away from the scroll’s prolonged use. Again, the Christians played a significant part in the eventual death of the scroll. Their evangelism would have been far more cumbersome without the codex.

The Codex Gigas, 13th century, Bohemia.

Compared to the scroll, the codex was also far more affordable because both sides of the pages could be written on, getting more value for one’s money. Moreover, instead of having one book with each scroll, one could have the whole of the Old or New Testament. The fact that one could find Bible passages far more accessible and faster—this, too, added to the codex’s success. This preference for the codex was not only true for Christians but also lawyers and the like.

When we think of the early Christians, we are reminded that they evangelized to the point of going from 120 disciples in the upper room on Pentecost 33 C.E. to more than one million Christians spread throughout the Roman Empire at the beginning of the second century C.E. In addition, early Christians were evangelists, who used pre-evangelism, i.e., apologetics. They could have what we now call proof texts, easily located, to make their arguments to pagans and Jews alike. Then, the fact that the codex book had a wooden cover made it more durable than the scroll, adding to its advantages. Codices were useful, sensible, and likely practical for personal reading. The Christians of the third century C.E. had parchment pocket Gospels.

Larry Hurtado, in his blog The Codex and Early Christians: Clarification & Corrections, writes:

Bagnall offered figures (pp. 72–74) comparing the number of non-Christian and Christian codices from Egypt datable to the early centuries, also giving the percentages of Christian codices of the total. His own data show, e.g., that Christian codices amount to somewhere between 22–34% of the total for the 2nd–3rd centuries C.E. Yet Christian books overall amount to only ca. 2% of the total number of books (codices and rolls) of these centuries. Of course, there are more non-Christian codices, but the first point to note is that Christian codices comprise a vastly disproportionate percentage of the total number of codices in this period.

The very data provided by Bagnall clearly show that Christians invested in the codex far more than is reflected in the larger book-culture of the time. That is, the early Christian preference for the codex is undeniable, and this preference is quite distinctive in that period. Bagnall actually reached the same judgment, stating, “Christian books in these centuries (2nd, 3rd) are far more likely to be codices than rolls, quite the reverse of what we find with classical literature.” (p. 74)

My second point also stands and is supported by Bagnall: the early Christian preference for the codex seems to have been especially keen when it came to making copies of texts used as scripture (i.e., read in corporate worship). For example, 95+% of Christian copies of OT writings are in codex form. As for the writings that came to form the NT, they’re all in codex form except for a very few instances of NT writings copied on the back of a reused roll (which were likely informal and personal copies made by/for readers who couldn’t afford a copy on unused writing material). Here again, Bagnall grants the same conclusion, judging that, although they were ready to copy “the Christians adopted the codex as the normative format of deliberately produced public copies of scriptural texts” (p. 78), but were ready to use rolls for other texts (76).¹

The Making of a Codex

Making a codex began with a dried and treated sheepskin, goatskin, or another animal hide.

“The pelts were first soaked in a lime solution to loosen the fur, which was then removed. While wet on a stretcher, the skin was scraped using a knife with a curved blade. As the skin dried, the parchment maker would adjust the tension so that the skin remained taut. This cycle of scraping and stretching was repeated over several days until the desired thinness had been achieved. Here, the skin of a stillborn goat, prized for its smoothness, is stretched on a modern frame to illustrate the parchment making process.”

The first step for preparing the pages to receive writing was setting up the quires, i.e., a bundle of parchment sheets folded together for binding into a book, especially a four-sheet bundle folded once to make eight leaves or sixteen pages. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out that:

“The quire was the scribe’s basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages.”²

The Craft of the Scribe

The recto is the front side of a papyrus sheet or parchment sheet, while the verso is the back of a page. If the scribe were writing on a papyrus sheet, he would write his script on the horizontal lines of the fibers on the recto side of his sheet. If the scribe were using a parchment sheet, the manuscript had pinpricks placed in it to be ruled with lines to accommodate writing better. In some of the documents, we can still see faintly visible lines. It was similar to modern-day tablet paper, with horizontal lines running across the page to receive text, and vertical lines, which served to mark the boundaries, justify both sides. The scribal schools had different techniques for ruling manuscripts. Sometimes, a textual scholar can identify a particular manuscript’s school, based on how it was ruled, giving us the place of its origin. The parchment’s hair side was darker than that of the flesh side, so scribes placed the quires so that the hair side faced the hair side of the corresponding page, making it more reader-friendly.

Study of Ancient Handwriting

The study of ancient handwriting and manuscripts is an essential skill for paleographers, but also for the textual scholar as well. The style of the characters that make up an alphabet change every fifty years or so; thus, it is essential to know the eras of different styles. Moreover, scribes use abbreviations and contractions for various reasons. Therefore, the student of ancient handwriting must know how to interpret them. For example, several contractions and abbreviations are found in our earliest manuscripts of the Christian Greek New Testament. We briefly mentioned this earlier.

The abbreviations that are most relevant to this discussion are what have become known as the sacred names, or nomina sacra (nomen sacrum, singular), such as:

Lord (Κύριος – KC),
Jesus (Ἰησοῦς – IC),
Christ (Χριστός – XC),
God (Θεός – ΘC),
Spirit (Πνεῦμα – ΠΝΑ)

These sacred names are abbreviated or contracted by keeping the first letter or two and the last letter. Another essential feature is the horizontal bar placed over these letters to help readers recognize that they are encountering a contraction.

The early Christian writers had three different ways that they would pen a sacred name:

Suspension – accomplished by writing only the first two letters of “Jesus,” for example (Ἰη), and suspending the remaining letters.
Contraction – writing only the first and last letter (IC) and removing the middle ones.
Longer contraction – keeping the first two and the last letter (IHC).

After penning the suspension or contraction, the scribe would place a bar over the name. This practice of placing a bar over the name was likely carried over from the typical way of scribes putting bars above contractions, especially numbers, which were represented by letters (e.g., ΙΑ = eleven).

When students of ancient handwriting know these individual letterforms, ligatures, punctuation, and abbreviations, they can read and understand the text.

Of course, textual scholars must learn the language of the manuscripts they are studying—in our case, Greek. They need to be an expert in the forms of the language, the various handwriting styles, writing customs, and able to identify different hands within the same manuscript and scribal notes and abbreviations. They also need to study the language development over the years and its history to better analyze the texts. As we have discussed, students of ancient handwriting must know the writing materials, which will enable them to better identify the period in which a document was copied.

One of the primary goals of paleographers is to ascertain the text’s date and its place of origin. For these reasons alone, they must consider the style and formation of a manuscript and the style of handwriting used therein.

The Ptolemaic Script

“For example, with the majuscule hand, we have what is known as the Ptolemaic Book Hand, and how it developed is difficult to say because we have so few examples, which are not datable. It is not until we reach the third century B.C.E. that we can have confidence in the Ptolemaic book hand era. This period’s hands are stiff, awkward, and sharply defined (e.g., E, Z, and Θ). Moreover, the letters evidenced no consistency in size. At times, there was a fineness, and pleasing subtlety attained. When we arrive at the second century B.C.E., we find the letters becoming more rounded and more uniform in size. However, one can detect a loss of unity in the first century.”

—Comfort

“Paleographers date the emergence of the Roman Uncial as coming on the heels of the Ptolemaic period, which ended in 30 B.C.”

Thus, early Roman Uncial begins around 30 BC, and the Roman Uncial hand can be seen throughout the first two to three centuries of the Christian era. The Roman Uncial script, generally speaking, shares the characteristics of literary manuscripts in the Roman period (as distinct from the Ptolemaic period) in that these manuscripts show a greater roundness and smoothness in the forms of letters and are somewhat larger than what was penned in the Ptolemaic period. Furthermore, the Roman Uncial typically displays decorative serifs in several letters, but not all. (By contrast, the Decorated Rounded style aims at making the decorations rounded and replete.)

Majuscule Hand

During the Byzantine period (300–650 C.E.), the dominant type of book-hand became known as the biblical hand. It had its earliest beginnings toward the end of the second century C.E., being used by all, not necessarily having any connection to Christian literature. In addition, manuscripts from Egypt, of vellum or papyrus dating to around the fourth century C.E., contained other forms of script, i.e., a sloping somewhat unpolished rough hand resulting from the literary hand, which continued until about the fifth century C.E.

The three early great codices, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus of the fourth century C.E., and Alexandrinus of the fifth century C.E., were penned in majuscules of the biblical hand. The hand that produced Vaticanus is the least demonstrated. The letters are characteristic of the biblical hand but do not possess the later manuscripts’ heavy look, with a greater roundness to them. Sinaiticus, which was copied shortly after that, has larger, heavier letters. In Alexandrinus, we notice a development in the form, a definite distinction between thick and thin strokes.

Image excerpts from Vaticanus, Matthew 1:22–2:18 and from Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century (courtesy of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts)

Once we enter the sixth century C.E., we notice in the manuscripts—vellum or papyrus—that the heavier hand became the standard but still possessed an attractive appearance. However, there was a steady decline in the centuries to come, as the writing appears to be done artificially, i.e., as a matter of duty or custom, without thought or attention. The thick strokes became heavier; the cross strokes of Τ and Θ and the bottom of Α were equipped with sagging spurs. This era of an unpleasant hand followed in sequence, morphing from sloping to upright.

Publishing Industry of the Ancient World

Today, most people would not imagine the ancient world having a large publishing industry, yet this was the case. The ancient writings of famous authors were great pieces of literature that were highly sought after from the moment they were penned, much as today. Thus, there was a need for the scriptorium to fill orders for both pagan and civil literature and the Bible books. There was a need for hundreds of copies, and as Christianity displaced paganism, the demand would grow exponentially.

The Autograph (“self-written”) was the text written by a New Testament author or the author and scribe as the author dictated to him. If the scribe was taking down dictation (Rom. 16:22; 1 Pet. 5:12), he might have done so in shorthand. Whether by shorthand or longhand, we can assume that both the scribe and the author would check the scribe’s work. The author would have authority over all corrections since the Holy Spirit did not inspire the scribe. The finished product would be the autograph if the inspired author wrote everything down as the Spirit moved him. This text is also often referred to as the Original. Hence, the terms autograph and original are often used interchangeably. Sometimes textual scholars prefer to distinguish, using “original” as a general reference to the text that is correctly attributed to a biblical author. This designation does not focus on the process of how a book or letter was written.

The original can also be referred to as the first Authorized Text (Archetypal Manuscript), i.e., the text first used to make other copies. We should also point out that some textual scholars debate whether the original or autograph of any given book was actually the first text used to make copies. And they prefer to call the latter the Initial Text instead, not requiring that it actually be the autograph. Conservative scholars would maintain that they are the same. Neither term should be confused with what is known as an ordinary exemplar, which is any authorized text of the book from which other copies were made. The original text necessarily was the first exemplar used to make copies, but additional copies of high quality were used as exemplars. We will frequently use exemplar to refer to any document that serves as a standard that a scribe employed as his text for making another copy. Usually, a scribe would have a main or primary exemplar from which he makes most of his copies and one or more secondary exemplars to compare what he found in his primary exemplar. Scribes sometimes substituted text from other exemplars for what they have in their main exemplars.

We have mentioned the Scriptorium, a room where multiple scribes or even one scribe worked to produce the manuscript(s). A lector would read aloud from the exemplar, and the scribe(s) would write down his words. The Corrector was the one who checked the manuscripts for needed corrections. Corrections could be by three primary persons:

the copyist himself,
the official corrector of the scriptorium, or
a person who had purchased the copy.

While those correctors were contemporaneous with the original scribe(s), others could have corrected the text centuries later. When textual scholars speak of the Hand, this primarily refers to a person who is making the copy, distinguishing his level of training. Paleographers have set out four basic levels of handwriting:

First, there was the common hand of a person who was untrained in making copies.
Second, there was the documentary hand of an individual who was trained in preparing documents.
Third, there was the reformed documentary hand of a copyist who was experienced in preparing documents and copying literature.
Fourth, the professional hand, the scribe experienced in producing literature.

We must keep in mind that we are dealing with an oral society. Therefore, the apostles, who had spent three and a half years with Jesus, first published the Good News orally. The teachers within the newly founded Christian congregations would repeat this information until it was memorized. After that, those who had heard this gospel would, in turn, share it with others (Acts 2:42, Gal 6:6). In time, they were moved by the Holy Spirit to see the need for a written record, so Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would pen the Gospels, and other types of New Testament books would be written by Paul, James, Peter, and Jude.

From the first four verses of Luke, we can see that Theophilus was being given a written record of what he had already been taught orally. In verse 4, Luke says to Theophilus, “[My purpose is] that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”

When the Son of God on Golgotha, outside of Jerusalem on Friday, Nisan 14, 33 C.E., about 3:00 p.m., gave his life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write their Gospels immediately. Matthew first wrote his Gospel in Hebrew some 12–17 years after Jesus’ ascension, 45–50 C.E. Shortly after that, he translated it into Greek. Luke followed with his Gospel about 56–58 C.E. Then, Mark and his Gospel were written about 60–65 C.E. Finally, John’s Gospel was written some 65 years after Jesus’ death, in about 98 C.E.

One thing few biblical scholars in the seminaries address today is how these apostles—Matthew, John, and the disciples Mark and Luke—were able to record the life, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ with such unerring accuracy.

The appearance of the written record did not mean the end of the oral publication. Both the oral and the written records would be used together. Many did not read the written documents themselves, as they could hear them read in the congregational meetings by the lector. This would apply to those who could read because they may not have been able to afford to have copies made for themselves. Paul and his letters came to be used in the same way as he traveled extensively but was just one man and could only be in one place and dispatch letters to other locations through his traveling companions. These traveling companions would not only deliver the letters but also know the issues well enough to address questions that might be asked by the congregation leaders to which they had been dispatched.

In summary, the first century saw the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and his death, resurrection, and ascension. After that, his disciples spread this gospel orally for at least 12–17 years before Matthew penned his Gospel. The written record was used in conjunction with the oral message.

In the first century C.E., the Bible books were being copied individually. In the late first century or the beginning of the second century, they began being copied in groups. At first, it was the four Gospels and then the book of Acts with the four Gospels and shortly after that a collection of the Apostle Paul’s writings. Each of the individual books of the New Testament was penned, edited, and published between 45 and 98 C.E. A group of the apostle Paul’s letters and the Gospels were copied and published between 90 to 125 C.E. The entire 27 books of the New Testament were not published as a whole until about 290 to 340 C.E.

Thus, we have the 27 books of the New Testament that were penned individually in the second half of the first century. Each of these would have been copied and recopied throughout the first century. The copies of these copies would, of course, be made as well. Some of the earliest manuscripts that we now have indicate that a professional scribe copied them. Many of the other papyri provide evidence that a semi-professional hand copied them, while most of these early papyri give proof of being made by a copyist who was literate and experienced at making documents. Therefore, either literate or semi-professional copyists produced most of our early papyri, with some being made by professionals.

Sadly, we do not have the autographs. Even if we did, we would have no way to authenticate them. We do, however, have copies of New Testament manuscripts that go back to the second and third centuries C.E. Over the centuries, this copying of copies continued. The authors were inspired so that the originals were error-free. However, this is not the case with those who made copies; they were not under the Holy Spirit’s influence while making their copies. Therefore, these copies must have contained unintentional mistakes, as well as intentional changes, differing from the originals and each other. However, this is not as problematic or alarming as it may first sound. By far, most of the copyist errors are trivial, such as differences in spelling, word order, and such.

It is true that other copyist errors—a tiny portion—are noteworthy (significant), arising from the copyist’s desire to correct something in the text that he perceived as erroneous or problematic. In an even smaller number of cases, the scribe made changes to strengthen orthodox doctrine. However, these changes have little to no effect on doctrines because other passages addressing the same beliefs provide the means to analyze and correct the copyist’s “corrections.” Moreover, they are easily analyzed and corrected so that we know what the original contained. Furthermore, we have enough textual evidence to know what words were in the original.

In the language of textual criticism, changes to the original text introduced by copyists are called variant readings. A variant reading is a different reading in the extant [existing] manuscripts for any given portion of the text. The process of textual criticism is examining variant readings in various ancient manuscripts to reconstruct the original wording of a written text. These variants in our copies of the New Testament manuscripts are primarily the reason for the rise of the science of textual criticism in the 16th century. After that, we have had hundreds of scholars working extremely hard over the following five centuries to restore the New Testament text to its original state.

Keep in mind that textual criticism is not just performed on the Old and New Testament texts, but in all other ancient literature as well: Plato (428/427–348/347 B.C.E.), Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 B.C.E.), Homer (Ninth or Eighth Century B.C.E.), Livy (64 or 59 B.C.E.–17 C.E.), Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), and Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.). However, as the Bible is the greatest work of all time, directly influencing countless Christians’ lives (billions), it is the most crucial field.

Here, we should also expound more on the “criticism” portion of the term textual criticism. It may be helpful if, for a moment, we address biblical criticism in general, which is divided into two branches: lower criticism and higher criticism.

Lower criticism, also known as textual criticism, is an investigation of manuscripts by those who are known as textual scholars, seeking to establish the original reading, which is available in the thousands of extant copies.
Higher criticism, also known as literary criticism, investigates the restored text to identify any sources that may lie behind it.

Therefore, we can say the following:

LOWER CRITICISM (i.e., textual criticism) has been the bedrock of scholarship over the last 500 years. It has given us a master text, i.e., a critical text, reflecting the original published Greek New Testament. It has contributed to the furtherance of Bible scholarship, removing interpolations, correcting scribal errors, and giving us a restored text, allowing us to produce better translations of the New Testament. However, of late, the dissecting higher criticism mindset of the 19th and 20th centuries has seeped into the field of New Testament Textual Studies.

HIGHER CRITICISM (i.e., literary criticism, biblical criticism) has taught that much of the Bible was composed of legend and myth. It claims that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible, 8th century B.C.E. Isaiah did not write Isaiah, there were three authors of Isaiah, 6th century B.C.E. Daniel did not write Daniel—it was penned in the 2nd century B.C.E. Higher critics have taught that Jesus did not say all that the Gospels have him saying in his Sermon on the Mount and that Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees in Matthew 23, as this was Matthew because he hated the Jews. These are just the highlights, for there are thousands of tweaks that have undermined the Word of God as being inspired and fully inerrant. Higher critics have dissected the Word of God until it has become the word of man—and a very jumbled word at that. Higher criticism is still taught in almost all the seminaries. It is common to hear so-called Evangelical Bible scholars vehemently deny that large sections of the Bible are fully inerrant, authentic, accurate, and trustworthy. Biblical higher criticism is speculative and tentative in the extreme.

Constantine von Tischendorf was a world-leading textual scholar and a renowned Bible scholar. Tischendorf was educated in Greek at the University of Leipzig. During his university studies, he was troubled by higher criticism of the Bible, as taught by famous German theologians, who sought to prove that the Greek New Testament was not authentic. He rejected higher criticism, which led to his noteworthy success in defending the authenticity of the Bible text. NT textual scholar Harold Greenlee writes,

“This ‘higher criticism’ has often been applied to the Bible in a destructive way, and it has come to be looked down on by many evangelical Christians.”¹

The sad situation is that modern-day textual scholarship as a whole is unwittingly or knowingly moving the goalposts for some unknown reason. It is now the earliest knowable text in textual criticism, the sociohistorical approach to New Testament Textual Studies, and the newest trend to redate our earliest NT papyri to later dates.

The New Testament in the Original Greek is a Greek-language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892). (Textual scholars use the abbreviation “WH.”) It is a critical text (Master Greek text of the NT seeking to ascertain the original wording of the original documents), compiled from some of the oldest New Testament fragments and texts discovered at the time. The two editors worked together for 28 years.

The Nestle Greek New Testament (first published in 1898) is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, now in its 28th edition, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is now known as the Nestle-Aland edition after its most influential editors, Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland. Textual scholars use the abbreviation “NA.” The NA is now in its 28th edition (2012), which is abbreviated NA28. Throughout the 130 years since 1881, there have been hundreds of manuscript discoveries, especially the early papyri that date within decades of the originals. One might expect significant changes between the WH text of 1881 and the 2012 NA28 text. However:

The NA28 is 99.5% the same as the 1881 WH Greek New Testament.

In contrast, higher criticism (i.e., literary criticism) has attempted to provide rational explanations for the composition of Bible books, ignoring the supernatural element and often eliminating the traditional authorship of the books. Late dating of the copy of Bible books is widespread, and the historicity of biblical accounts is called into question. It would not be an overstatement to say that the effect has often challenged and undermined the Christian’s confidence in the New Testament.

Fortunately, some conservative scholars have rightly criticized higher critics for their illogical or unreasonable approaches in dissecting God’s Word.

Importance of Textual Criticism

Christian Bible students need to be familiar with Old and New Testament textual criticism as essential foundational studies. Why? If we fail to establish what was originally authored with reasonable certainty, how can we translate or even interpret what we think is the actual Word of God? We are fortunate that there are far more existing New Testament manuscripts today than any other book from ancient history. Some ancient Greek and Latin classics are based on one existing manuscript, while with others, there are just a handful—and a few exceptions that have a few hundred available.

However, over 5,898 Greek New Testament manuscripts have been cataloged for the New Testament, plus around 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and an additional 9,300 other manuscripts in such languages as Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic, and Armenian. This gives New Testament textual scholars vastly more to work with in establishing the original words of the text.

The other difference between the New Testament manuscripts and those of the classics is that the existing copies of the New Testament date much closer to the originals. Some of the manuscripts are dated to about a thousand years after the author had penned the book in the Greek classics. Some of the Latin classics are dated from three to seven hundred years after the author wrote the book. When we look at the Greek copies of the New Testament books, some portions are within decades of the original author’s book. One hundred and thirty-nine Greek NT papyri and five majuscules date from 110 C.E. to 390 C.E.

Distribution of Greek New Testament Manuscripts

Papyrus: A copy of a portion of the New Testament made on papyrus. At present, we have 147 cataloged New Testament papyri, many dating between 110–350 C.E., but some as late as the 8th century C.E.
Majuscule or Uncial: A script of large letters commonly used in Greek and Latin manuscripts written between the 3rd and 9th centuries C.E. that resembles a modern capital letter but is more rounded. At present, we have 323 cataloged New Testament Majuscule manuscripts.
Minuscule: A small cursive style of writing used in manuscripts from the 9th to the 16th centuries, now having 2,951 Minuscule manuscripts cataloged.
Lectionary: A schedule of readings from the Bible for Christian church services during the year, in both majuscules and minuscules, dating from the 4th to the 16th centuries C.E., now having 2,484 Lectionary manuscripts cataloged.

We should clarify that of the approximate 24,000 total manuscripts of the New Testament, not all are complete books. There are fragmented manuscripts with just a few verses, manuscripts that contain an entire book, others that include numerous books, and some that have the whole New Testament, or nearly so. This is expected since the oldest manuscripts we have were copied in an era when reproducing the entire New Testament was not the norm. Instead, it was far more common to copy a single book or a group of books (i.e., the Gospels or Paul’s letters). This still does not negate the vast riches of manuscripts that we possess.

Conclusion from This Short Introduction to Textual Criticism

There is some irony here: secular scholars have no problem accepting classic authors’ wording with their minuscule amount of evidence. However, they discount the treasure trove of evidence that is available to the New Testament textual scholar. Still, this should not surprise us as the New Testament has always been under-appreciated and attacked in some way, shape, or form over the past 2,000 years.

On the contrary, in comparison to classical works, we are overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of existing New Testament manuscripts. We should also keep in mind that about seventy-five percent of the New Testament does not even require the help of textual criticism because that much of the text is unanimous, and thus, we know what it says. Of the other twenty-five percent, about twenty percent make up trivial scribal mistakes that are easily corrected. Therefore, textual criticism focuses mainly on a small portion of the New Testament text.

The facts are clear: the Christian who reads the New Testament is fortunate to have so many manuscripts, with so many dating so close to the originals, with 500 years of hundreds of textual scholars who have established the text with a level of certainty unimaginable for ancient secular works.

After discussing the amount of New Testament manuscripts available, atheist commentator Bob Seidensticker writes:

“The first problem is that more manuscripts at best increase our confidence that we have the original version. That does not mean the original copy was history.”

That is, Seidensticker is forced to acknowledge the reliability of the New Testament text as we have it today and can only try to deny what it says. He also tells us of the New Testament:

“Compare that with 2,000 copies of the Iliad, the second-best represented manuscript.”¹ Of those 1,757 copies of the Iliad, how far removed are they from the alleged originals?
The Iliad is dated to about 800 B.C.E. There are several fragments of the Iliad that date to the second century B.C.E. and one to the third century B.C.E., with the rest dating to the ninth century C.E. or later.
That would make this handful of fragmented manuscripts 500 years removed and the rest about 1,700 years removed from their original.

The Range of Textual Criticism

The importance and scope of New Testament textual studies can be summed up in the few words used by J. Harold Greenlee; it is:

“The basic biblical study, a prerequisite to all other biblical and theological work. Interpretation, systematization, and application of the teachings of the NT cannot be accomplished until textual criticism has done at least some of its work. It is, therefore, deserving of the acquaintance and attention of every serious student of the Bible.”²

It is only reasonable to assume that the original 27 books written first-hand by the New Testament authors have not survived. Instead, we only have what we must consider to be imperfect copies. Why the Holy Spirit would miraculously inspire 27 fully inerrant texts and then allow human imperfection into the documents is not explained for us in Scripture. (More on this later.) Why didn’t God inspire the copyists?

We do know that imperfect humans have tended to worship relics that traditions hold to have been touched by the miraculous powers of God or to have been in direct contact with one of his special servants of old. Ultimately, though, all we know is that God had his reasons for allowing the New Testament autographs to be worn out by repeated use.

From time to time, we hear of the discovery of a fragment possibly dated to the first century, but even if such a fragment is eventually verified, the dating alone can never serve as proof of an autograph; it will still be a copy in all likelihood.

If we ask, “Why didn’t God inspire copyists?” then it will have to follow, “Why didn’t God inspire translators? Why didn’t God inspire Bible scholars that author commentaries on the Bible?” and so on. Suppose God’s initial purpose was to give us a fully inerrant, authoritative, authentic, and accurate Word. Why not adequately protect the Scriptures in all facets of transmission from error—copy, translate, and interpret?

If God did this, and people were moved along by the Holy Spirit, it would soon become noticeable that when people copy the texts, they would be unable to make an error or mistake or even willfully change something.

Where would it stop? Would this being moved along by the Holy Spirit apply to anyone who decided to make themselves a copy, testing to see if they too would be inspired?

In time, this would prove to be actual evidence for God. This would negate the reasons why God has allowed sin, human imperfection to enter humanity in the first place—to teach them an object lesson: man cannot walk on his own without his Creator.

God created perfect humans, giving them a perfect start, and through the abuse of free will, they rejected his sovereignty. He did not just keep creating perfect humans again and again, as though he got something wrong. God gave us his perfect Word and has again chosen to allow us to continue in our human imperfection, learning our object lesson.

God has stepped into humanity many hundreds of times in the Bible record, maybe tens of thousands of times unbeknownst to us over the past 6,000+ years, to tweak things to get the desired outcome of his will and purposes. However, there is no aspect of life where his stepping in on any particular point was to be continuous until the return of the Son.

Maybe God gave us a perfect copy of sixty-six books. Then, like everything else, he placed the responsibility of copying, translating, and interpreting on us—just as he gave us the Great Commission of proclaiming that Word, explaining that Word, to make disciples (Matthew 24:14; 28:19–20; Acts 1:8).

As for errors in all the copies we have, we can say that the vast majority of the Greek text is not affected by errors. The errors occur in variant readings, i.e., portions of the text where different manuscripts disagree. Of the small amount of the text affected by variant readings, the vast majority of these are minor slips of the pen, misspelled words, etc., or intentional but quickly analyzed changes. We are certain what the original reading is in these places.

A far smaller number of changes present challenges to establishing the original reading. It has always been said and remains true that no central doctrine is affected by a textual problem. Only rarely does a textual issue change the meaning of a verse. Still, establishing the original text wherever there are variant readings is vitally important. Every word matters!

It is true that the Jewish copyists and the later Christian copyists were not led along by the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, their manuscripts were not inerrant, infallible. Errors (textual variants) crept into the documents unintentionally and intentionally. However, the vast majority of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament has not been infected with textual errors. For the portions impacted with textual mistakes, we can be grateful for the tens of thousands of copies that we have to help us weed out the errors. How? Well, not every copyist made the same textual errors. Hence, by comparing the work of different copyists and manuscripts, textual scholars can identify the textual variants (errors) and remove those, leaving us with the original content.

Yes, it would be the most significant discovery of all time if we found the original five books penned by Moses himself—Genesis through Deuteronomy—or the original Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, first, there would be no way of establishing that they were the originals. Second, truth be told, we do not need the originals. Yes, you heard me. We do not need those original documents. What is so important about the documents? Nothing. It is the content on the original documents that we are after. And truly, miraculously, we have more copies than needed to do just that.

We do not need miraculous preservation because we have miraculous restoration. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament critical texts are about a 99.99% reflection of the content that was in those ancient original manuscripts.

CHAPTER 2

The New Testament Secretaries and Their Materials

One of the greatest tragedies in the modern-day history of Christianity (1880–present) is that churchgoers have not been educated about the history of the New Testament text. They are so misinformed that many do not even realize that the Hebrew text lies behind our English Old Testament, and the Greek text lies behind our English New Testament. Sadly, many seminaries that train the pastors of today’s churches have also required little or no studies in the history of the Old or New Testament texts.

Textual Criticism Defined

Again, New Testament textual criticism is the study of families of manuscripts—especially the Greek New Testament—as well as:

Versions¹,
Lectionaries², and
Patristic quotations³,

…along with internal evidence, in order to determine which reading is the original.

Comparing any two copies of a document even a few pages long will reveal variant readings.

“A textual variant is simply any difference from a standard text (e.g., a printed text, a particular manuscript, etc.) that involves spelling, word order, omission, addition, substitution, or a total rewrite of the text.”

Again, it needs to be repeated: when we use the term “textual criticism,” we are not referring to something negative. In this instance, “criticism” refers to a careful, measured, or painstaking study and analysis of the internal and external evidence for producing our New Testament Greek text—generally called a “critical text.” Today, the goal of many New Testament textual scholars is to recover the earliest text possible, while the objective of the remaining few, such as the author of this book, is to get back to the ipsissima verba (“the very words”) of the original author.

Variant readings occur only in about 5 percent of the Greek NT text, and so all the manuscripts agree about 95 percent of the time.
Only about 2,100 variant readings may be considered “significant,” and in no instance is any point of Christian doctrine challenged or questioned by a variant reading.
Only about 1.67 percent of the entire Greek NT text is still questioned at all.
We may be confident that our current eclectic, or critical, Greek NT text (an eclectic, or critical text is one based on the study of as many manuscripts as possible) is far beyond 99 percent established.
In fact, there is more variation among some English translations of the Bible than there is among the manuscripts of the Greek NT.
God’s Word is infallible and inerrant in its original copies (autographs), all of which have perished. Textual critics of the Greek NT will continue their work until, if possible, the original of every questioned reading is firmly established.

An investigation of the enormous supply of Greek manuscripts and the ancient versions in other languages shows that they have preserved for us the very Word of God.

Writing Materials Used for the Bible

Throughout the first five books of the Bible being penned by Moses (beginning in the late sixteenth century B.C.E.), and down to the time of the printing press (1455 C.E.)—almost 3,000 years—many forms of material have been used to receive writing.

Material such as bricks, papyrus sheets, animal skin, broken pottery, metal, wooden tablets with or without wax, and much more have been used to pen or copy God’s Word. The following are some of the tools and materials:

Stylus:
The stylus was used to write on a waxed codex tablet. The stylus could be made of bone, metal, or ivory. It would be sharpened at one end for the purpose of writing and have a rounded knob on the other for making corrections. The stylus could also be used to write on soft metal or clay.

Reed Pen:
The reed pen was used with ink to write on papyrus or parchment manuscripts. Kalamos (κάλαμος) is the Greek word for “pen” (2 John 12; 3 John 13). There is no doubt that all the early extant papyrus manuscripts were copied with a reed pen, producing an impressive and pleasing script.

Quill Pen:
The quill pen came into use long after the reed pen. Quill would have been unsatisfactory for writing on papyrus, but parchment would have been an excellent surface for receiving writing from a quill pen. Of course, history shows that as parchment more fully displaced papyrus, the quill pen likewise replaced the reed pen. The quill was sharpened for use much like the reed, by having the tip sharpened and slit.

Papyrus:
Papyrus was the writing material used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, made from the pith of the stem of a water plant. It was cut into strips, with one layer laid out horizontally and the other vertically. Sometimes it was covered with a cloth and then beaten with a mallet. Scholarship has also suggested that paste may have been used between layers, and then a large stone would be placed on top until the materials were dry.

Typically, a sheet of papyrus would be between 6–9 inches in width and 12–15 inches long. These sheets were then glued end to end until scribes had enough length to copy the book they were working on. The writing was done only on the horizontal side, and it was rolled so that the writing would be on the inside. If one were to attempt to write across the vertical side, it would be difficult because of the direction of the papyrus fibers. The scribe or copyist would have used a reed pen to write on the papyrus sheets (cf. 3 John 13). Papyrus was the primary material used for writing until about 300 C.E. It was used with a roll or scroll (a document that is rolled up into itself), as well as the codex (book) form.

Writing on the papyrus sheet—even the correct side—was no easy task by any means because the surface was rough and fibrous.

“Defects sometimes occurred in the making through retention of moisture between the layers or through the use of spongy strips which could cause the ink to run; such flaws necessitated the remaking of the sheet.”¹

The back pain from long periods of sitting cross-legged on the ground bent over a papyrus sheet on a board made writing letters unappealing. The dealing with running ink, the reed pen possibly snagging and tearing the papyrus sheet, having to erase illegible characters—these were all deterrents from personally writing a letter.

Examples of Early Papyrus Manuscripts
(Dated approximately 100–250 C.E.)

100–150/175 C.E.: 𝔓⁴/𝔓⁶⁴/𝔓⁶⁷, 𝔓³², 𝔓⁴⁶, 𝔓⁵², 𝔓⁶⁶, 𝔓⁷⁵, 𝔓⁷⁷/𝔓¹⁰³, 𝔓¹⁰¹, 𝔓⁸⁷, 𝔓⁹⁰, 𝔓⁹⁸, 𝔓¹⁰⁴, 𝔓¹⁰⁹, 𝔓¹¹⁸, 𝔓¹³⁷
175–250 C.E.: 𝔓¹, 𝔓⁵, 𝔓¹³, 𝔓²⁰, 𝔓²³, 𝔓²⁷, 𝔓²⁹, 𝔓³⁰, 𝔓³⁵, 𝔓³⁸, 𝔓³⁹, 𝔓⁴⁰, 𝔓⁴⁵, 𝔓⁴⁷, 𝔓⁴⁸, 𝔓⁴⁹/𝔓⁶⁵, 𝔓⁶⁹, 𝔓⁷¹, 𝔓⁷², 𝔓⁸², 𝔓⁸⁵, 𝔓⁹⁵, 𝔓¹⁰⁰, 𝔓¹⁰⁶, 𝔓¹⁰⁷, 𝔓¹⁰⁸, 𝔓¹¹¹, 𝔓¹¹⁰, 𝔓¹¹³, 𝔓¹¹⁵, 𝔓¹²¹, 𝔓²⁵, 𝔓¹²⁶, 𝔓¹³³, 𝔓¹³⁶

Then the renowned Codex Vaticanus (300–325 C.E.) and Codex Sinaiticus (325–350 C.E.) were written on parchment: a creamy or yellowish material made from dried and treated sheepskin, goatskin, or other animal hides.

One may wonder why more New Testament manuscripts have not survived. It must be remembered that the Christians suffered intense persecution during intervals in the first 300 years from Pentecost 33 C.E. With this persecution from the Roman Empire came many orders to destroy Christian texts.

In addition, these texts were not stored in such a way as to secure their preservation. They were actively used by the Christians in the congregation and were subject to wear and tear. Furthermore, moisture is the enemy of papyrus, and it causes them to disintegrate over time. This is why, as we will discover, the papyrus manuscripts that have survived have come from the dry sands of Egypt. Moreover, it seems not to have entered the minds of the early Christians to preserve their documents because their solution to the loss of manuscripts was simply to make more copies.

Fortunately, making copies transitioned to the more durable animal skins, which would last much longer. Those that have survived—especially from the fourth century C.E. and earlier—are the path to restoring the original Greek New Testament.

Animal Skin

About the fourth century C.E., Bible manuscripts made of papyrus began to be superseded by the use of vellum, a high-quality parchment made from calfskin, kidskin, or lambskin. Manuscripts such as the famous Codex Sinaiticus (01) and Codex Vaticanus (03, also known as B) of the fourth century C.E. are parchment, vellum codices.

This use of parchment as the leading writing material continued for almost a thousand years until it was replaced by paper. The advantages of parchment over papyrus were many, such as:

It was much easier to write on smooth parchment.
One could write on both sides.
Parchment lasted much longer.
When desired, old writing could be scraped off and the parchment reused.

A 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll. It matches closely the Masoretic text and what is in the Bible today.

Papyrus or Parchment?

The Hebrew Old Testament that would have been available to the early Christians was written on the processed hide of animals after the hair was removed, and the hide was smoothed out with a pumice stone.¹ Leather scrolls were sent to Alexandria, Egypt, in about 280 B.C.E., to make what we now know as the Greek Septuagint.

Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered between 1947 and 1956 are made of leather, and it is almost certain that the scroll of Isaiah that Jesus read from in the synagogue was as well. Luke 4:17 says, “And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.”

The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah (1QIsa) dates to the end of the second century B.C.E., written on 17 sheets of parchment, one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first recovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947. The Nash Papyrus is a collection of four papyrus fragments acquired in Egypt in 1898 by W. L. Nash, dating to about 150 B.C.E. It contains parts of the Ten Commandments from Exodus chapter 20 and some verses from Deuteronomy chapters 5 and 6. It is by far one of the oldest Hebrew manuscript fragments.

Vellum is a high-quality parchment made from calfskin, kidskin, or lambskin. After the skin was removed, it would be soaked in limewater, after which the hair would be scraped off, the skin then being scraped and dried, and rubbed afterward with chalk and pumice stone, creating an exceptionally smooth writing material.

Both leather and papyrus were used before the first-century Christians. During the first three hundred years of Christianity, the secular world viewed parchment as being inferior to papyrus. It was relegated to notebooks, rough drafts, and other non-literary purposes.

A couple of myths should be dispelled before continuing:

It is often remarked that papyrus is not a durable material. Both papyrus and parchment are durable under normal circumstances. This is not negating the fact that parchment is more durable than papyrus.
Another often-repeated thought is that papyrus was fragile and brittle, making it an unlikely candidate to be used for a codex, which would have to be folded in half.
Another issue that should be sidelined is whether it was more expensive to produce papyrus or parchment. Presently there is no data to aid in that evaluation.

We know that papyrus was used for all of the Christian codex manuscripts up to the fourth century, at which time we find the two great parchment codices, the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus manuscripts.

Parchment of good quality has been called:

“The finest writing material ever devised by man.”
—Roberts and Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (1987), p. 8

Why Did Parchment Take So Long to Replace Papyrus?

This may be answered by R. Reed in Ancient Skins, Parchments, and Leathers:

“It is perhaps the extraordinary high durability of the product, produced by so simple a method, which has prevented most people from suspecting that many subtle points are involved…. The essence of the parchment process, which subjects the system of pelt to the simultaneous action of stretching and drying, is to bring about peculiar changes quite different from those applying when making leather. These are:

Reorganization of the dermal fibre network by stretching, and
Permanently setting this new and highly stretched form of fibre network by drying the pelt fluid to a hard, glue-like consistency. In other words, the pelt fibres are fixed in a stretched condition so that they cannot revert to their original relaxed state.”
(Reed 1973, 119–20)

“Where the medieval parchment makers were greatly superior to their modern counterparts was in the control and modification of the ground substance in the pelt, before the latter was stretched and dried …. The major point, however, which modern parchment manufacturers have not appreciated, is what might be termed the integral or collective nature of the parchment process. The bases of many different effects need to be provided for simultaneously, in one and the same operation. The properties required in the final parchment must be catered for at the wet pelt stage, for due to the peculiar nature of the parchment process, once the system has been dried, after-treatments to modify the material produced are greatly restricted.”
(Reed 1973, 124)

“This method, which follows those used in medieval times for making parchment of the highest quality, is preferable, for it allows the grain surface of the drying pelt to be ‘slicked’ and freed from residual fine hairs while stretching upon the frame. At the same time, any process for cleaning and smoothing the flesh side, or for controlling the thickness of the final parchment, may be undertaken by working the flesh side with sharp knives which are semi-lunar in form…. To carry out such manual operations on wet stretched pelt demands great skill, speed of working, and concentrated physical effort.
—(Reed 1973, 138–139)

Enough has been said to suggest that behind the apparently simple instructions contained in the early medieval recipes there is a wealth of complex process detail which we are still far from understanding. Hence, it remains true that parchment-making is perhaps more of an art than a science.¹

Scroll or Roll

The scroll dominated until the beginning of the second century C.E., at which time the papyrus codex was replacing it. Papyrus enjoyed another two centuries of use until it was replaced with animal skin (vellum), which proved to be a far better writing material.

The writing on a scroll was done in 2- to 3-inch columns, which allowed the reader to have it opened, or unrolled, only partially. Although movies and television have portrayed the scroll as being opened while holding it vertically, this was not the case; scrolls were opened horizontally. It would be rolled to the left for the Greek or Latin reader, as those languages were written left to right. The Jewish reader would roll it to the right, as Hebrew was written right to left.

The difficulty of using a scroll should be apparent. If one had a long book (such as Isaiah) and attempted to locate a particular passage, it would not be user-friendly. An ancient saying was, “A great book, a great evil.”

The account in the book of Luke tells us:

Luke 4:16–21 (Updated American Standard Version – UASV)

16 And he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.
17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. And he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Codex

The trunk of a tree that bears leaves only at its apex was called a caudex in Latin. This name was modified to codex and applied to a wooden tablet with raised edges, with a coat of wax placed within those raised edges. The dried wax would then be used to receive writing with a stylus. We might compare it to the schoolchild’s slate, such as seen in some Hollywood Western movies.

Around the fifth century B.C.E., some of these were being used and attached by strings that were run through the edges. It is because these bound tablets resembled a tree trunk that they were to take on the name “codex.”

Codex Vaticanus (“Book from the Vatican”)
Facsimile, Fourth century.
It is one of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, which includes the Greek translation of the bulk of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as most of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

As we can imagine, this bulky item also was not user-friendly! Sometime later, the Romans would develop a lighter, more flexible material: the parchment notebook which would fill the need before the development of the later book-form codex. The Latin word membranae (skins) is the name given to such notebooks of parchment. In fact, at 2 Timothy 4:13, the apostle Paul requested of Timothy that he:

“Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books [scrolls], and above all the parchments [membranas, Greek spelling].”

One might ask why Paul used a Latin word (transliterated in Greek)? Undoubtedly, it was because there was no Greek word that would serve as an equivalent to what he was requesting. It was only later that the translated “codex” was brought into the Greek language to reference what we would know as a book.

Ink in Ancient Manuscripts

The ink of ancient manuscripts was usually one of two kinds:

Soot and gum-based ink:
- Sold in the form of a bar
- Dissolved in water in an inkwell
- Produced a very black ink
Nutgall-based ink:
- Resulted in a rusty-brown color

Aside from these materials, the scribe would have had a knife to sharpen his reed pen, as well as a sponge to erase errors. With the semi-professional and professional scribe, each character was written with care. Thus, writing was a slow, tedious, and often difficult task.

“I, Tertius, Greet You in the Lord”

Tertius is among the many greetings that we find at the end of the letter of Paul to the Romans, wherein he writes:

“I am greeting you, I, Tertius, the one having written this letter, in the Lord.”
—Romans 16:22

Of Paul’s fourteen letters, this is the only occurrence where we find a clear reference to one of his secretaries.

Little is known of Tertius, who must have been a faithful Christian, based on the greeting “in the Lord.” He may have been a member of the Corinthian congregation who likely knew many Christians in Rome, which is suggested because his name is Latin for “third.”

Quartus (Latin for “fourth”) is one of the other two who added their greetings:

“Erastus the city treasurer greets you, and Quartus the brother”
—Romans 16:23b

Some scholars have suggested that Quartus could have been the younger brother of Tertius. Others have suggested that Tertius was a slave or a freedman. This is also suggested by his Latin name and the fact that slaves were commonly involved in scribal activity.

From this, we could conjecture that Tertius likely had experience as a professional scribe, who became a fellow-worker with the apostle Paul, helping compile the longest of Paul’s letters.

It was common for Bible authors to use a scribe. For example:

Jeremiah used Baruch (Jeremiah 36:4)
Peter used Silvanus (1 Peter 5:12)

Of Paul’s fourteen letters, six certainly involved the use of a secretary:

Romans (16:22)
1 Corinthians (16:21)
Galatians (6:11)
Colossians (4:18)
2 Thessalonians (3:17)
Philemon (v. 19)

Penning the Book of Romans

The letter of Paul to the Romans was written while he was on his third missionary journey as a guest of Gaius in Corinth, about 55–56 C.E. (Acts 20:1–3; Romans 16:23). We know for a certainty that Paul used Tertius as his secretary to author the book of Romans. However, we cannot say with absolute certainty how he was used.

Some have argued:

“From evidence outside of the New Testament, it was common practice for authors to dictate their letters to an amanuensis or secretary.”¹

Did the secretary take that dictation down in shorthand, and then compose the letter—possibly even contributing content—with the New Testament author giving final approval?

Alternatively, was the secretary used in a more limited fashion, such as editing spelling, grammar, and syntax?

Otto Roller points out that for an author to dictate a letter to a scribe verbatim would require the author to speak very slowly, i.e., syllable by syllable.

There will be more on this later. For now, whatever method was used, the work of a secretary was no easy job. What we do know is that the sixty-six books of the Bible were “inspired by God,” and:

“Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
—2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21

CHAPTER 3

The Book Writing Process of the New Testament: Authors and Early Christian Scribes

The Place of Writing

When we think of the apostle Paul penning his books that would make up most of the New Testament, some have had the anachronistic tendency to impose their modern way of thinking about him—such as presupposing where he would have written it.

As I am writing this page, I am tucked away in my home office, seeking privacy from the hustle and bustle of our modern world. This was not the case in the ancient world, where Paul lived and traveled. People of that time favored a group setting, not isolation. The apostle Paul probably would have been of this mindset. Paul would not have necessarily sought a quiet place to author his letters, to escape the noise of those around him. As for myself, I struggle to get back on track if I am interrupted for more than a couple of minutes.

Most during Paul’s day would have been surprised by this way of thinking, i.e., seeking quiet and solitude to focus all of one’s energy on the task of writing. Those of Paul’s day, including himself, would not have even noticed people talking around them, nor would they have been troubled by what we perceive as interruptions, such as others’ discussions, which were neither relevant nor applicable to the subject of their letter writing.

The Scribe of the New Testament Writer

Philip W. Comfort informs us that an amanuensis is a:

“Scribe or secretary. In ancient times, a written document was first produced by an author who usually dictated the material to an amanuensis. The author would then read the text and make the final editorial adjustments before the document was sent or published. Paul used the writing services of Tertius to write the epistle to the Romans (Rom. 16:22), and Peter was assisted by Silvanus in writing his first Epistle (see 1 Pet. 5:12).”

Dr. Don Wilkins, a Senior Translator for the NASB, also tells us that amanuensis is a:

“Latin term for a scribe or clerk (plural ‘amanuenses’). When used in the context of textual criticism, it refers specifically to a person who served as a secretary to record first-hand the words of a New Testament book if the author chose to use a secretary rather than write down the words himself. Tertius (Rom. 16:22) is our example. The degree to which an amanuensis may have contributed to the content of any particular book of the Bible is a matter of speculation and controversy. At one end of the spectrum is the amanuensis, who merely took dictation (the position preferred here). At the other is the possibility that a New Testament author may have told his amanuensis what he wished to communicate in general terms, leaving it to the amanuensis to actually compose the book.”

The author (Edward D. Andrews) states:

“This author would wholeheartedly disagree with the latter view, as the New Testament authors alone were inspired to give us the words of God, and the scribe was merely the vehicle for doing so.”

The ancient Greco-Roman society employed secretaries or scribes for various reasons. Of course, the government employed some scribes working for chief administrators. Then, there were the scribes who were used in the private sector. These latter scribes (often slaves) usually were employed by the wealthy. However, even high-ranking slaves and freed slaves employed scribes. Many times, one would find scribes who would write letters for their friends.

According to E. Randolph Richards, the skills of these unofficial secretaries:

“Could range from a minimal competency with the language or the mechanics of writing to the highest proficiency at rapidly producing an accurate, proper, and charming letter.”¹ Scribes carried out a wide range of administrative, secretarial, and literary tasks, including:

administrative bookkeeping (keeping records of a business or person),
shorthand and taking dictation,
letter-writing, and
copying literary texts.

The most prominent ways that a scribe would have been used in the first century C.E. would have been as:

a recorder,
an editor, and
a secretary for an author.

At the very bottom of the writing tasks, he would be used to record information, i.e., as a record keeper. When they were needed or desired, the New Testament scribes were being used as secretaries, writing down letters by dictation. Tertius took down the book of Romans as Paul dictated to him, which was some 7,000+ words. He would have simply written out the very words that the apostle Paul spoke.

Some have argued that longhand in dictation was not feasible in ancient times because the author would have to slow down to the point of speaking syllable-by-syllable. They usually cite Cicero as evidence for this argument because of his writings’ numerous references to dictation. Cicero stated in a letter to his friend Varro that he had to slow down his dictation to the point of “syllable by syllable” for the sake of the scribe. However, the scribe he was using at that time was inexperienced, not his regular scribe.

Of course, it would be challenging to retain one’s line of thought in such a dictation process. It should be noted that Cicero had experienced scribes who could take down dictation at an average pace of speaking, even rapid speech. There is evidence that scribes in those days were skilled enough to take down dictation at the average speech rate. Therefore, we should not assume that the apostles would not have had access to such scribes in the persons of Tertius, Silvanus, or even Timothy.

In fact, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (b. 35 C.E., d. 100 C.E.) complained that a scribe who could write at the speed of everyday speech can make the speaker feel rushed, to the point of not being able to have time to ponder his thoughts:

“On the other hand, there is a fault which is precisely the opposite of this, into which those fall who insist on first making a rapid draft of their subject with the utmost speed of which their pen is capable, and write in the heat and impulse of the moment. They call this their rough copy. They then revise what they have written, and arrange their hasty outpourings.
But while the words and the rhythm may be corrected, the matter is still marked by the superficiality resulting from the speed with which it was thrown together. The more correct method is, therefore, to exercise care from the very beginning, and to form the work from the outset in such a manner that it merely requires being chiseled into shape, not fashioned anew.
Sometimes, however, we must follow the stream of our emotions since their warmth will give us more than any diligence can secure. The condemnation which I have passed on such carelessness in writing will make it pretty clear what my views are on the luxury of dictation which is now so fashionable.
For, when we write, however great our speed, the fact that the hand cannot follow the rapidity of our thoughts gives us time to think, whereas the presence of our amanuensis hurries us on, and at times we feel ashamed to hesitate or pause, or make some alteration, as though we were afraid to display such weakness before a witness.
As a result, our language tends not merely to be haphazard and formless, but in our desire to produce a continuous flow we let slip positive improprieties of diction, which show neither the precision of the writer nor the impetuosity of the speaker. Again, if the amanuensis is a slow writer or lacking in intelligence, he becomes a stumbling-block, our speed is checked, and the thread of our ideas is interrupted by the delay or even perhaps by the loss of temper to which it gives rise.”

Therefore, again, we have evidence that some scribes were capable, skilled to the point of writing at the average speed of speech. While Richards says that this is by way of shorthand, saying it was more widespread than initially thought—where the secretary uses symbols in place of words, forming a rough draft that would be written out fully later²—this need not be the case.

True, there is some evidence that shorthand existed a hundred years before Christ. However, it was still rare, with few scribes having the ability. Whether this was true of the scribes that assisted our New Testament authors is an unknown. It is improbable but not necessarily impossible.

Who in the days of the New Testament authors would use the services of scribes?
Foremost would be those who did not know how to read and write. Within ancient contracts and business letters, one can find a note by the scribe (illiteracy statement), who penned it, stating he had done so because his employer could not read or write. For example, an ancient letter concludes with:

“Eumelus, son of Herma, has written for him because he does not know letters.”

It may be that they were able to read but struggled with writing. Then again, it may simply be that they wrote slowly and were unwilling to spend the time improving their skills.

An ancient letter from Thebes, Egypt, penned for a certain Asklepiades, concludes:

“Written for him hath Eumelus the son of Herma …, being desired so to do for that he writeth somewhat slowly.”[^37]

On the other hand, whether one knew how to read and write was not always the decisive issue in the use of a secretary. John L. McKenzie writes:

“Even people who could read and write did not think of submitting their readers to unprofessional penmanship. It was probably not even a concern for legibility, but rather a concern for beauty, or at least for neatness,”
—(McKenzie 1975, 14)

…which moved the ancients to turn to the services of a secretary. Although the educated could read and write, some likely felt that writing was tedious, trying, tiring, and frustrating—especially where lengthy and elaborate texts were concerned. It seems that if one could avoid the tremendous task of penning a lengthy letter, entrusting it to a scribe, so much the better.

The apostle Paul had over 100 traveling companions, like Aristarchus, Luke, and Timothy, who served by the apostle’s side for many years. Then, there are others such as Asyncritus, Hermas, Julia, or Philologus, of whom we barely know more than their names. Many of Paul’s friends traveled for the sake of the gospel, such as Achaicus, Fortunatus, Stephanas, Artemas, and Tychicus.

We know that Tychicus was used by Paul to carry at least three letters now included in the Bible canon: the epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians, and Philemon. Tychicus was not simply some mail carrier. He was a well-trusted carrier for the apostle Paul.

FOOTNOTES:

B.C.E. means “before the Common Era,” which is more accurate than B.C. (“before Christ”). C.E. denotes “Common Era,” often called A.D., for anno Domini, meaning “in the year of our Lord.”
Manuscripts, MS would be singular manuscript, while MSS will refer to more than one.
When we use the term “original” reading or “original” text in this publication, it is a reference to the exemplar manuscript by the New Testament author (e.g. Paul) and his secretary, if he used one (e.g. Tertius), from which other copies were made for publication and distribution to the Christian communities.
Harold Greenlee, Text of the New Testament: From the Manuscript to Modern Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing, 2008), 13–14.
Late 16th century: < Latin, “block of wood, book, set of statutes.”
J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1995), 8–9.
Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: Oxford University Press, 1983), 1.
Retrieved Thursday January 17, 2019, “The Codex and Early Christians: Clarification & Corrections,” https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/the-codex-and-early-christians-clarification-corrections/
Retrieved Monday September 15, 2014, “The Making of a Medieval Book,” The J. Paul Getty Trust, http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/making/
Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 14.
It should be noted that the early manuscripts were written in what we consider all uppercase letters, known as majuscule, the large rounded letters used in ancient manuscripts. Moreover, there were no breaks between the letters, so a phrase like GODISNOWHERE could be divided as GOD IS NO WHERE or GOD IS NOW HERE.
In the fourth and third centuries B.C.E., the sigma form of Σ was simplified into a C-like shape in koiné Greek.
A ligature is a character that consists of two or more letters joined together, e.g., “ze”. We do not normally find ligatures in majuscule manuscripts. In the minuscule manuscripts, it can be difficult to determine a ligature due to the fact it is a manuscript with a running hand.
Robert P. Gwinn, “Paleography,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropedia, Vol. IX, 1986, p. 78.
Philip Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 110.
A scriptorium was a room for storing, copying, illustrating, or reading manuscripts.
“The usual procedure for a dictated epistle was for the amanuensis (secretary) to take down the speaker’s words (often in shorthand) and then produce a transcript, which the author could then review, edit, and sign in his own handwriting. Two New Testament epistles provide the name of the amanuensis: Tertius for Romans 16:22 and Silvanus (another name for Silas) for 1 Peter 5:12.” — Philip Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts.
Philip Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 17–20.
Theophilus means “friend of God,” and was the person to whom the books of Luke and Acts were written (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1). Theophilus was called “most excellent,” which may suggest some position of high rank. On the other hand, it simply may be Luke offering an expression of respect. Theophilus had initially been orally taught about Jesus Christ and his ministry. Thereafter, it seems that the book of Acts, also by Luke, confirms that he did become a Christian. The Gospel of Luke was partially written to offer Theophilus assurances of the certainty of what he had already learned by word of mouth.
J. Harold Greenlee, The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition, p. 2. Baker Publishing Group.
For defense against this redating, see THE P52 PROJECT: Is P52 Really the Earliest Greek New Testament Manuscript? Christian Publishing House (May 26, 2020). ISBN-13: 978-1949586107
Such Bible scholars as the late R. A. Torrey, Robert L. Thomas, Norman L. Geisler, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and current scholars such as F. David Farnell, as well as many others have fought for decades to educate readers about the dangers of higher criticism.
While at present here in 2020, there are 5,898 manuscripts. There are 140 listed Papyrus manuscripts, 323 Majuscule manuscripts, 2,951 Minuscule manuscripts, and 2,484 Lectionary manuscripts, bringing the total cataloged manuscripts to 5,898 manuscripts. However, you cannot simply total the number of cataloged manuscripts because, for example, 𝔓1/14 are the same manuscript but with different catalog numbers. The same is true for 𝔓4/64/67, 𝔓49/65, and 𝔓77/103.
Versions: Early translations of the Greek New Testament into other languages, such as Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian.
Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1995), 8–9.
Daniel Wallace states that only about 0.0025% of New Testament textual variants could be considered meaningful and viable enough to change the meaning of the verse.
Lectionaries: A book containing readings from the Bible for Christian church services throughout the year.
Patristic quotations: Quotations of the New Testament found in the writings of early Christian leaders and theologians, including the Apostolic Fathers (e.g., Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp), Apologists (e.g., Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Tertullian), and later Church Fathers (e.g., Augustine, Ambrose).
Patristic citations are important in reconstructing the NT text as they often preserve early forms of verses no longer extant in manuscripts.
Don Wilkins notes that conservative textual critics consider the autograph recoverable and reject conjectural emendation, believing that every word of the autograph is preserved in extant Greek manuscripts.
E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), discusses scribal practices, including the secretarial roles of recording, editing, and polishing.
Ibid. Richards emphasizes that shorthand was more common than previously assumed and likely used in dictation and later refined in final drafts.
Example of ancient Greek letter noting the author’s inability to write quickly, cited from papyri collection, reflecting secretarial usage for those who could read but not write well.
J. H. Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 11.
A very light porous rock formed from solidified lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish.
A Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible started in about 280 and completed about 150 B.C.E. to meet the needs of Greek-speaking Jews outside Palestine.
R. Reed, Ancient Skins, Parchments, and Leathers (Studies in Archaeological Science). Cambridge, MA: Seminar Press, 1973, 172.

42–45. Variants of “roll” or “gospel” used in manuscript references (e.g., scroll vs. codex distinctions).

Chad Brand et al., eds., “Tertius,” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1573.
When the Roman Empire was in power, a person released from slavery was called a “freedman” (Gr. apeleutheros), while a “freeman” (eleutheros) was born free, as with Paul (Acts 22:28; Balz and Schneider, Vol. 1, p. 121).
Gordon J. Bahr, “Paul and Letter Writing in the First Century,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 28 (1966): 465–77. Also cited in John McRay, Paul: His Life and Teaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 270.
Suggestion that Tertius or other scribes may have used shorthand (like modern court reporters), then produced a full draft reviewed by Paul. However, this is speculative.
Otto Roller, Das Formular der Paulinischen Briefe: Ein Beitrag zur Lehre vom antiken Briefe (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), 333.
Philip Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 379.
E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (Heidelberg, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 11.
E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), 29–30; references to shorthand in Plutarch, Cato Minor 23.3–5; Caesar 7.4–5; Seneca, Epistles 14.208.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, Institutio Oratoria, 10.3.17–21. Retrieved February 12, 2019: bit.ly/2Zazw2X
E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, 72.
Francis Exler, The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter: A Study In Greek Epistolography (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1922), 126–127.
Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World (New York and London: 1910), 166–167.

Source

Andrews, Edward D. The New Testament Documents: Can They Be Trusted? Kindle ed., Christian Publishing House, 2017. pp. 29–94, 794–804. Footnotes 1–57

How the Text of the New Testament Was Made: A Detailed Look at Its Transmission, Copying, and Restoration