New Testament Texts
As with the Old Testament texts no “original” has survived, just copies. Still, the New Testament copies we can study today, for example the gospels, are very close to the original. In fact, there is no antique text anywhere as well documented as the New Testament. To date, more than 5700 antique and medieval copies have been found.
The gospels were written between AD 65-70 (Marc, Luke, Matthew) and AD 95-100 (John). The oldest physical texts or fragments of texts we posses are just some 50-100 years older. The oldest fragment of John’s gospel, named “P52”, dates even to AD 100-125.
This is very close to the original author. Typically, the oldest versions of antique texts are some 1000 years older than the lost original. For instance, this is the case with Caesar’s “The Gallic War”. The oldest existing copy of Homer's works were even created 2000 years after the author's death.
Because of this good documentation we can say that the tradition of the texts through the ages was very accurate, exactly as with the Old Testament texts. Hype author's claims of new bible versions introduced centuries after Jesus' death are completely inaccurate and without scientific substance.
(C) 2006-2011 Thorsten Straub, www.biblical-finds.com