The Bible's Oldest Existing Manuscripts

[Philip]

Here is an excellent article for laypersons, to help them better understand the issues and challenges surrounding the dating and authentication process of the earliest, surviving Bible manuscript copies, as well as issues related to false / Gnostic gospels, fakes, dating the authentic copies, etc: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... -east.html

As a side note, although no known first century original manuscripts are known to have survived - this does NOT mean we can't know the original Gospels' contents with a very high level of confidence - as we CAN know what was in them - read here: https://www.namb.net/apologetics-blog/t ... the-bible/ - and especially here: https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019 ... nuscripts/.

The world of Biblical archaeology and scholarship is incredibly fascinating!

[PaulSacramento]

In regards to ancient writings, the bible has some of the oldest manuscripts in existence and, in relation to when the originals were actually written, the earliest copies we have far closer than any other ancient writing.
Example is that the fragment from the Gospel of John we have is less than 50 years from the original.
In comparison, the oldest copies we have of of the writings about Julius Caesar are 800 years from the originals !