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Early New Testament Manuscripts

earlynewtestament.com, maintained by Craig Davis, is an English-translation project covering the 83 known New Testament papyri and fragments dated to AD 300 or earlier — that is, everything older than the great uncial codices (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both c. AD 350). Content is organized by New Testament book (Matthew through Revelation), with each manuscript given its standard papyrus number (P1, P4, P52, etc.) and an English translation of exactly what survives on the fragment — not a reconstruction of the whole book.

Why it's useful here

This site's own bible-text.db pipeline holds Bible text (WEB, LXX, Tischendorf) and lexical/morphological tagging, but not manuscript-level detail — it doesn't tell you which papyrus a given reading actually survives on, or let you read what a specific 2nd-century fragment says in English. earlynewtestament.com fills exactly that gap, and complements the manuscript entries already cataloged in Ancient Texts and Manuscripts (P52, P46, P66 there are three of the 83 covered here).

  • Dating: mostly follows Philip Comfort and David Barrett, The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts — the site is upfront that manuscript dating (paleography — dating by handwriting style) is an expert judgment call, not an exact science, and that some dates (P52 in particular) are disputed.
  • Nomina sacra: the site explains the early scribal convention of abbreviating sacred names (Jesus, Christ, God, Lord, Spirit, and others) with a line drawn over the abbreviation — worth knowing about if a manuscript image looks unfamiliar.
  • Companion site: the same author maintains dssenglishbible.com for the Dead Sea Scrolls, alongside Sefaria as a source for that literature.

Using it in a study

For a study that leans on New Testament manuscript evidence (dating, textual reliability, a specific reading's attestation), earlynewtestament.com is a good primary-source check before citing a manuscript secondhand — read what the fragment actually says, in translation, rather than relying on a summary. As always, cite the specific manuscript (its P-number) and translation source when quoting it in a study, per the citation conventions in AGENTS.md.