Ancient Sources Compared to New Testament copies

ANCIENT SOURCES COMPARED TO NEW TESTAMENT COPIES

Author	Book	Date Written	Earliest Copies	Time Gap	Numbers of early copies
Homer	Iliad	800 BC	c. 400 BC	about 400 years	643
Herodotus	History	480-425 BC	c.AD 900	about 1,350 years	8
Thucydides	History	460-400 BC	c. AD 900	about 1,300 years	8
Plato	Surviving works	400 BC	c. AD 900	about 1,300 years	7
Demosthenes	Surviving works	300 BC	c. AD 1100	about 1,400 years	200
Julius Caesar	Gallic Wars	c. 54 BC (lived 100-44 BC)	c. AD 900	about 1,000 years	10
Livy	History of Rome	?-AD 17 (lived 59 BC-AD 17)	4th century (partial) 10th century	about 400 years about 1,000 years	1 partial 19 copies
Tacitus	Annals	c. AD 100	c. AD 1100	about 1,000 years	20
Pliny the Younger	Natural History	c. AD 100	c. AD 850	about 750 years	7
New Testament	27 books	AD 50-70 (some scholars date Revelation as late as AD 100)	c. 114 fragments c. 200 books c. 250 New Testament (most) c. 325 New Testament (complete)	10-50 years 70-100 years 100-150 years 200-225 years	5366

Early Patristic Quotations from the New Testament
(from their surviving works)

Charts inspired from Evidence That Demands a Verdict, page 55

Papias: Now Matthew made an ordered arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one translated it as he was able.
Irenaeus wrote of Papias: ?a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp.
(Polycarp) had familiar intercourse with John and with others who had seen the Lord. of the Apostle Matthew: Matthew also among the Hebrews published a written gospel in their own dialect, when Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and founding the Church there.(c. AD 180)
Irenaeus wrote of himself: that he ?had the preaching of the Apostles still echoing in his ears and their doctrine in front of his eyes.
Polycarp wrote: of the apostles who preached to us...
Eusebius wrote 4th century of Pantaenus (teacher of Clement of Alexandria) circa 150-215, (He) went to India, and the tradition is that he there found his arrival anticipated by some who were acquainted with the gospel according to Matthew; for Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had preached to them and left them the writing of Matthew in Hebrew letters, and this writing was preserved until the time mentioned.
St. Jerome finished the official Latin Vulgate AD 407. He testified that when he translated Matthew he worked with an ancient copy of Matthew's Gospel written in Hebrew.