SCHOLARS FIND TREASURE TROVE OF GREEK NT MANUSCRIPTS

Source: Religion Today

Normally two or three New Testament manuscripts handwritten in the original Greek are discovered each year. Last summer the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) found a treasure trove of them during a trip to Albania. The Center, based near Dallas, Texas, devotes itself to the high-resolution digital preservation of these early copies of the New Testament. Scholars tried for decades to gain access to the National Archive in Tirana with little success, partly because Albania is a former police state. Until now, only two manuscripts of the 13 known to Western scholars had been photographed. However, CSNTM Director Daniel Wallace recently received permission to send a four-man team to Albania to photograph the manuscripts with state-of-the-art digital methods. By the end of their first day in Tirana in July, they realized there were far more than 13 manuscripts. The catalog at the National Archive listed 47 New Testament manuscripts, and at least 17 were unknown to Western scholars. Evidence suggests that some of the other manuscripts had been presumed lost elsewhere in Albania, but no final determination has been made.