Newly Discovered Manuscripts Posted at CSNTM

Over the past fifteen months, The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) has discovered more than 40 New Testament manuscripts worldwide. During expeditions to locations as diverse as Albania, Michigan, New Zealand, and Cambridge, the Center has photographed more than 200 Greek New Testament manuscripts, a large number of them previously unknown to biblical scholars.

We have recently posted many of these new manuscripts at www.csntm.org, and more are on the way. The Albanian National Archives has allowed the Center to post ten percent of the images of their manuscripts. Nearly two thousand images from their 28 uncatalogued finds were recently uploaded to the site, allowing the community of scholars (and any interested person) a glimpse of the newly discovered Albanian manuscripts.

Similarly, eight new finds from the Benaki Museum in Athens have appeared on the website in the past two weeks. Posted in their entirety, these images represent the largest single discovery of manuscripts during the 2008–2009 expedition season. In the coming weeks, several more previously uncatalogued manuscripts will be uploaded as well.

Although manuscript photography is a high priority for the Center, the ultimate objective is to make the resulting images—and thus the biblical text—as accessible as possible to the public and to the scholarly community. Never before have so many newly discovered New Testament manuscripts been made available in one location, a testimony to the significant support that the Center has received from those who care deeply about the preservation of the biblical text.