Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies)

by Andrew Loke

Licona elaborates: The manuscript support for our present critical Greek text of the New Testament is superior to what we have for any of the ancient literature. As of the time I am writing this chapter, there are 5,839 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. A dozen or so of these manuscripts have been dated to have been written within 150 years of the originals, and the earliest (P 52) has been dated to within ten to sixty years of the original. In contrast, of the nine Lives of Plutarch … only a few dozen Greek manuscripts have survived. The earliest of these is dated to the tenth or eleventh century, or roughly eight to nine hundred years after Plutarch wrote them.