What are the oldest biblical manuscripts?

The John Rylands Fragment (P 52), containing verses from John’s Gospel, is the oldest known piece of New Testament manuscript[1], dated between AD 117 and 138[2]. This discovery is particularly significant because it definitively settled scholarly debates about when the Gospel of John was composed, demonstrating that copies were circulating in Egypt within only a few years after the original was written[1].

Beyond this single fragment, whole books are available from around the year 200 in the Bodmer Papyri, and most of the New Testament, including all the Gospels, survives in the Chester Beatty Papyri manuscripts dating to about 250[2]. The three oldest, most complete, and most valuable manuscripts of the New Testament are the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Codex Alexandrinus[3]. The Codex Sinaiticus was made in the first half of the 4th century[3] and is the only ancient manuscript that contains the entire New Testament[3]. The Vatican codex was made in the 4th century[3], while the Alexandrian codex was made in the 5th century in Alexandria, Egypt[3].

For the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing at least fragments of all Old Testament books except Esther, all date from before the end of the first century AD and some to the third century BC[2]. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide manuscripts dating a thousand years earlier than most used to establish the Hebrew text[2], making them invaluable witnesses to the ancient biblical text.

[1] Rubel Shelly, What Shall We Do with the Bible? (Ramer, TN: National Christian Press, 1975), 120.
[2] Robert D. Bergen, “2 Samuel,” in CSB Apologetics Study Bible, ed. Ted Cabal (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 376.
[3] Henry Hampton Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook with the New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 1078–1079.