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Today there are thousands of documented papyri dating from well before the fourth century that contain fragments of the New Testament. Of these, 127 are papyri written before the end of the first century. There are more fragments of the book of John than any other with a total of 30. Second is the gospel of Matthew with a total of 23 documents with 11 of them being early papyri from the fourth century or earlier. One of the earliest of these referencing the historical Jesus Christ dates from approximately A. D. 120. If Jesus was crucified in A. D. 30, this surviving fragment of the gospel of John was written within 70 years of the actual event and less than 30 years from the original document. Until recently this was considered the earliest known New Testament manuscript.

However, after years of testing and microscopically comparing other papyrus fragments found at Qur’an with papyrus documents dated from A. D. 65/66, some scholars have proposed that the oldest surviving manuscript portion of the New Testament is what is known as the Magdalene Manuscript. Papyri fragments are dated by several different methods. The papyrus itself is compared to documents of known dates as is the style of writing. Some scholars today believe that this fragment of the gospel of Matthew could not have been written later than A. D. 66 and was most likely written even earlier.

The significance doesn’t lie in which was written first. Both are significant in that at least some of those who were eye witnesses to the actual events were most likely still alive. This gives credence to the assertion that the events and the people described in the gospels are historically correct since the accounts could well have been corroborated by those who had firsthand knowledge of the proceedings.