Manuscript Discovery Timeline
When the primary biblical manuscripts were found, by whom, and what each of them revealed about the transmission of Scripture.
The manuscripts we now use to reconstruct the biblical text were not always known. Codex Sinaiticus was found in a Sinai monastery in 1844. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947. Papyrus 52 — the earliest known New Testament fragment — was catalogued in 1934 among the John Rylands Library holdings and dated to AD 125.
Each discovery changed something: the antiquity of the text, the character of variant readings, the shape of the deuterocanonical books. This timeline plots them in order.
Explore the Manuscripts
Codex Sinaiticus
Found 1844. AD 330–360. The only ancient MS with a complete NT.
Codex Vaticanus
Catalogued 1475. AD 300–325. Alongside Sinaiticus, our two oldest near-complete Bibles.
Papyrus 52 (P52)
Catalogued 1934. AD 125. The earliest known NT fragment — John 18.
Great Isaiah Scroll
Found 1947. c. 125 BC. The oldest complete copy of any biblical book.
Papyrus 75 (P75)
Found 1952. AD 175–225. The earliest extensive witness to Luke and John.