So, you’ve probably seen these charts that compare the number of manuscripts we have of the New Testament to the number of manuscripts we have of other ancient authors. The New Testament, of course, comes out on top in the number of manuscripts: something like 6000 manuscripts in contrast to the next closest, Homer’s Iliad, which is in the 600-something range.

These charts are often related to conservative evangelical arguments about how reliable the New Testament documents are. All kinds of crazy arguments are made based on this information, including the divine hand in the preservation of early Christian documents and that their sheer numbers of manuscripts somehow means that they are more accurate as historical witnesses to Jesus.

That said, I’m intrigued by a less apologetic and more historically relevant purpose for this information: namely, reception history. Simply stated, reception history, or Wirkungsgeschichte, is the study of how texts have been received. We might think of later authors drawing upon the stories and ideas of earlier authors, or perhaps artistic representations in paintings, sculptures, or even films. In this sense, then, we are not only concerned with the “original” historical context of the sources themselves and those events they claim to depict. We also trace the story of what happened to the texts after they came into existence. Of course, this tells us more about the interpreters than it does the texts themselves.

New Testament documents are preserved more than any other collection of ancient documents because of their importance to the subsequent trends and traditions western civilization. So, teaching about the New Testament documents in the context of a course on western civilization requires some recognition of how those texts have been received — which is something I did in my guest lecture this morning in western civ.

My problem is that I haven’t been able to find a reliable chart describing the preservation of manuscripts of ancient documents. I want to find (or develop) such a chart that considers not only simple numbers (“6000 manuscripts! Hallelujah!”), but also some nuance regarding the nature of preservation. Within the chart, it would be helpful to note the time from the events depicted to the estimated first writing of the “original manuscript,” then the amount of time from the purported original document to the oldest manuscript we have. Perhaps a secondary chart that shows the distribution of manuscripts in each century. There needs to be some recognition of the process of preservation, in which sense we are talking about apples and oranges when we discuss manuscripts for Homer and the New Testament.

My question for you is: Where do I find credible information on these things that is beyond reproach of being accused of an “evangelical” sort of bias? Perhaps even multiple locations. There must be classicists and ancient historians who have published basic and reliable information about the data for classical works. I want something that I could use without being accused of some sort of apologetic intentions myself!