How Many New Testament Manuscripts Are There?

By 1989 the Munster Institute for New Testamanet Textual Research had catalogued the number of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament at a total of 5488, in the customary categories: 96 papyri, 229 uncials, 2812 minuscules and 2281 lectionaries (containing selected passages arranged according to the liturgical year, for use in church services) [p488, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D. Coogan, Oxford University Press 1993]

What’s the oldest NT manuscript found thus far?

The oldest known New Testament manuscript is a papyrus fragment, ca. 9 by 6.35 cm (3.5 by 2.5 in) dated to 100-150 CE, which preserves five verses from John 18. P52 as it is called is now kept at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England.

The oldest substantial portions of the New Testament are the Bodmer papyrus of John (P66), now in Geneva, and the Chester Beatty papyrus (P46) in Dublin and Ann Arbor, which contains ten Pauline letters; both have been dated to ca. 200 CE

[p488, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D. Coogan, Oxford University Press 1993]