Early NT Manuscripts

There are two basic types of NT texts, the uncials (written in capital letters) and the later miniscules (written in connected script). Some of the most famous uncials are known by name at least even to NT hobbyists such as myself: the V century Codex Alexandrinus; the mid-IV CE Codex Vaticanus (kept in the Vatican Library but unknown for many centuries because the librarians were reluctant to let the scholarly world have a look); the V or VI century Codex Bezae, which was donated to Cambridge by Calvin's successor Beza in 1581; and the famous Codex Sinaiticus, illustrated here with a verse from Luke 11:2.

There are also thousands of miniscules, and some preserve readings of early origin.
One of the most interesting manuscripts is the Codex Freerianus, in the Freer Collection of the Smithsonian. It is from the IV CE or the beginning of the V. It includes this unique text after Mk 16:14 (called the Freer Logion):

“And they excused themselves, saying, ‘This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or, does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal your righteousness now’ – thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, ‘The term of years of Satan’s power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was handed over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness that is in heaven.’”

The miniscule used by Erasmus for the first printed edition of the NT in Greek did not include Revelation, which he had to reconstruct from the Latin Vulgate of Jerome. Manuscript 33, which has been called "the Queen of the Miniscules", contains the whole Bible except for Revelation. Those who wish that this misleading book had never been included in the c anon applaud these omissions!

A number of manuscripts use a shorter version of Luke, with affinities to Marcion's gospel. Miniscule 157 is such a manuscript, and ends with the following: "copied from the ancient manuscripts of Jerusalem."
A group of miniscules known as the Ferrar group (Mss. 13, 69, 124, 346 and about half a dozen others) have the interesting characteristic that the pericope of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery is located after Lk 21:39 instead of after Jn 7:52. To my mind this is good evidence that the story was free-floating and not in the earliest version of John.

A number of manuscripts show in their GsLk affinities with Marcion's gospel. 157 is such a miniscule and contains the colophon "copied from the ancient manuscripts of Jerusalem" after each gospel.

700 is a peculiar gospel manuscript of the XII century. It contains 270 readings found nowhere else, and it seems that these unique readings derive from a very old text, since the form of the second petition (“forgive us our sins”) of the Lord's Prayer in Lk 11:2 reads “Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us". This is the form in Marcion's gospel, but also attested in the orthodox church father Gregory of Nyssa, but it appears nowhere else.

The evidence from the manuscripts inclines me to believe that Marcion’s gospel was not an abridgement of canonical Luke, but rather an adaptation or alteration of a shorter proto-Luke which was in common circulation in his home region’s churches. Surely it looks as if proto-Luke originally started at Chapter 3, with the orthodox redactor “Luke” adding an infancy gospel, possibly specifically to counter Marcion.