The oldest surviving New Testament fragment of which there is a reliable date is the [[John Rylands Fragment]] (P52) of the ''Gospel of John'', dating from 117 to 138 A.D., just decades from when the Gospel was first written.<ref>[http://www.biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html N.T. Ancient Manuscripts]</ref> The time span between the writing of the New Testament and the oldest surviving fragments is well under two hundred years. By comparison, Greek classics such as [[Herodotus]], [[Plato]], [[Euripides]], and [[Homer]] have a time span of well over a thousand years each between the date of the oldest known fragment of writing and the time period they were first written. | The oldest surviving New Testament fragment of which there is a reliable date is the [[John Rylands Fragment]] (P52) of the ''Gospel of John'', dating from 117 to 138 A.D., just decades from when the Gospel was first written.<ref>[http://www.biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html N.T. Ancient Manuscripts]</ref> The time span between the writing of the New Testament and the oldest surviving fragments is well under two hundred years. By comparison, Greek classics such as [[Herodotus]], [[Plato]], [[Euripides]], and [[Homer]] have a time span of well over a thousand years each between the date of the oldest known fragment of writing and the time period they were first written. |