ancient papyrus copies of the New Testament

one side of P52, Rylands Greek Papyrus 457,
a fragment of John's gospel,
dated pre 150 AD (CE) !

list of papyri of the New Testament

These ancient, hand written, papyrus fragments are the earliest known copies of the New Testament. It is incredible to consider how ancient they are and how close to their original source they are. The New Testament is the best documented ancient piece of literature there is. These papyri fragments are what historians only fantasize about with other ancient pieces of literature! This link is part of a site called islamic-awareness.org. I do not think that this list is complete. I believe they're missing at least one incredibly early papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John (John 18:31-33, 37, 38) that is dated to have been written sometime before 150 AD (CE) called P52. This papyrus was written and found in Egypt. This dates the Gospel of John very early, likely before he end of the 1st century, because the gospel would have required some time to spread and be copied as far as Egypt before 150 AD (CE).

Links for P52:
katapi bible resource pages
John Rylands Library, Manchester.
(These are the people who are actually in possession
of this amazing piece of history.)