Gospel titles in only a small number of early manuscripts?

Some recent skeptical treatments of the authorship of the gospels that I've come across have raised the objection that only a small number of our gospel manuscripts from the earliest centuries include a gospel title (e.g., "The Gospel According To John"). I want to address some problems with that objection.

CSNTM manuscript viewer

CSNTM has revamped their manuscript viewer.

What methods are used to date ancient manuscripts?

The Significance Of Long-Lasting New Testament Manuscripts

If anybody is interested, I just put up a post on my Facebook account that elaborates on the significance of the article by Craig Evans that I discussed earlier this week.

New Testament Autographs Lasting Into The Third Century Or Later

Michael Kruger has written a post about a new article by Craig Evans:

Evans culls together an insightful and intriguing amount of evidence to suggest that literary manuscripts in the ancient world would last hundreds of years, on average. Appealing to the recent study of G.W. Houston, he argues that manuscripts could last anywhere from 75 to 500 years, with the average being about 150 years….

In other words, it is possible (and perhaps even likely) that some of the earliest copies of the New Testament we posses may have been copied directly from one of the autographs. And, if not the autographs, they may have been copied from a manuscript that was directly copied from the autographs. Either way, this makes the gap between our copies and the autographs shrink down to a rather negligible size.

In the end, we do not possess merely copies of copies of copies (etc.) as some skeptics maintain. The early date of our copies, combined with the likely longevity of the autographs, can give us a high degree of confidence that have access to the New Testament text at the earliest possible stage.

If so, then there are no reasons to think that there were wild, unbridled textual changes taking place in this earliest period. On the contrary, Evans’ study provides good reasons to think the NT text was transmitted with a high degree of accuracy and fidelity.

In an article several years ago, I wrote:

Bruce Metzger notes that some patristic sources refer to the preservation of some of the original copies of the New Testament documents (CNT, n. 4 on 4-5). Metzger cites the example of Tertullian's claim that the church of Thessalonica still possessed the original copies of the letters Paul sent them.

These issues also have implications in contexts other than textual transmission. For example, if the Thessalonian church possessed originals of both letters Paul wrote to them, a comparison of handwriting and other details would provide evidence for authorship attribution.

A Timeline Regarding First-Century Mark

Here's a timeline James Snapp has put together for developments surrounding the alleged first-century fragment of Mark's gospel.

New High-Resolution Photographs of Ancient New Testament Manuscripts to be Available

Stunning, high-resolution images of the most ancient New Testament
manuscripts will soon be available for viewing on the Web.

Daniel Wallace and Larry Hurtado, among others, are reporting that Wallace’s Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) website will soon carry high, high-resolution images (up to 120 MB each) of the famous Chester Beatty papyri, which are among the oldest manuscripts of New Testament documents available.

(No word yet on the supposedly forthcoming first-century manuscript fragment from the Gospel of Mark).

These papyri are a real treasure – according to Michael Kruger (Canon Revisited), these and other manuscripts themselves are some of the earliest physical evidence of early Christianity that we have.

[They] hold tremendous potential in helping us understand the origins and development of the New Testament canon. For one, we have collections of New Testament books within a single manuscript that date to the second and third centuries, earlier than the time of many of our canonical “lists”. Moreover, many of the physical and visual features of these manuscripts—the codex form, scribal hand, and other inscriptional features—together provide a fresh window into the literary culture of early Christianity and how Christians would have viewed and used these texts (pg 234).

According to Wallace:

The New Testament papyri at the CBL (Chester Beatty Library) include the oldest manuscript of Paul’s letters (dated c. AD 200), the oldest manuscript of Mark’s Gospel and portions of the other Gospels and Acts (third century), and the oldest manuscript of Revelation (third century). One or two of the Old Testament papyri are as old as the second century AD.

Using state-of-the-art digital equipment, CSNTM photographed each manuscript against white and black backgrounds. The result was stunning. Each image is over 120 megabytes. The photographs reveal some text that has not been seen before.

If you’re a student of the New Testament, this is exciting stuff. This library of photography will provide new and exciting insights into the world of the ancient church.