Center For The Study of New Testament Manuscripts

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is a non-profit organization set out to preserve ancient manuscripts of the Christian Scriptures New Testament. This aim is accomplished by taking high resolution digital photographs of all extant Greek New Testament manuscripts. The organization was founded by Daniel B. Wallace, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, in Texas on September 13, 2002, and acts under the umbrella of The Center for the Research of Early Christian Documents (CRECD). Daniel Wallace is the executive director of CSNTM.

Wallace has said the goal of the center is to photograph 1.3 million leaves of Greek New Testament manuscripts, and estimates this goal will not be reached until 2020. The CSNTM team has already photographed manuscripts in Constantinople at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church; the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster, Germany; Tübingen University, Germany; the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on the island of Patmos, Greece; the National Archive in Tirana, Albania; the University of Michigan; several colleges at Cambridge University; University of Glasgow; and a few other sites. Wallace has also examined manuscripts in Vienna, Cologne, Florence, Berlin, at St. Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai), The Vatican, Cambridge University, Oxford University, the University of Dresden, Harvard University, the British Library, and several other sites.

The activity of CSNTM is limited by several reasons, including international law, finances and the traditional thinking of the other institutions. In spite of these difficulties CSNTM has photographed:

• Codex Sinaiticus
• Codex Alexandrinus
• Codex Vaticanus
• Codex Washingtonianus
• Codex Boernerianus
• Codex Beratinus

Although the primary focus of the CSNTM is digital preservation of New Testament manuscripts, it also works with printed books related to textual criticism such as von Soden's Greek New Testament ("Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte," Verlag von Arthur Glaue, Berlin 1902-1910). CSNTM holds also at least one manuscript of New Testament, Gregory-Aland minuscule 2882, a 10th-11th century copy of Luke’s Gospel.

CSNTM does not charge the institutes that own NT MSS for the digital photography; as a non-profit organization, CSNTM is dependent on the donations of individuals and foundations.