Data Sources

Primary Source — NTVMR

The manuscriptological data is obtained from the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR), maintained by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) at the University of Münster, Germany.

The NTVMR API exposes transcriptions in TEI/XML format. For each manuscript, the system queries the transcription endpoint with the parameter format=teiraw, which returns XML markup with <ab> elements indicating which verses are present in the manuscript.

The ingestion flow parses the XML, extracts the present verses, and links each one to the manuscript record in the database. When the NTVMR API is unavailable or does not return data for a specific manuscript, the system uses ranges defined in seed data as a fallback.

Gregory-Aland Catalog

The Gregory-Aland cataloging system assigns unique identifiers to each Greek New Testament manuscript. The numbering follows conventions by type:

• Papyri: prefix P + number (P1–P140+)
• Uncials: numbering 01–0323+ (or Greek/Latin letters for the oldest)
• Minuscules: numbering 1–2900+
• Lectionaries: prefix l + number (l1–l2500+)

The catalog is maintained by the INTF and updated as new manuscripts are discovered or reclassified.

Dating Methodology

For manuscripts with a date range (e.g., "2nd/3rd century"), the system adopts a conservative approach: it uses the earliest century of the range (centuryMin). This means that if a manuscript is dated between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it is counted as a 2nd-century attestation.

The cumulative coverage for a given century N includes all manuscripts from centuries 1 to N. Thus, 5th-century coverage includes 2nd-century papyri, 3rd-century uncials, and so on. A verse appearing in multiple manuscripts is counted only once (deduplication).

Project Limitations