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The earliest New Testament fragment known to us is a fragment of John, p 52, dating from about A.D. 130 and containing a few words from John 18. Two other papyrus witnesses, both codices, spring from the end of the second century: p 66 includes most of John 1-14 and parts of the remaining chapters, while p 75 contains most of Luke, followed by John 1-11 and parts of chapters 12-15. From the beginning of the third century comes p 45, which contains parts of all four gospels plus Acts, though the mutilated state of the manuscript ensures that no book is complete. Thereafter the manuscript evidence becomes richer, capped by the great fourth-century uncials (manuscripts written in capital letters) and followed by the many minuscules in succeeding centuries.
There is an excellent list of the most important textual witnesses, including versional and patristic evidence, along with a summary of scholarly discussion, in Schnackenburg. 92 On the whole, the text is in good shape, but there are a few passages where notorious difficulties are still disputed. Perhaps the most famous of these is John 1:18. It appears likely that the original reading was μονογενής θεός (monogenes theos, G3666 + G2536), the second word probably understood appositionally: "[the] unique one, [himself] God,” rather than "the only begotten God.” Despite the best efforts of Zane Hodges to prove that the narrative of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) was originally part of John’s Gospel, 93 the evidence is against him, and modern English versions are right to rule it off from the rest of the text (NIV) or to relegate it to a footnote (RSV). These verses are present in most of the medieval Greek minuscule manuscripts, but they are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts that have come down to us, representing great diversity of textual traditions. The most notable exception is the Western uncial D, known for its independence in numerous other places. They are also missing from the earliest forms of the Syriac and Coptic Gospels, and from many Old Latin, Old Georgian, and Armenian manuscripts. All the early church fathers omit this narrative; in commenting on John, they pass immediately from John 7:52 to 8:12. No Eastern Father cites the passage before the tenth century. Didymus the Blind (a fourth-century exegete from Alexandria) reports a variation on this narrative, 94 not the narrative as we have it here. Moreover, a number of (later) manuscripts that include the narrative mark it off with asterisks or obeli, indicating hesitation as to its authenticity, while those that do include it display a rather high frequency of textual variants. Although most of the mansucripts that include the story place it at John 7:53-8:11, some place it instead after Luke 21:38, and others variously after John 7:44, John 7:36, or John 21:25 (see Metzger, pp. 219 22, for a summary of the evidence). The diversity of placement confirms (though it cannot establish) the inauthenticity of the verses. Finally, even if someone should decide that the substance of the narrative is authentic—a position plausible enough—it would be very difficult to justify the view that the material is authentically Johannine: it includes numerous expressions and constructions that are found nowhere in John but that are characteristic of the Synoptic Gospels, Luke in particular.