READER'S QUESTION: Were we to have any *original manuscript* of any NT document in our midst, would we be able to recognize and confirm it as such?  If so, how? BART'S RESPONSE: Now that’s a question I’ve never been asked before!  And in fact, that I’ve never really thought about before.  It’s been fun to reflect on it a bit. To get to the short answer: I think the answer would almost certainly be "No". The reasons are of particular interest, though.   Suppose by chance a very early copy of the Gospel of John appeared.   How would we date it?  Manuscripts are dated on the basis of palaeography – an analysis of the handwriting.   Since, before the invention of printing, handwriting changed slowly, over periods of time, we can collect specimens of Greek manuscripts (or Latin or Coptic etc.) and find ones that have dates written on them.  We can then establish what Greek handwriting looked like at one period or another.   This, of course, has all been done for us already by experts [...]