Way back when I studied those second century manuscripts of which you spoke, I recall how the early churches spanned across the much of the Roman empire, including Carthage, Antioch, Cappadocia, Rome and even what is now Spain. The Egyptian churches did not receive ANY of the original autographs from the Apostles, so far as we know.
When it comes to the Greek New Testament texts, it's blatantly erroneous to focus only on the Egyptian manuscripts by the virtue of them being the "oldest." Persecution forced considerable isolation and so it's questionable to assume that the second to the fourth century Egyptian manuscripts were unilaterally accepted manuscripts by all the churches in those centuries. Those churches couldn't even agree on the a canon of books, so what basis is there to presume that they had textual uniformity, or that the Alexandrian manuscripts were more authoritative?
Even Origen himself wrote:
“…the differences among the manuscripts [of the Gospels] have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they lengthen or shorten, as they please.”
This casts considerable doubts, therefore, upon those "older" texts of which you seem to rely so heavily. Antiquity is not at all an absolute acid test for authenticity nor conformity, given that a prominent church father in Alexandria testified that manuscripts were already corrupt by the third century.
The manuscripts in question likely include:
- Codex Sinaiticus (Mount Sinai, Egypt)
- Codex Alexandrinus (Alexandria, Egypt)
- Codex Vaticanus (Alexandria, Egypt)
- Uncial 0220 (Cairo, Egypt)
- Uncial 0162 (Oxyrhynchus, Egypt)
- Uncial 0206 (Oxyrhynchus, Egypt)
- Amherst Papyri (Egypt)
- Bodmer papyri (Pabau, Egypt)
- Chester Beatty papyri (Fayum or Aphroditopolis, Egypt)
- Michigan papyri (Egypt)
- Oxyrhynchus papyri (Oxyrhynchus, Egypt)
- Rylands papyri (Egypt)
- Miscellaneous papyri
- P2 (Egypt), P4 (Coptos, Egypt) P6 (Egypt), P7 (Egypt), P8 (Egypt), P12 (Egypt), P14 (Mount Sinai, Egypt), P25 (Egypt), P33=58 (Egypt), P34 (Egypt), P35 (Egypt), P36 (Egypt), P40 (Egypt), P41 (Egypt), P43 (Egypt), P44 (Egypt), P48 (Egypt), P49 (Egypt), P50 (Egypt), P52 (Egypt), P53 (Egypt), P54 (Egypt), P55 (Egypt), P56 (Egypt), P57 (Egypt), P59 (Egypt), P60 (Egypt), P61 (Egypt), P62 (Egypt), P63 (Egypt), P64=67 (Coptos, Egypt), P65 (Egypt), P68 (Egypt), P76 (Egypt), P79 (Egypt), P80 (Egypt), P81 (Egypt), P82 (Egypt), P83 (Egypt), P84 (Egypt), P85 (Egypt), P86 (Egypt), P88 (Egypt), P89 (Egypt), P92 (Faiyum, Egypt)
Just ensuring I have my critical thinking cap is on correctly...
MM