The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that began in the 3rd Century BC in Egypt. Today we have many copies of that manuscript in various forms, from its entirety to mere fragments.
Papyrus Rylands 458 is the oldest manuscript of the Septuagint and is believed to dated from around the 2nd Century BC. There are 8 small fragments in our possession.You can see it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Rylands_458)
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.
The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include the oldest known surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE and 70 CE. The scrolls are traditionally identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, though some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests in Jerusalem, Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups.
We have 5,686 Greek manuscripts (copies and fragments) of the New Testament and nearly 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. First Century writers quoted the New Testament in their writing that we can piece together the entire New Testament just from their quotes.
There are NO COPIES OR FRAGMENTS of the Book of Mormon found anywhere in the United States.
Why is that?
- Obviously it wasn't important enough that anyone protected it.
- God didn't ensure its preservation.
- It never existed.