When considering the localized persecutions of Christians early on in the first and second centuries, it is no stretch of the imagination to visualize the confiscation, loss, or even destruction of the “autographs and first copies” of the New Testament writings.65 One must also remember that many of these New Testament manuscripts discovered in the sands of Egypt were cast aside in the trash heaps of Oxyrhynchus, some of them torn to shreds before doing so.66 This reveals that Christians sometimes