The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin is exhibiting the manuscripts collected through nearly ten years of searching by Sir Chester Beatty, the library's namesake.
Written between 200 and 400 AD, the texts contain both Old and New Testament books including Numbers, all four Gospels, Acts and 1 and 2 Corinthians. Paul's letter to Corinth will be on show for visitors this Easter.
The manuscripts were written in Greek on scrolls in Egypt and are believed to have been found near the River Nile in the 1920s. There are no pictures in them.
Jill Unkel, curator of the Western Collection at the Chester Beatty Library, said: "It's a very, very significant collection.
"It's the earliest collection of Pauline epistles on book. There are surviving fragments dated earlier but it's the earliest known collection.
"They are really important finds for biblical scholars, for Christian scholars and for a lot of Christians who come to the library to see these texts."
