Hi Larry,
The question is raised, why are there so few manuscripts of the Byzantine text earlier than the 9th century? There must have been many thousands of manuscripts in the great days of Byzantine prosperity between the 4th and 9th centuries!
Lake has come to the conclusion that like the scribes of the O. T., during this period the N. T. scribes destroyed their exemplars when they copied the Scriptures.
Two weeks ago someone gave me a ragged and falling-apart old AV family-style Bible. I guess they didn't have the heart to throw it out. The pages were cracking and falling from the binding. It was no longer an intact Bible. It was time for it to die a quick and clean death. Likewise, when mss were no longer intact and reliable (due to damage and wear) it was fitting they be destroyed. This is just one factor. There is also the weather, and what is required for a ms to be preserved.
In his (online version of)
The Identity of the New Testament Text, Wilbur Pickering addresses this matter in the chapter, “Some Possible Objections”,
Why Are There No Early "Byzantine" MSS?
Why would or should there be? To demand that a MS survive for 1,500 years is in effect to require both that it have remained unused and that it have been stored in Egypt (or Qumran). Even an unused MS would require an arid climate to last so long.
But is either requirement reasonable? Unless there were persons so rich as to be able to proliferate copies of the Scriptures for their health or amusement, copies would be made on demand, in order to be used. As the use of Greek died out in Egypt the demand for Greek Scriptures would die out too, so we should not expect to find many Greek MSS in Egypt.
It should not be assumed, however, that the "Byzantine" text was not used in Egypt. Although none of the early Papyri can reasonably be called "Byzantine", they each contain "Byzantine" readings. The case of P66 is dramatic. The first hand was extensively corrected, and both hands are dated around A.D. 200. The 1st hand is almost half "Byzantine" (a. 47%), but the 2nd hand regularly changed "Byzantine" readings to "Alexandrian" and vice versa, i.e. he changed "Alexandrian" to "Byzantine", repeatedly. This means that they must have had two exemplars, one "Alexandrian" and one "Byzantine"—between the two hands the "Byzantine" text receives considerable attestation.
Consider the case of Codex B and P75; they are said to agree 82% of the time (unprecedented for "Alexandrian" MSS, but rather poor for "Byzantine"). But what about the 18% discrepancy? Most of the time, when P75 and B disagree one or the other agrees with the "Byzantine" reading. If they come from a common source, that source would have been more "Byzantine" than either descendant. Even the Coptic versions agree with the "Byzantine" text as often as not.
"Orphan children"
The study and conclusions of Lake, Blake, and New, already discussed in a prior section, are of special interest here. They looked for evidence of direct genealogy and found virtually none. I repeat their conclusion.
. . . the manuscripts which we have are almost all orphan children without brothers or sisters.
Taking this fact into consideration along with the negative result of our collation of MSS at Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the scribes usually destroyed their exemplars when they had copied the sacred books.[31]
Is it unreasonable to suppose that once an old MS became tattered and almost illegible in spots the faithful would make an exact copy of it and then destroy it, rather than allowing it to suffer the indignity of literally rotting away? What would such a practice do to our chances of finding an early "Byzantine" MS? Anyone who objects to this conclusion must still account for the fact that in three ancient monastic libraries equipped with scriptoria (rooms designed to facilitate the faithful copying of MSS), there are only "orphan children." Why are there no parents?!
To read further in Pickering’s study, go to:
Chapter 6. Starting at the section, “Why are there no early Byzantine MSS?”
Robinson and Pierpont also discuss this in the Introduction to their edition of the Byzantine NT:
Introduction to Robinson & Pierpont. Scroll down to the section “The Allegation of No Early Byzantine Manuscripts” (p. xxvi in hardcopy book).
I realize this entails a little bit of reading, but for serious inquirers it will be nothing.