This paper discusses a special form of religiously significant archaeological items, and literary artifacts, with potential to inform the reading and theological interpretation of biblical texts, namely physical copies of the Scriptures of early Christianity. It particularly explores second- to fifth-century features of paratextual standardization in the emerging Greek New Testament manuscript tradition. Based on Gregory Goswell's phrasing, "paratextual" here refers to "everything in, or closely associated with, a text other than the words, that is to say, those elements that are adjoined to the text but are not part of the authored text itself if 'text' is limited strictly to the originally written words". The focus of the paper is these Scriptures viewed as textual artifacts - arguably produced in small-scale Christian copying centres - characterised by the following traits of emerging paratextual standardization: i) Christian adoption of the codex format for the emerging Scripture canon, ii) structuring of the text in canonical sub-units, iii) introduction of New Testament book titles, iv) inauguration in the manuscripts of nomina sacra and, on a partly more exploratory note, v) additional textual structuring through arithmetical elements, that is, features in the manuscript tradition that we could label "arithmetical textual patterning". The paper is intended for Section I: Interactions Between Biblical Studies and Theology