I've heard that the number of New Testament ancient manuscripts greatly outnumber those of other ancient works. I'm having a hard time finding a source that feels unbiased, but I don't see anyone strongly debating the numbers and dates.
Can anybody comment on why this might be? Was there a unique culture of preserving those documents within early Christianity? Were they simply copied and shared a lot more compared to other pieces of literature for some reason? What's the story on why we've found so many manuscripts compared to everything else?
Are you asking about the entire new testament in general, or the letters of Paul more specifically?
I'm on mobile, so I'll come back and provide sources when I get back to my computer.
I don't know if this is true for all of the new testament, but it is true for the letters of Paul. The letters of Paul were spread around and had lots of weight behind them, as Paul was recognized all around that corner of the world. The churches that he wrote to would have had members sit down and copy the letters, with the intent of spreading the message. This would then repeat where the letters were taken, which resulted in exponential growth in the number of his manuscripts, until the desire for his letters was satisfied, usually when everyone had a copy.