Manuscripts, history, and why the text is reliable

“We have more manuscript evidence for the New Testament than for any other work of antiquity, and it is of earlier date than almost any other.” – Daniel B. Wallace. Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

One of the most common questions teens hear today is whether the Bible has been changed over time. You will often hear claims like “The Bible has been rewritten again and again,” or “What we have today isn’t what was originally written.” Sometimes these claims are said confidently, even when no evidence is given. Because of that, many people assume the Bible is unreliable without ever actually looking at the history behind it.

At first, the concern sounds reasonable. The Bible was written a long time ago. It was copied by hand before printing presses existed. It passed through many cultures and languages. Surely mistakes must have crept in somewhere. That seems logical. But the real question is not whether copying occurred. Of course it did. The question is whether we can still know what the original authors wrote.

This is where manuscripts matter. A manuscript is simply a handwritten copy of a document. The New Testament is not preserved in one single manuscript, but in thousands of them. In fact, there are more than five thousand Greek manuscripts of the New Testament alone, along with thousands more in early translations like Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. This matters because the more copies you have, the easier it is to compare them and identify differences.

“The Gospels were written too early, too widely circulated, and too carefully preserved to have been significantly altered.” – Peter J. Williams, Principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge

If one copy makes a mistake, it stands out when compared with hundreds of others. Textual scholars do not hide these differences. They study them openly. Most variations are extremely small, involving spelling differences, word order, or minor copying habits. None of them change the core beliefs of Christianity. No teaching about Jesus’ life, death, or resurrection depends on a disputed passage.

It helps to compare this with other ancient writings. Most ancient works are preserved by a handful of manuscripts copied centuries after the originals. In contrast, parts of the New Testament appear within decades of when they were first written. Some fragments date to within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. Historically speaking, the New Testament is one of the best attested documents of the ancient world.

“There is no evidence that the New Testament was substantially changed by later Christians. The idea is popular in modern culture but unsupported by historical data.” – Michael J. Kruger, President of Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte

Another important point is that the Bible was not controlled by one group rewriting it in secret. The writings were spread widely across regions very early. Churches in different cities possessed copies. That makes large scale editing nearly impossible. Changing the text everywhere at once would require retrieving and rewriting thousands of copies scattered across the Roman world. There is no historical evidence that anything like this ever happened.

Sometimes people claim the church changed the Bible to gain power. But early Christians were not powerful. They were often persecuted, imprisoned, and executed. There was no central authority with the ability to rewrite texts. In fact, early church leaders often quoted Scripture publicly, which allows historians to cross check what they believed the text said. Those quotations match what we read today.

“The textual basis of the New Testament is far more secure than that of most ancient documents whose authenticity is rarely questioned.” – Craig S. Keener, Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary

Translation is another concern people raise. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. But translation does not mean distortion. Translating does not change meaning when done carefully. In fact, modern translations are based on thousands of ancient manuscripts, not a single source. Scholars compare them carefully to produce accurate translations, not rewrite theology.

It is important to understand what textual criticism actually is. Despite the intimidating name, it simply means comparing manuscripts to determine the earliest wording. This process is used for all ancient literature, not just the Bible. The difference is that with the Bible, we have far more data to work with than almost any other ancient text.

Even skeptical scholars agree on this point. While they may disagree about theology, they generally agree that we can reconstruct the original New Testament with very high confidence. The idea that the Bible has been hopelessly corrupted does not come from historical scholarship. It usually comes from repetition online rather than evidence.

“The manuscript tradition of the New Testament is extraordinarily rich, and no essential Christian belief depends on any disputed text.” – D. A. Carson, New Testament scholar and theologian

None of this means the Bible asks for blind trust. Christianity does not say “just believe and don’t ask questions.” It invites examination. The Bible has been studied, copied, translated, challenged, and scrutinized more than any book in history. And it has not disappeared under that scrutiny.

The question is not whether copying occurred. It did. The question is whether the message survived. And historically, the evidence strongly shows that it has.

When you open a Bible today, you are not reading a modern invention. You are reading words that trace back through history to the earliest followers of Jesus. Faith does not ignore evidence. It stands comfortably alongside it.

“There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.” – F. F. Bruce, Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, University of Manchester

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Table Talk

Why do you think people often assume the Bible has been changed?
Does having many manuscripts make the text more reliable or less? Why?
What kinds of differences would actually matter when evaluating a text?
Why would widespread early copying make large scale changes difficult?
How does knowing the history behind the Bible affect your confidence in reading it?

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Further Reading Suggestions

Peter J Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels?