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Claim 1 of 6 · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture

We can recover what the New Testament originally said better than any other ancient book.

One claim from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.

Suggest a correction
The study of old handwritten copies is called textual criticism. For the New Testament it has more to work with than for any other writing from the ancient world, both in the number of copies and in how close the earliest copies stand to the time of writing. The more copies there are, and the earlier they are, the more confidently scholars can compare them and reconstruct the original wording. “The ancient world” here means the stretch of history from the first written records and early civilizations, around 3000 to 4000 BC, down to the fall of the Western Roman Empire around 476 to 500 AD. That is the pool of writings the New Testament is measured against.

Backed by 4 pieces of evidence

  1. The number of Greek copies

    A large number of copies gives scholars many witnesses to compare, so a mistake in one copy shows up when set beside the others. That is the raw material textual criticism needs, and the New Testament has far more of it than any other ancient book.

    2 sources · 1 objection

  2. The copies in other languages

    Copies in many languages, made in different regions, give independent lines of evidence for the same text. When they agree, that agreement adds real weight well beyond the Greek copies alone. One honest caution: the totals for the non-Greek copies are older, widely repeated figures and aren’t tracked as carefully as the audited Greek count.

    3 sources · 1 objection

  3. How other ancient books compare

    This sets the New Testament against its nearest rivals and shows how far ahead it stands. It’s worth using these corrected figures rather than the old chart still passed around in churches, which lists Plato at 7 copies and Homer at 643. That chart is out of date and overstated, and the real numbers already make the point clearly on their own.

    2 sources · 2 objections

  4. How soon the earliest copies were made

    The earlier the surviving copies, the less time there was for the text to drift before we can check it. Raw copy counts alone don’t show this. It’s the short gap between writing and earliest copy that shows the New Testament was copied close to the originals. P52 is given as a range rather than a fixed date, since that is how it is dated.

    2 sources · 2 objections

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