Is the New Testament text in the Bible reliable? Can we be sure we have what the apostles originally wrote? The answer is a resounding yes. While the original writings of the apostles have vanished, many copies of them were made, sometimes by way of apostolic instruction (Colossians 4:16).
Over the first few centuries, thousands of copies were made from these copies of the New Testament, giving the textual critic much material with which to work. Let’s take a brief notice of the material used to restore the original writings of the New Testament. This material falls into three categories: New Testament Manuscripts, Ancient Versions, and Patristic Writings. In this article, let’s notice the New Testament manuscripts.
The New Testament manuscripts fall into four categories.
- Papyri– The official count of papyri lists about 116 documents.
- Uncials – The number of extant uncial manuscripts is close to 300, three of which are the most important witnesses for the New Testament text.
A) Codex Vaticanus – Written about the middle of the fourth century and contains almost the entire Old and New Testaments in Greek.
B) Codex Sinaiticus – Dated about the middle of the fourth century.
C) Codex Alexandrinus – is a fifth century manuscript.
- Cursives – Cursives were written in a running hand style like our handwriting. The cursives are generally viewed as being less valuable than the uncials because they are of a later date. The extant cursives that we have are dated from the ninth to the sixteenth century. We presently have in our possession around 2,800 of them.
- Lectionaries — The fourth category of manuscripts are called lectionaries. These were a collection of scriptures that were read in worship services of the church. “Studies have shown that lectionaries, being designed especially for public worship, were copied a little more carefully than ordinary manuscripts” (Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, p. 50.).
When it is all said and done, we have in our possession over 5,000 manuscripts for the textual critic to examine and restore the original text. Consider the comparison between the New Testament and other ancient historical works:
Historical Manuscripts Date Written Earliest Copy Time Span Copies
Homer’s Iliad 700 BC Unknown Unknown 643
History of Herodotus 480-425 BC 900 AD 1,300 yrs. 8
Thucydides-Greece 460-400 BC 900 AD 1,300 yrs. 8
Josephus’ Jewish Wars 70 A.D. 400 AD 330 9
Tacitus-Rome 100 AD 1,000 AD 900 yrs. 19
Pliny-Rome 61-113 AD 850 AD 750 yrs. 7
New Testament 60-100 AD 300 AD 200 yrs. 5,000
Dr. Clark E. Pinnock said, “There exists no document from the ancient world witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies, and offering so superb an array of historical data on which an intelligent decision may be made…Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational bias.”
F.F. Bruce, Biblical Scholar writes, “No classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals…but how different is the New Testament on this report?” Critics have applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them 100 ancient worthies would fade into legend.”
These Bible scholars all agree that the textual evidence that we have for the New Testament is vast and overpowering. Based on manuscript evidence alone (constituting only a third of the evidence that we have), we can be very confident that the original writings of the apostles have come down to us accurately.
When you pick up a copy of the New Testament, you are indeed holding in your hand God’s inspired Word. With all the evidence that we have at hand, there should never be any doubt or lack of confidence in the authenticity of our New Testament.