1,099 words, 6 minutes read time.
One of the most frequent challenges raised against Christianity is the claim that the New Testament has been corrupted over time. Critics argue that, since the Bible has been copied by hand for centuries, it’s only natural to expect errors and alterations, leaving us with a text that’s unreliable. But is this a fair assessment?
In this blog, I want to address this concern head-on, exploring the overwhelming evidence for the reliability of the New Testament and debunking the myth that it has been significantly corrupted. If you’re reading this after checking out my previous post, “5 Essential Apologetics Questions Every Christian Must Be Ready to Answer,” you’ll remember that this issue often comes up in discussions about the trustworthiness of Scripture. Let’s dive deeper and examine the facts.
The Myth of New Testament Corruption
It’s not hard to understand why people might think the New Testament has been corrupted. After all, the idea that ancient texts, copied by hand over centuries, could be passed down without alteration seems too good to be true. But while it’s easy to imagine scribes making errors or even changing things intentionally, the reality is far different when it comes to the New Testament.
The New Testament is the best-attested ancient document in existence. This fact alone sets it apart from other ancient writings. We have over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, with some dating back to within a few centuries of the original writings. To put that in perspective, compare it with other well-known ancient texts like Homer’s Iliad, which has around 1,800 manuscripts, or Plato’s works, which have fewer than 250. When we consider these numbers, it’s clear that the New Testament stands alone in terms of manuscript evidence.
But what does this abundance of manuscripts actually tell us? It gives scholars a vast resource to work with when reconstructing the original text. If one scribe made a mistake in a particular manuscript, it can easily be identified by comparing it to other manuscripts that don’t contain the same error. This process of comparison is known as textual criticism, and it’s the method scholars use to evaluate the accuracy of ancient documents.
The Role of Textual Criticism
Textual criticism may sound like a dry academic exercise, but it’s actually a fascinating field that helps ensure we have an accurate representation of the New Testament. The goal of textual criticism is to identify and correct any errors or variants that have crept into the manuscripts over time, allowing us to get as close as possible to the original text.
In the case of the New Testament, scholars have done an incredible amount of work in this area, comparing thousands of manuscripts in multiple languages. The result? Less than 1% of the textual variants in the New Testament affect the meaning of the text, and none of those variants impact any core Christian doctrine. This means that even though minor errors or changes may have occurred in the transmission of the text, they don’t alter the message of the New Testament in any significant way.
It’s also important to note that most of these variants are incredibly minor—things like spelling differences, word order changes, or slight grammatical adjustments. None of these impact the fundamental teachings of Christianity. For example, whether a manuscript reads “Jesus Christ” or “Christ Jesus” doesn’t change the core message about who Jesus is.
Comparing the New Testament with Other Ancient Documents
To truly appreciate the reliability of the New Testament, it’s helpful to compare it to other ancient texts. As mentioned earlier, the New Testament far surpasses works like Homer’s Iliad or the writings of Plato in terms of manuscript evidence. Yet, no one seriously questions the authenticity of these other texts. Why is that?
Part of the reason may be that people are more inclined to be skeptical about religious texts, but from a historical and textual standpoint, the New Testament is actually in a much stronger position. With thousands of manuscripts available for comparison, scholars are able to reconstruct the original text with a high degree of confidence.
In fact, the New Testament manuscripts are so well-preserved that the earliest complete copies we have are remarkably close to the time the originals were written. Some of the oldest surviving fragments date to within 100 years of the original writings—an incredibly short time span in the world of ancient literature. By contrast, many other ancient works, like those of Homer or Herodotus, are only available in copies made over 1,000 years after they were originally written.
Addressing Skeptical Claims
When skeptics claim that the New Testament has been corrupted, they often fail to engage with the overwhelming manuscript evidence. For instance, while it’s true that there are textual variants, the vast majority of these are insignificant. And thanks to the diligent work of textual critics, we can be confident that the New Testament we read today is a highly accurate representation of what was originally written.
Moreover, even the few larger textual issues that exist—such as the longer ending of Mark or the story of the woman caught in adultery—are well-documented and typically marked in modern translations with footnotes or brackets. These passages are not found in the earliest manuscripts, but even so, their inclusion or exclusion does not affect any essential Christian belief.
Why This Matters
For Christians, the question of whether the New Testament has been corrupted is deeply important. The New Testament is the foundation of Christian belief and practice, and if it were unreliable, it would call the entire faith into question. Fortunately, the evidence shows that we can have confidence in the text of the New Testament. Not only do we have an unparalleled number of manuscripts to draw from, but scholars have also worked tirelessly to ensure that the text we have today is as close as possible to the original writings.
If you’re interested in exploring this topic further, I highly recommend the book Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism by Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson. This resource dives into the specifics of how the Bible has been preserved over time and addresses many of the common misconceptions about the reliability of the New Testament.
In summary, the New Testament has not been corrupted in any meaningful way. The process of textual criticism, combined with the vast number of manuscripts, ensures that we can trust the text we have today. The claims of corruption simply don’t hold up when compared to the overwhelming evidence in favor of the New Testament’s accuracy.
