Responding to Skepticism: The Reliability of New Testament Manuscripts

Skeptic's Claim: A common skeptical argument today asserts that we have no idea what the New Testament originally said because the original manuscripts---the "autographs" written by Gospel authors or Paul---are no longer extant. This leads to the conclusion that we cannot have confidence in the New Testament's true wording.

General Rule for Ancient Literature: The absence of original manuscripts (autographs) for the New Testament should not be surprising, as it is a common phenomenon for ancient literature in general.
- Examples: For renowned ancient works like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, no original copies exist.
Loss Over Time: Approximately 99\% of all documents copied in the ancient world have disappeared due to natural wear and tear, decomposition, and various forms of destruction over time.
The Crucial Question: The real question is not whether we possess the originals, but whether we have reliable hand-copied documents.
- Context: Before the invention of Xerox machines or printing presses, all documents were copied by hand, making the study of these copies essential.

Unparalleled Attestation: The New Testament possesses significantly more reliable manuscript evidence than any other ancient work of literature, without exception.
- Quantity: There are over 5,000 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament.
- Early Dating: Many of these manuscripts are remarkably early, some dating back to within a few decades of the original writings. This proximity to the original composition is unparalleled in ancient literature.
Contrast with Other Ancient Works:
- Other highly regarded ancient Greek works might possess only a half-dozen or, at most, around 100 manuscripts.
- Furthermore, the earliest copies of these other ancient works often date a millennium (1,000 years) after their original composition, a stark contrast to the New Testament's early manuscript evidence.
Conclusion: The extensive and early nature of the New Testament manuscripts provides exceptionally reliable textual evidence.

Definition: Textual criticism is a specialized field that employs a set of rules and principles to analyze and compare ancient manuscripts.
Purpose: Its primary goal is to reconstruct the original text as accurately as possible by accounting for the types of mistakes copyists tended to make when transcribing documents by hand.
- This scientific and artistic approach allows scholars to discern variations and determine the most probable original wording.

High Confidence: There is a broad consensus among biblical scholars, encompassing both conservative and liberal perspectives, that the New Testament text we possess today is remarkably close to what the original authors actually wrote.
Quantified Closeness: This closeness is often quantified, with scholars estimating that the existing New Testament text is approximately 95\% or more similar to the original writings.
Implication: This strong scholarly agreement provides a firm basis for confidence in the reliability of the New Testament's content.

Addressing Concerns: When confronted with claims that the New Testament text is untrustworthy due to the lack of originals, it is important to remember the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Abundance of Resources: Numerous Christian scholars have written extensively on this topic, offering compelling arguments and data to support the reliability of the New Testament.
Understanding Textual Variants: Sometimes, the abundance of manuscripts leads to a situation where scholars have