When it comes to ancient manuscripts, there are no works of the ancient world that can equal the number of manuscripts extant of the New Testament. There are only 643 manuscripts of Homer=s Iliad, one of the most famous books of ancient Greece. We have only 10 manuscripts of Caesar=s Gallic Wars, and the oldest of these was made a full 1,000 years after the original book was written. However, there are 5,366 manuscripts of the New Testament, some of which date back to within 150 years after the New Testament was completed. No other ancient work has so many manuscripts for comparison as does the New Testament. We have many scholars who do little but compare these ancient manuscripts with one another in order to determine what is the most accurate way of expressing the words of the New Testament. These men slave over these manuscripts, examining every particle of difference in them to determine what best expresses the truth.
For example, based on the premise that the earliest of the manuscripts would be the best, inasmuch as they were made closer to the time of the original writings, these scholars compare every sentence of each manuscript with the others to determine such things as the correct word order, as well as the correct words. If there is great unanimity regarding a word, a sentence, or a paragraph in the very early manuscripts, and a variant is found in another that is three centuries later than the early ones, they work on the premise that the earlier ones are more nearly correct.
However, the amazing thing about all this is that the differences that are found in the earliest manuscripts are of little or no consequence at all. They amount to differences in word order. An example of this would be that there are five different word orders for John 1:21, in which is written, “Who are you then: Are you Elijah?” It really makes no difference how the words of this question are arranged. They all amount to the same thing. What is the difference between, “Who then, are you: are you Elijah?” or, “Are you then Elijah, who are you?” or “Who are you Elijah, if not, who then?” Two things can be said of this, the typical kind of problem found by manuscript scholars of the New Testament. (1) Regardless of word order, is not the same essential question asked? (2) Does the word order have anything to do with the salvation of man? The answer to both these is, “No!”
Another criterion used is the number of times a section of Scripture appears. For example, if you have 1,000 manuscripts that do not contain a certain event or story, and only one that does, then the scholars assume, and correctly so, that the one time this matter occurs is probably an editor=s addition. It may have been an oral tradition so long held that it was thought it ought to be in the Bible, so some editor somewhere along the way decided to insert it. However, modern manuscript scholars will omit it from the one they are building, due to the infrequency with which it occurred in the most ancient of manuscripts.
There are many little differences in manuscripts called “variants.” A variant is counted any time one copy of a manuscript is different from another; furthermore, it is counted again every time it appears in other copies. Hence, when critics of the Bible say there are 200,000 variants in the Bible, they frighten the unaware. If the spelling of a single word is misspelled in 3,000 manuscripts, then you have 3,000 variants. In fact, there are only about 10,000 single variants in all the manuscripts, and these are in such things as word order and spelling. So, do not let the critics upset you by telling you that the Bible is riddled with all sorts of errors, as the Islamic critics like so well to do. They insist that the Bible has been so fully corrupted that we do not know anything about the original, and should therefore accept the Qur’an. We have 100 percent of the Bible, and we are certain about 99.5 percent of it! Even our reliable translations are that accurate.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV).
