Bibliographical Test
In this test, textual critics examine both the quantity and quality of existing manuscript copies and the time gap from the original writings. It asks:
- How many copies of the original document are in existence?
- How large of a time gap is there between the original writings and the earliest copies?
- How well does a document compare with other ancient history?
Number of New Testament Manuscripts
Over 5,600 copies of New Testament manuscripts exist today in the original Greek language.10 Many are small fragments; a few are virtually complete books. Counting translations into Latin, Armenian, Slavic, Syriac & Coptic, 25,000 manuscripts exist today – dating from the 2nd to the 15th century. That’s over 2.6 million pages of biblical text for scholars to examine!
Textual critics have compared dating and accuracy of these manuscripts to determine what was in the original text. Since the New Testament has a wealth of manuscript copies to examine and compare, these scholars have great confidence in what was written in the original documents.
Since there are over 2.6 million pages of handwritten text in 25,000 manuscripts, minor errors such as misspellings, skipping lines, or reordering words during the copying process have led to over 400,000 textual variants. Most of these copying errors are so minor that even the outspoken skeptic, Bart Ehrman, has concluded that no major New Testament doctrine is impacted by its textual variants. Biblical scholar John Wenham affirms, “The resulting text is 99.99 percent accurate, and the remaining questions do not affect any area of cardinal Christian doctrine.”11
Time Gap from Originals
Most extant New Testament manuscripts date after the 3rd century. However, as mentioned earlier, a tiny fragment from a copy of John’s Gospel (John 18:31-33, labeled P52) is dated by scholars to roughly 25-50 years after John wrote the original in Ephesus. This early copy of John’s Gospel supports Albright’s and Robinson’s opinions that the entire New Testament was written during the lifetimes of the apostles.
Click here to read page 7 of 10 about “Are the Gospel Accounts of Jesus True?”