The Bible is the most influential book in human history, with billions of copies sold and translated into hundreds of languages. But a common question that both believers and skeptics alike ask is, “Is the Bible actually reliable?” Can we trust that the Bible we read today accurately represents what was originally written thousands of years ago?
There are several lines of evidence that support the reliability of the Bible:
1. There are far more copies of the Bible than other ancient texts
For most ancient texts, we only have a handful of manuscripts that have survived to this day. For example, we have just 7 copies of Plato’s Tetralogies, 8 copies of Thucydides’ History, and 10 copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. But for the New Testament alone, we have over 5,800 ancient Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages like Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic, and Armenian. The New Testament has far more surviving manuscripts than any other ancient work.
Having so many manuscript copies allows scholars to cross-reference and compare different manuscripts to ascertain what the originals said. The more manuscript copies there are, the more confidence scholars can have that they can reconstruct the original text accurately.
2. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament comes much earlier than other ancient texts
Not only do we have far more New Testament manuscripts, but they are much closer in time to the original writings than other ancient manuscripts. For example, the earliest surviving manuscript fragment of a portion of Homer’s Iliad dates around 500 years after Homer’s original compositions. But we have a fragment of the Gospel of John dated within 25-30 years of when John wrote the original. Given the rapid spread of Christianity in ancient times, it’s entirely plausible that this John fragment was copied from the original writing. This puts our New Testament manuscript evidence within the lifetime of eyewitnesses who could vouch for their accuracy.
Due to having manuscripts so close in time to the original writings, scholars are extremely confident that our modern translations accurately reflect what was contained in the original works. The early church fathers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, who quoted extensively from the New Testament documents, confirm this early manuscript reliability.
3. The New Testament has far more manuscript evidence than any other ancient text
When you combine the two factors above – more numerous manuscripts and earlier manuscripts – the New Testament ends up having far more manuscript attestation than any other ancient work. No other ancient document comes close to the New Testament in the sheer volume and quality of manuscript evidence. This gives even greater confidence that the Bible we hold in our hands today contains the original message and stories about Jesus.
4. There are entire manuscripts preserved, not just fragments
While we have many small New Testament fragments dating back to the early 2nd century, we also have entire manuscripts that have survived intact. These include the Codex Vaticanus (AD 325–350) and Codex Sinaiticus (AD 330–360). These and other early surviving manuscripts allow us to have confidence that the entire content of the original writings have been preserved.
5. The early spread and number of churches made textual corruption impossible
The early Christian church spread rapidly across the Roman empire in ancient times. Paul’s letters were being distributed and copied to fledgling churches from Rome to Cyprus to Asia Minor. Had someone tried to insert false doctrine or change the original message, the widespread early church would have noticed the discrepancies. Instead, what we find is amazing textual consistency from Egypt to Italy to Syria, indicating that the original documents matched what these early churches were copying and distributing.
Furthermore, we have a fragment of the Gospel of John dating to around AD 125 that was discovered over 100 miles away from Ephesus (where John lived). This shows that the Gospel had spread a significant distance even within a few decades of when John wrote the original. This rules out any idea that things could have been changed or falsified.
6. There is no contrary textual evidence
Given the amazing manuscript evidence for the New Testament, if textual corruption or change had happened at any point, we would expect to find manuscript evidence reflecting these changes. But there is simply no contrary textual tradition that calls any core doctrine or story into question. While there are some minor textual variants between the thousands of manuscripts, none of these variants impacts any essential Christian belief or core story about Jesus. The textual evidence lines up squarely on the side of reliability.
7. The early church fathers quoted scripture extensively
The early church fathers from the 2nd and 3rd centuries – leaders like Irenaeus, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and others – quoted extensively from the New Testament documents in their own writings. We have over 32,000 quotes from just the ante-Nicene fathers alone. What is remarkable is that these church fathers quote even from the smaller and more obscure New Testament books like Jude and the Pastoral Epistles. The early church was reading, copying, distributing, and quoting from the entire New Testament corpus from a very early period.
So extensive are these quotations that even if we did not have manuscripts of the New Testament today, we could reconstruct almost the entire New Testament just from the writings of the early church fathers who quoted from it extensively. This rules out any notion of things being altered or falsified after an original writing.
8. The New Testament has a uniquely high degree of textual integrity
When you compare the New Testament’s textual transmission to any other ancient writing, nothing else even comes close. The textual evidence for the scriptures is outstanding compared to any other ancient book. Scholars like F.F. Bruce and Bruce Metzger affirm that the New Testament has been transmitted to us with a textual purity unrivaled in ancient literature.
What’s more, even skeptical scholars like Bart Ehrman admit that the essential stories and doctrines of Christianity have not been changed or corrupted over time. The textual evidence is definitive that the Bible we read today reflects what was originally written down 2,000 years ago.
9. The lack of evidence for Christian tampering
If Christians had wanted to tamper with the original writings, the best time to do this would have been in the first few centuries when manuscript copying and distribution was rapidly expanding. But instead of evidence of tampering, we find just the opposite. Multiple ancient sources like Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Muratorian Fragment confirm the accepted books of the New Testament. And as already discussed, the church fathers extensively quoted even the smaller and lesser-known books like Jude and 2 Peter, confirming their widespread use. There’s simply no evidence that Christianity tampered with the scriptures in the early period when they had the best opportunity to do so.
10. The fact that embarrassing or difficult passages were not removed
If someone was going to alter the original New Testament writings, embarrassing passages like Peter denying Christ or Jesus saying “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” would have likely been removed or changed. So too difficult teachings like loving your enemy or taking up your cross. But instead, we find all these events and teachings preserved intact, lending credence that the New Testament we possess today reflects the original writings.
In fact, the criteria of embarrassment even argues that such details would not have been included unless they were historical because the early church would not have wanted to “invent” passages that reflected poorly on them. The fact these were not removed is a powerful indicator of New Testament reliability.
Conclusion
In summary, the manuscript, textual, historical, and archaeological evidence for the reliability of the Bible is simply overwhelming. The New Testament has far better textual support than any other work of ancient literature. Through a combination of the abundance of manuscripts, how close those manuscripts are to the original writings, the multiplicity of geographic spread, and the confirmation of the early church fathers, we can have great confidence that the Bible we hold in our hands today accurately reflects what was originally written 2,000 years ago.
When it comes to the question “Is the Bible reliable?” the evidence decidedly lines up in favor of the scriptures’ trustworthiness. The Bible can withstand scrutiny and investigation, and thoughtful readers can conclude that the original message and stories of Christianity have been reliably passed down to us through the centuries. There is great reason to trust the reliability of the Bible.