By The Numbers

There are now more than 5686 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9300 other versions, and we have close to, if not more than 25000 manuscript copies or fragments/portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other document of antiquity even comes close to this total. By comparison Homer's Iliad is the second with 643 manuscripts or fragments that survive. That is a huge gap between No. 1 & No. 2. Everyone believes Homer wrote the Iliad, why wouldn't people believe apostles and gentiles that knew Christ wrote about Him?

The importance of the sheer number of manuscripts can't be overstated. To be skeptical of resultant texts of the New Testament is to allow all of classical antiquity to slide into obscurity for no other document of the ancient period is so well attested to bibliographically.

Additionally, there was virtually no interval between actual events and the autographs from which said manuscripts were transcribed from. Christ died approx 33-35AD, James was written no later than 50AD and the entire canon was probably completed by 100AD. Within 70 years of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Paul's letters written between 50-66 A.D.

The accuracy of the manuscripts are supported by various versions. Ancient literature was rarely translated into different languages. Syriac and Latin versions exist as far back as 150 A.D. The Ryland Fragment could quite possibly date to the first century around 90-96 A.D. at the same time of, or a few years after John writing Revelation. The Ryland fragment may actually have been witness to the contemporaries of Jesus. In other words, historically, there is no gap between events and written eyewitness accounts.

Accuracy of the canon attested to by early church fathers (immediately; i.e: no gap)...even those under persecution. So people that say the Bible was was created by people in positions of power to control people...well, they should really do their homework and learn history and understand Christian Martyrdom. People would die for things they truly beleived but it is unlikely they would be willing to die for something they didn't believe it. Something else to consider: Iliad written 800 B.C., oldest/earliest known copy 400 B.C....a 400 year gap.

So...if we doubt the Bible against the certainty and evidential truth presented in the massive amount of manuscripts present to us since antiquity we must then doubt the entirety of all of western history. Why? Because you can practically take the next few dozen written pieces from from western history's antiquity and their total would not even come close to the evidence we have for the Bible, its reliability and its consistency. The illustrious list of other western sources includes: Plato, Sophocles, Aristotle, Caesar and so on and so on. If we discount the Bible...we need to discount the entirety of history.

Ravi Zacherias sums this up brilliantly:

In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity (Zacherias 162).

Zacharias, Ravi K. Can Man Live Without God? Word Publishing, 1994, 162.