The question as to whether variation in the manuscripts of the New Testament means that the documents can’t be trusted is a big question. It calls to mind an academic discipline called textual criticism.
Simply put, textual criticism is the discipline of finding the original wording of a document whose original no longer exists.
A Huge Manuscript Tradition
With the New Testament, what we have is a huge manuscript tradition. We have over 6,000 Greek witnesses, alongside thousands of other ancient manuscripts in languages like Coptic, Arabic, and Syriac. These documents were carefully handwritten on materials like fragile papyrus reeds and more expensive animal parchment.
Inevitably, when you are talking about thousands of handwritten documents that are spread through the known world by ordinary people, you are going to have some variation. Actually, if there wasn’t variation, that would tell you that you have a central agency or power source controlling what is in those documents.
The transmission of the Bible was a much more organic process.
Making Sense of the Variations
The process of textual criticism involves examining the variation that exists, which generally falls into distinct categories. The vast majority are what might be called spelling or nonsense readings.
If I were to ask how you spell the word “colour”, as a British person I would say “c-o-l-o-u-r,” while an American would write “c-o-l-o-r”.
The spelling varies, but I can easily understand what it means. Other variations are simply not viable, such as later documents including a word that the original texts do not have.
Meaningful Variants and Biblical Honesty
The most interesting variations—comprising only about one percent—are those that are meaningful and viable. These include examples like the longer ending to Mark’s gospel, or the story of the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8, which do not appear in the earliest copies.
But here is the crucial thing: where there is a meaningful variant which would change the meaning of the text, attention is drawn to those instances in our modern translations. No one is trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
An Organic Process, Not a Secret Room
Often people think there is some kind of veil of secrecy over this—that a group of very powerful men got into a room together and just randomly decided what went into the Bible. That isn’t what happened. It was an open, rigorous, and organic process that was traced back to the original authors.
Conclusion
The Bible is completely open about the fact that there is a manuscript tradition and that there is variation within it. This actually speaks to the honesty, authenticity, and integrity of the text. Textual criticism is an incredible academic discipline that lends credibility to the scriptures, giving us confidence and telling us that the Bible can be trusted.
