Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability?

I'm a Christian.

I think a lot of people are trying to make this site answer the wrong question. Of course the number of copies doesn't tell us if Jesus is divine, or if Jesus is a historical figure, or if the authors of the New Testament were honest. But, if you look at the text of the question, he asks us to identify if we are Christian or *Muslim* or Non-Believer. Why is this significant? Because Mustlims charge that the text of the New Testament was altered at some point. The charge is that the text was accurate and inspired when the Apostles and their companions wrote it, but then later scribes changed it. What the site is addressing is that accusation. I feel that it addresses that accusation very well: if the text was inspired when it was written, it's accurately preserved enough to be trust worthy.

It does get a little into how accurate the text was when written, bringing up that the latest the gospels were likely to have been written is in the 90's and Jesus died in the 30's, so less than 70 years, but some have attacked that with the old "Telephone" analogy. Sorry, guys, that analogy doesn't work. In Telephone, there's only one line, I tell you, you tell him, he tells her, and so on. No third witnesses are allowed at any stage.

Now try this version of telephone at your next party: I tell three people, those three people each tell three people, some of which are the same people, some are new people, who each tell three people (same rules) and so on, and see how far out you have to get before the message gets corrupted. Now try it with each telling five people. Now try it with 20 people. Now remember that the Apostles were telling hundreds of people.

The Christian groups before the Council of Nicea that were mentioned by JerseyRick used the same texts, except some Gnostics, which didn't agree on which books to use. Almost all of the texts they used (which varied from group to group) can be easily traced to their origins in the second or third centuries. You'll have statements from the Church fathers saying something like, "And recently we've heard reports of a Gospel According to Thomas. Our teachers didn't know anything about that, and they knew all the writings of the Apostles." The Ebonites used Matthew only, and the Marcionites used only Luke and some of Paul's letters. Those are all in the Bible.

Atheist...

I found a few comments interesting in the article:

"the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years."

OK, so imagine a 70 years version of telephone being played in different languages by people with different opinions. Assuming the stories written down are the ones told 70 years later, how accurate can they be?

"In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the first century that contest the New Testament texts."

That is not a true statement, there were at least three other major sects of christianity prior to the council of nicea (Marcionites, Ebionites, and Gnostics) each of which had their own "sacred" texts that are not included in the canon

"We have a fragment of the gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing"

A fragment is enough to prove the divinity of jesus? John is the only gospel to claim that jesus was crucified on the day of the preparation of passover. This book contradicts the other three gospels because it was trying to tie jesus into the slaughtering of the lambs for passover. John is the only gospel that refers to jesus as the "lamb of god" hence the change of the date...

None of what is said is proof the jesus is "god", that decision was made over 300 years later

I disagree with the response that reliability is not a function of number of copies. If you look throughout history, and if you look at how we study history, the number of documents from a range of sources is a direct correlation to the accuracy of the content. It's the same reason why if 100 people from 100 different countries tell you the same information you are more likely to believe it than if I tell you.

I am Christian.

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They misstate date estimations on p52, the oldest extant New Testament manuscript, so others are questionable. Estimates of its writing range from 125 (as they report) to 175. It was likely copied in the 160 +/- 15 range.

The point is that we are more sure of the original reading of the New Testament than most ancient documents, which is true, but the case should be given a true and fair evaluation rather than a biased presentation which defeats their purpose.

To nondescript: The number of copies are not meant to show validity but the proof of preservation of eye-witness accounts. As far as believing the eye-witness accounts that's an entirely different topic. But I can put my full confidence based on the evidence I've seen that they are true.

The underlying story is a myth, so who cares how accurately it was copied?

There is nothing outside the bible that supports the Jesus myth.

Yes, historians study documents and as soon as someone produces a non-biblical record of Jesus of Nazareth, thumpers will have something to argue. Until then, vague references to "Christians" or a "messiah" is NOT evidence that supports the Jesus myths.

Sorry, but the reliability and accuracy of a document is not a function of how many copies there are of it.

I am an athiest.

Athiest. Wow, that site is so pointless for this argument that I won't be able to forget it all day. Another misleading Christian site.