This is a question many Christians have to face today when defending the faith. People do not question the copying process of books unless it is the Bible. The copying process of the Bible is very accurate. Let's take a look at the reliability of the Bible starting with the New Testament.
The New Testament has 25,000 ancient (predates 500 AD) manuscripts available today. Each copy says the same thing meaning they come from a single source, the only difference is regional spelling differences. The closest book that is after the Bible is Homer's Iliad with 643 ancient manuscripts. However, there are four different versions with major differences.
The New Testament is the closest in time of copy to the original. The significance is that 1) the closer a copy is to the time of the original, the more likely it is to be an accurate copy, and 2) a copy that is within a generation of the original is unheard of. The oldest partial manuscript is the John Ryland Manuscript (copy of part of the book of John) which dares 50 years after the original. This manuscript proves that John was not written in 220 to 250 AD. The oldest complete New Testament is within 250 years of the date of the original is the Codex Vaticanus from the 300s AD. Homer's Iliad is 400 years after the original. New Testament has more ancient copies, and closer in time to the original.
The New Testament has various versions and translations. Bible is the only book that was translated. The earliest missionaries began translating the New Testament as they went out to evangelize to the world. The early versions included Syriac (sometimes called the Christian Aramaic, Antioch became leading center of Christianity in the early church, and dates 400s AD), Coptic (version for Egyptian believers, Alexandria became another leading center of Christianity in the early church, and dates 200s AD), and the Latin (a version for European believers, Rome became another leading center of Christianity in the early church, version dates from 200s AD). The other versions we have today, serve as a way to check the contents of the earliest copies.
Tatian's Diatessaron harmonized the four gospels. Tatian was an early church father from Assyria. This harmonization was completed around 160 AD. This tells us that John was already written and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the gospels.
Lectionaries also show the reliability of the New Testament. A lectionary was a lesson from the Scriptures. Church elders would copy a passage of Scripture onto a piece of papyrus or
parchment and then add a lesson based on that Scripture; certain
passages were always read on certain Sundays.
Thousands of lectionaries exist today providing many copies of the same passage. They are useful for comparison purposes by finding about 90% of the New Testament so far. They were helpful for our understanding of some passages (John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20). Lectionaries were copied repeatedly by Byzantine Monks. On the contrary, lectionaries provide no copies of Revelation and parts of Acts and they date from 500s to 700s AD, making them not as early as other sources.
Patristic Citations are the final way we know we have an accurate copy of the New Testament. The early church fathers quoted the New Testament extensively. How extensive were they? Even if there were no copies of the New Testament available, we could produce the entire New Testament from quotes found in the writings of the early church fathers. Clement, for example, was bishop of Rome, disciple of Peter, walked around with Mark, quoted from Mark and I Peter. Sir David Dalrymple was curious enough that he reconstructed the New Testament from writings of the early church fathers. He found all but 11 verses (Mark 16:9-20) before he died.
The Old Testament also has a very accurate copying process. Let's take a look at this process for the Old Testament.
The Old Testament has thousands of manuscript copies, but it is scarce. The reason for the scarcity was 1) new was preferred to old, and 2) written on perishable materials. We have more pieces today than 300 years ago because of the rise in the popularity of archaeology in the late 1800s. We tens of thousands of pieces of the Old Testament. The earliest complete copy is the Codex Bablyonicus.
The Jewish people were very careful in the preservation of the manuscripts. The Sopherim (Scribes) were the custodians of the Old Testament from 400 to 200 BC, and Ezra was one of these men. The Zugoth (means pairs) were custodians from 200 BC to 1 AD. The Tannaim (means repeaters) were custodians from 1 to 200 AD. The Talmudist were teachers of law and lawyers were custodians from 100 to 500 AD, and they were very strict about the copying process (found here). The Masoretes were custodians from 500 to 900 AD, they did not accept Jesus as their Messiah, standardized the Hebrew text, and counted everything.
The Dead Sea Scrolls proved that we are "good" copiers of the Old Testament. They were found in 1947 by a boy looking for a lost goat ( the story found here). They were
purchased and photographed being sent all over the world, many use the photos because the Israel government has the scrolls in a safe place. The scrolls date from second century BC to the 1st century AD.
The Septuagint is the Greek Translation of the Old Testament. They were designed for worship services of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Hellenistic Age. This was not meant to supplant the Hebrew Old Testament which is still preferred by rabbis and scholars.
The Samaritan Pentateuch confirms the accuracy of the first five books of the Bible. The Samaritans had their own version using and older form of Hebrew which predates 200 BC.
The Hexpla confirms the reliability of the Old Testament. Origen compiled a six column parallel of the Old Testament. Each column said the same thing.
The copying process of the Bible is huge for the Christian faith. My goal of this was to help people of the faith defend the copying process of the Bible. This was a major builder of my faith in Jesus, and I hope the same for you.
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