It is true, of course, that many variants arose in the very earliest period. There is no reason to suppose, e.g., that the first person who ever made a copy of the autograph of the Gospel of Luke did not change his copy to conform to the particular tradition with which he was familiar. But he was under no compulsion to do so. Once the Gospel of Luke had become scripture, however, the picture was changed completely. Then the copyist was under compulsion to change his copy, to correct it. Because it was scripture, it had to be right." [George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).]

"There is widespread misunderstanding among critics about ‘errors’ in the biblical manuscripts. Some have estimated there are about 200,000 of them. First of all, these are not ‘errors’ but variant readings, THE VAST MAJORITY OF WHICH ARE STRICTLY GRAMMATICAL. Second, these readings are spread throughout the more than 5300 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one letter in one verse in 2000 manuscripts is counted as 2000 ‘errors.’ Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated THAT ONLY ONE IN SIXTY OF THESE VARIANTS HAVE SIGNIFICANCE. This would leave a text 98.33 percent pure. Philip Schaff calculated that, of the 150,000 variants known in his day, only 400 changed the meaning of the passage,ONLY FIFTY WERE OF REAL SIGINIFICANCE, AND NOT EVEN ONE AFFECTED ‘AN ARTICLE OF FAITH OR A PRECEPT OF DUTY WHICH IS NOT ABUNDANTLY SUSTAINED BY OTHER AND UNDOUBTED PASSAGES, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching’ (Schaff, 177)

"Most other ancient books are not so well authenticated. New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90 percent accuracy and Homer’s Illiad with about 95 percent. By comparison, HE ESTIMATED THE NEW TESTAMENT IS ABOUT 99.5 PERCENT..." Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics [Baker Books, Grand Rapids MI; 1999], pp. 532-533; bold and capital emphasis ours)

By contrast, the textual evidence for the New Testament from the first centuries after it was written is staggering. Scholars of almost every theological stripe agree that Christian scribes copied the New Testament with extraordinary care, matched only by the accuracy of the Jewish scribes copying the Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament). In the original Greek alone, more than five thousand manuscripts or manuscript fragments of portions of the New Testament have been preserved from the centuries during the time which the Bible was copied by hand. The oldest of these is a scrap of papyrus designated P52 that contains parts of John 18:31-33 and 37-38 and dates from the first third of the second century A.D., no more than forty years after John's Gospel was first written in the 90s. More than thirty papyri date from the late second through early third centuries. Some of these contain large portions of entire NewTestament books. One of these covers most of the Gospels and Acts (P45); another most of the letters of Paul (P46). Four very reliable and nearly complete New Testaments date from the fourth (aleph and B) and fifth centuries (A and C).

All kinds of minor variations distinguish these manuscripts from one another, but THE VAST MAJORITY of these variations involve mere changes in spelling, grammar, and style, or accidental omissions or duplications of letters, words, or phrases. Only about four hundred (less than one per page in an average English translation) have any significant bearing on the meaning of the passage at hand, and the most important variations are usually noted in the footnotes of modern-language translations of the Bible. The only textual variants that affect more than a sentence or two (and most affect only individual words or phrases) are John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20. Neither of these passages very likely reflects what John or Mark originally wrote, though the story in John - about the woman caught in adultery - still stands a farily good chance of being historically accurate. But overall, 97 to 99 percent of the original Greek New Testament can be reconstructed BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT. Moreover, no Christian doctrine is founded solely, or even primarily, on any textually disputed passage.

Thus even the most liberal members of the Jesus Seminar agree with very conservative, evangelical scholars that there is no historical evidence whatsoever to support the claims of some modern-day Mormons or Muslims that the text of the New Testament became so corrupted over the centuries that we have no way of being sure what the original contained. These claims in fact contradict the official teachings of both religions. Joseph Smith's declarations, enshrined in the distinctive, additional Scriptures of the Latter-day Saints, and Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, both refer to the Bible as the Word of God and strongly support the accuracy of its contents, while stopping short of affirming full-fledged inerrancy. But the unofficial teachings of many leaders in both movements have, unjustifiably, often called this into question. (Blomberg, Making Sense of the New Testament: Three Crucial Questions [Baker Academic, A Division of Baker Book House CO, Grand Rapids, MI 2004: ISBN- 0-8010-2747-0], pp. 22-23; capital emphasis ours)

"If comparative trivialities such as changes of order, the insertion or omission of the article with proper names, and the like are set aside, the works in our opinion still subject to doubt CAN HARDLY AMOUNT TO MORE THAN A THOUSANDTH PART OF THE WHOLE NEW TESTAMENT." (B.F. Westcott, and F.J.A. Hort, eds., New Testament in Original Greek, 1881, vol. II, 2; bold and capital emphasis ours)

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical author, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. (F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 5th rev. ed. [Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988], p. 15; bold emphasis ours)

... The text of the Gospels IS THE BEST TRANSMITTED IN THE WHOLE OF ANTIQUITY; about six Gospel papyri go back to the period around 200 or to the second century AD, and a further nineteen to the third century; of course most of them are only small fragments, but some contain larger parts of the text. Together with the great uncials since the fourth century, the numerous later manuscripts, and the early translations, the attestation of the early text IS SO STRONG that practically al the secondary alterations to the text and interpolations can be picked up in the UNBELIEVABLY MULTIPLE TEXTUAL TRADITION. It is therefore extremely rare for conjectures or the removal of hypothetical glosses to be necessary.

The text of the earliest Gospel 'according to Mark', which can be dated quite precisely to around the year AD 69/70, and which was first used between around AD 75-80 by Luke and then around 90-100 by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, was not demonstrably very different from the form of the text which we possess in the twenty-seventh revised edition of Nestle/Aland 1993. The hypothesis of an 'original Mark' (Ur-Mark or Proto-Mark), or of a later Deutero-Mark, occasioned by the so-called 'minor agreements' between Luke and Matthew against Mark, which has been put forward time and again, has thus proved quite unnecessary. The textual tradition, which despite countless variants IS RELATIVELY RELIABLE, gives no occasion for such conjectures... It would be completely misleading on the basis of this fact to want to claim that we may no longer speak of an 'original text' in the New Testament generally; rather we must speak initially of an almost 'chaotic' diversity to which order was first brought in an 'orthodox' way, i.e. a violent way, by the process of canonization in the mainstream church. Such a judgment would be far too one-sided...

The relative consistency of the Gospel text despite all the appearances of its running wild up to the end of the second century may be connected with constant reading in worship, which on the whole REQUIRED FIXED FORMS of text. Liturgical usage is more 'conservative'; the same goes for the scribal customs in the early Christian scriptoria. The difference at precisely this point from the often romance-like apocryphal literature, say the apostolic acts, but also the Gospel of Thomas, in which the Greek fragments and the Coptic translation are often substantially different, IS STRIKING. Once again: NO ANCIENT TEXT IS AS WELL ATTESTED AS THE GOSPELS. (Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, translated by John Bowden from the German [Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 2000], pp. 28-31; underline and capital emphasis ours)

8. How would you defend your view that we now have the New Testament in the original Greek against the agnostic position that we cannot get back to the original?

I dealt with this issue in my ETS 2005 paper, "The Integrity of the Early New Testament Text: A Collation-based Comparison". In general, any claim that suggests absence of the physical autograph equals absence of textual reliability or biblical authority is bogus. The manuscript copies we possess remain substantially identical to the autographs. As demonstrated in my paper, the earliest extant (non-Byzantine) papyri compared against the text of Byzantine minuscule mss copied a thousand years later share a verbal identity approximating 92% - including orthographic and non-translatable differences. With such a large percentage of common text, even over more than a millennium of transmission, it is clear that the autograph text substantially has been preserved, even among disparate copies representing quite different textual traditions. On the same principle, dispute hardly should arise as to whether the autograph text similarly was preserved during the much shorter period between autograph composition and the earliest extant mss. Transmissional observations suggest an equally reliable transmissional history during the short period from which no evidence exists. In addition, all doctrinal essentials are clearly present within the ca. 92% average base text; no doctrine is established or negated within the remaining ca. 8% where differences occur. Also, most variants are quite minor and generally stylistic in nature. If the orthographic, non-translatable, and minor stylistic variants are excluded, the overall agreement among the earliest and latest mss rises substantially. The existing documents accurately represent the autographs in all essential points. The text we now possess is sufficient and substantial for establishing and maintaining all doctrinal positions held within orthodox Christianity, skeptics and postmodernists such as Ehrman, Epp, Parker, or the media to the contrary. (David Alan Black, Interview with Maurice Robinson (Part 2); source)

After his introduction, Sheehan states that no two manuscripts are 100% alike.

"The problem for the student of the text does not end with the volume of material to be considered. In addition he has to face the fact that no two copies of this vast number of manuscripts (he lists about 5338) are identical" (p.2).

Sheehan then accounts for this by listing several possible reasons for textual variants (p.3).

He is correct in stating that it is hard to find whole manuscripts which are 100% identical. BUT HE IS INCORRECT IN STATING THAT NONE ARE ALIKE. For example, P64 and P67 ARE IDENTICAL causing some to list them as the same manuscript. Also, we must remember that a large number of the manuscripts consist of nothing but fragments, and that a great many of the manuscripts are only portions of the New Testament (NT). So, it is not "5338 Greek manuscripts" (p. 2) of the whole NT. Rather, it is thousands of manuscripts which account for the NT as a whole with many places receiving greater attestation, while other places have few attestations...

As to the accounting of the variants found among the manuscripts, some things should be noted. First, Sheehan lists various possible types of scribal errors without providing for the possibility that some of the differences were deliberate. When one considers the heretical doctrines of Tatian, it is hard to say that his harmony of the Gospels is without some doctrinal corruptions. In fact, many early Christians rejected it because they considered it impure. The same is true of Marcion, who was noted for omitting sections from the Gospel of Luke. Thus, some manuscripts omit the physical resurrection of Jesus found in Luke 24:40 because Marcion denied this truth based on his Gnostic belief that "the Christ" rose from the dead, but Jesus did not. Nor, for that matter, do most who support modern textual criticism comment on the fact that many of the early Egyptian manuscripts were discovered with the Gnostic Gospels, showing some link between the two. (For more examples, please see my MSS Evidence online class: Lesson 4).

Second, Biblical preservation does not call for manuscripts to be inerrant. The manuscripts are simply witnesses to the existence of this or that reading at a given time. Biblical preservation teaches that in each generation there was (and is) the perfect inerrant word of God; thus, we have God's inerrant word today. We no more need perfectly preserved manuscripts to attest to this than we do the original autographs. The fact that God said He would keep and preserve His Word is evidence enough (Psalm 12:6-7). The manuscripts are only witnesses in the courtroom of debate that God has done as He promised. They are not the preserved words themselves, they are witnesses to the account that the preserved word existed.

Third, Sheehan failed to note the amount of agreement within the Byzantine textual line as opposed to the amount of disagreement within the Alexandrian textual line. He does discuss the "97% agreement," which I will reference later. But it should be noted that the Byzantine textual line, which accounts for the vast majority of the existing Greek manuscripts, has a greater percentage of agreement throughout its whole than does the Alexandrian textual line. The Alexandrian line, which has fewer witnesses than the Byzantine, is notorious for its textual variations in both degree and number. If harmony is a factor, the Byzantine textual line is by far more congruent than any other textual line. (Source; bold and capital emphasis ours)

... these copies may be said to be infallible in that these extant derivatives of the autographs do not corrupt the original content but convey the truth of revelation in reliable verbal form, and infallibly lead the penitent reader to salvation. Jesus of Nazareth regarded the Old Testament copies of his day so approximate to and identical with the prophetic writings that he rebuked the religious leaders with the warning, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures’ (Matt. 22:29, KJV), and appealed to the Word of God as authoritative in its objective written form of the then-existing scrolls.

F.J.A. Hort’s verdict remains timely, however, that ‘for practical purposes in the case of the New Testament, critics have been successful in restoring the [copies] to within 99.9% accuracy’ and that ‘only about one word in every thousand has upon it substantial variation supported by such evidence as to call out the efforts of the critic in deciding the readings.’ According to Joseph P. Free this is the equivalent of about a half page in a five hundred page New Testament. And [F.F.] Bruce writes that ‘the variant readings about which any doubt remains ... affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.’ Whatever uncertainties copying has contributed, the Bible remains virtually unchanged and its teaching undimmed. The text of the Old and New Testaments alike has been preserved even in the copies in a remarkably pure form. Not a single article of faith, not a single moral precept is in doubt.

... the overwhelming majority of such variant readings involve inconsequential details, such as alternative spellings, order of words, and interchange of synonyms. In these cases, as well as in the relatively few instances involving the substance of the record, scholars apply the techniques of textual criticism in order to determine with more or less probability what the original wording was. In any event, no doctrine of the Christian faith depends solely upon a passage tat is textually uncertain.

We have ample reasons to be grateful for the marvelous state of conservation of the text of Scripture: the New Testament possesses a degree of certainty no doubt unequaled by any other ancient text transmitted to us by manuscript.

When it comes to virtually every issue of substance, we are as certain as it is possible to be regarding what the autographs (originals) said.

In the NT and in other ancient literature as well, there is no question concerning the reading of most of the words. Textual criticism needs to operate in only a limited portion of the text. When one is engaged in this study, and the number and importance of the variants are made the center of attention, it is well to remember that the main body of the text and its general sense are left untouched and that textual criticism engages in turning a magnifying glass upon some of the details.

By the ‘singular providence of’ God, the text of Scripture has come down to us in such substantial purity that even the most uncritical edition of the Hebrew and Greek, or the most incompetent (or even the most tendentious) translation of such an edition, cannot effectively obscure its essential message or neutralize its saving power.

When the Bible has been subjected to a critical examination more severe than has been applied to any other body of literary material, the historical facts on which the Gospel rests stand out sharp and clear.

In spite of the large number of variant readings, the Greek text has reached us substantially uncorrupted ... Since, however, the greater part of the text shows perfect uniformity, we can say with Westcott and Hort that seven-eighths of the Greek New Testament is critically certain. Of the remaining one-eighth many of the variant readings concern the same word or phrase, and most of these readings consist merely in changes of spelling or particles, in the order of words, in grammatical differences and the usage of synonyms, or in the conscious or unconscious faults of copyists. However, all of these are immaterial changes, which do not obscure the meaning of the text. Of the variants which remain, there are hardly 200 which affect the meaning of the text, and of these only 15 are of major importance. Yet, these and the other variants neither add to or detract from a single dogma of the Church.

With these facts in mind, we can reach a genuine appraisal of the Greek text of the New Testament. No other book has been copied so diligently and quoted so frequently in ancient times. The greater number of MSS., their variety and independence, the greater must be of the value of those readings which display harmony. Hence, where biblical MSS. agree, no other book in the world possesses such certainty as to its critical value. In regard to the readings where the MSS. disagree, critical scholars have reduced the question of doubtful readings to the minimum. The Greek New Testament is, therefore, not only substantially correct, but even in readings of secondary importance the variations are inconsequential.

... The very magnitude of the Greek evidence complicates the textual problem. There are nearly 5,000 Greek MSS and thousands of biblical quotations in the writings of the church fathers- A TRANSMISSION HISTORY MORE INTRICATE THAN FOR ANY OTHER ANCIENT DOCUMENTS. Early in the 20^th cent. Hermann von Soden printed evidence on 45,000 NT variants. To put this in proper perspective, however, we should note THAT MANY OF THESE ARE OF A MINOR NATURE, and NO DENOMINATIONAL DOGMAS seem to have been revamped because of textual criticism. Indeed, the very amount of evidence SHOWS THE CONCERN OF THE CHRISTIANS WITH THE TRANSMISSION OF THE SACRED TEXT. By contrast the poems of Catullas and Tacitus' Annals are preserved IN ONLY ONE LATIN MS EACH, and even of Homer's Odyssey there are only 100 MSS. Plato is extant chiefly in 13^TH-cent. MSS, and few classical authors are preserved in MSS copied before 1000, BUT THE NT UNCIALS GO BACK TO THE 4^TH AND 3^RD CENTS. (p. 1231; bold and capital emphasis ours)

In all this we need to recognize THE BASIC TRUSTWORTHINESS OF OUR BIBLE TEXT compared with other documents transmitted from antiquity... (p. 1236; bold and capital emphasis ours)