Can You Actually Trust the Bible?

A common claim is that the Bible has been "translated so many times it is basically a game of telephone." It sounds plausible. It is also demonstrably false.

Here is what actually happened — and the evidence is far more compelling than the conspiracy theories.

The New Testament has approximately 5,800 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and thousands more in other ancient languages. That totals nearly 25,000 manuscript copies.

For comparison:

• Homer's Iliad: approximately 1,900 copies
• Plato's works: approximately 210 copies
• Caesar's Gallic Wars: approximately 10 copies

No serious scholar questions whether we know what Plato wrote. The Bible has over 100 times more manuscript evidence.

The earliest New Testament fragment (P52, a portion of John's ) dates to approximately 125 AD — roughly 30 years after the original was written. Most ancient texts have gaps of 500 to 1,000 years between the original and the earliest surviving copy.