You’ve probably heard it before: “We don’t have the original manuscripts of the Bible.” It’s the kind of fact that makes skeptics smirk and Christians sweat. If what we’re reading today is built on centuries of handwritten copies—some with discrepancies—can we really trust it? And why would God entrust His Word to such a fragile delivery system?
It’s a fair question. Because while the Bible may tell a timeless story, it does so in a complex, sometimes paradoxical way that resists easy answers.
“There’s a sense that paradox is at [the Bible’s] heart. And there’s something true about that,” said Sean Kelly, professor of philosophy at Harvard. “Paradox is at the heart of our existence … I don’t think a moral system could tell us the right story about us.”
And yet Christians continue to believe the Bible is doing exactly that—telling the true, often confusing, always meaningful story of humanity’s relationship with God. But when people challenge the Bible’s credibility on the grounds of missing originals or textual variants, how do we respond?
Here are four facts worth knowing:
-
We have more manuscript evidence for the Bible than almost any ancient text.
There are more than 10,000 biblical fragments and manuscripts—far more than we have for works by Homer or Aristotle. The sheer volume allows scholars to cross-check and verify with remarkable precision. Most of the textual differences (known as variants) are minor—a misspelled word, a reversed letter—and none affect core doctrine or the overall narrative.
-
Every known variant is accounted for.
There’s no conspiracy here. Scholars have cataloged every known variation across thousands of ancient manuscripts. Nothing’s hidden. Nothing’s being swept under a rug.
-
Even skeptical historians affirm the Bible’s historical grounding.
“We have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from Jesus’ time period,” said Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar and self-described agnostic. If someone like Ehrman is saying it, it’s worth paying attention.
-
The scribes were obsessively precise.
Despite centuries of hand-copying, the manuscripts we have from around 800 B.C. are astonishingly close—within about 10 percent—to copies made in A.D. 1500. Try copying anything by hand for that long with that much consistency. It’s practically miraculous.
All of this is helpful context. But it still leaves us with the theological elephant in the room: If God wants us to trust His Word, why not preserve the originals?
Here’s the thing: God doesn’t ask us to worship the paper it was written on. He doesn’t demand devotion to a static, perfect text. He asks us to devote ourselves to Him. The Word is living not because it’s printed in red letters, but because it points to a living God.
It’s true that some details have been lost or blurred through translation and transmission. God could’ve preserved a flawless edition if He wanted to. But He didn’t. Instead, He gave us something better—a story told in community, across cultures and centuries, written by real people experiencing a real God.
And that means we can’t just cherry-pick our favorite verses and call it good theology. We’re invited to wrestle with Scripture in its entirety. To trace the character of God from Genesis to Revelation. To read the whole arc of the story and see if the same God shows up again and again.
Because the Bible isn’t a rulebook. It’s a relationship.
N.T. Wright puts it like this: the Bible is “not just a repository of timeless truths or moral maxims.” Instead, he says, “it’s a narrative—a story that helps us understand not just who God is, but what God is doing in the world, and how we’re invited to participate in that.”
That matters. Because if we read the Bible only as a document to be dissected, we miss its point entirely. The story of Scripture isn’t about preserving ink on a page. It’s about a God who speaks through human voices and invites us to live within the story ourselves.
So, is the Bible reliable? Can its God be trusted to speak through it, even with no original autographs in hand?
Only one way to find out. You have to read it. Engage with it. Let it confront and comfort you. It’s risky, sure. It leaves room for doubt, for wrestling, even rejection.
But that’s the kind of relationship God seems to be after anyway—one that’s real, not rigid. One that allows space for mystery, even as it leads us toward truth.
Messy? Absolutely. But the best stories usually are.
