Here is Josh McDowell from The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict on why we can be confident in the preservation of the manuscript material of the New Testament text:

F. E. Peters states that “on the basis of manuscript tradition alone, the works that made up the Christians’ New Testament were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of antiquity.” (Peters, HH, 50) As a result, the fidelity of the New Testament text rests on a multitude of manuscript evidence. Counting Greek copies alone, the New Testament is preserved in some 5,656 partial and complete manuscript portions that were copied by hand from the second through the fifteenth centuries. (Geisler, GIB, 385)

There are now more than 5,686 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions (MSS), and we have close to, if not more than, 25,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, Homer’s Iliad is second, with only 643 manuscripts that still survive. The first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the thirteenth century. (Leach, OB, 145)

The following is a breakdown of the number of surviving manuscripts for the New Testament:

Extant Greek Manuscripts:

Uncials – 307
Minuscules – 2,860
Lectionaries – 2,410
Papyri – 109

SUBTOTAL – 5,686

Manuscripts in Other Languages:

Latin Vulgate – 10,000+
Ethiopic – 2,000+
Slavic – 4,101
Armenian – 2,587
Syriac Pashetta – 350+
Bohairic – 100
Arabic – 75
Old Latin – 50
Anglo Saxon – 7
Gothic – 6
Sogdian – 3
Old Syriac – 2
Persian – 2
Frankish – 1

SUBTOTAL – 19,284+
TOTAL ALL MSS – 24,970+

Information for the preceding charts was gathered from the following sources: ment Studies in Munster, Germany: Kurt Aland’s Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 87, 1968; Kurt Aland’s Kurzgefasste Liste der Griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments W. De Gruyter, 1963; Kurt Aland’s “Neve Nevtestamentliche Papyri III,” New Testament Studies, July, 1976; Bruce Met-ager’s The Early Versions of the New Testa ment, Clarendon Press, 1977; New Testament Manuscript Studies, (eds.) Merrill M. Parvis and Allen Wikgren. The University of Chicago Press, 1950; Eroll F. Rhodes’s An Annotated List of Armenian New Testament Manuscripts. Tokyo, Ikeburo, 1959; The Bible and Modern Scholarship, (ed.) J. Phillip Hyatt, Abingdon Press, 1965.

The importance of the sheer number of manuscript copies cannot be overstated. As with other documents of ancient literature, there are no known extant (currently existing) original manuscripts of the Bible. Fortunately, however, the abundance of manuscript copies makes it possible to reconstruct the original with virtually complete accuracy. (Geisler, GIB, 386)

John Warwick Montgomery says that “to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.” (Montgomery, HC, 29)

Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, who was the director and principal librarian of the British Museum and second to none in authority for issuing statements about MSS, states that:

“besides number, the manuscripts of the New Testament differ from those of the classical authors…. In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament. The books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century; the earliest extant manuscripts (trifling scraps excepted) are of the fourth century-say from 250 to 300 years later. This may sound a considerable interval, but it is nothing to that which parts most of the great classical authors from their earliest manuscripts. We believe that we have in all essentials an accurate text of the seven extant plays of Sophocles, yet the earliest substantial manuscript upon which it is based was written more than 1400 years after the poet’s death.” (Kenyon, HTCNT, 4)

Kenyon continues in The Bible and Archaeology: “The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.” (Kenyon, BA, 288)

Dockery, Mathews, and Sloan have recently written, “For most of the biblical text a single reading has been transmitted. Elimination of scribal errors and intentional changes leaves only a small percentage of the text about which any questions occur.” (Dockery, FBI, 176) They conclude:

“It must be said that the amount of time between the original composition and the next surviving manuscript is far less for the New Testament than for any other work in Greek literature…. Although there are certainly differences in many of the New Testament manuscripts, not one fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading.” (Dockery, FBI, 182)

F. J. A. Hort rightfully adds that “in the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writings.” (Hort, NTOG, 561)

J. Harold Greenlee states, “The number of available MSS of the New Testament is overwhelmingly greater than those of any other work of ancient literature… The earliest extant MSS of the NT were written much closer to the date of the original writing than is the case in almost any other piece of ancient literature.” (Greenlee, INTTC, 15)

W. F. Albright confidently informs us: “No other work from Graeco-Roman antiquity is so well attested by manuscript tradition as the New Testament. There are many more early manuscripts of the New Testament than there are of any classical author, and the oldest extensive remains of it date only about two centuries after their original composition.” (Albright, AP, 238)

Edward Glenny reports that:

“God has given us 5,656 manuscripts containing all or parts of the Greek NT. It is the most remarkably preserved book in the ancient world. Not only do we have a great number of manuscripts but they are very close in time to the originals they represent. Some partial manuscripts of the NT are from the second century AD., and many are within four centuries of the originals. These facts are all the more amazing when they are compared with the preservation of other ancient literature.” (Glenny, PS, as cited in BVD, .95; see Aland, TNT, 72-84, for a description of the manuscripts of the New Testament. One of the most recent tabulations of NT manuscripts is in Kurt and Barbara Aland, eds. Kurzgefasste Liste der grieschischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. [Aland, KLHNT] (This source lists the extant Greek manuscripts of the NT as 99 papyri, 306 uncials, 2,855 minuscules, and 2,396 Lectionaries, for the total given above.)

Lee Strobel, in a very recent book [published in 1998], reports the latest count of Greek MSS as follows: papyri 99; uncials 306; minuscules 2,856; and lectionaries 2,403, for a total of 5,664. (Strobel, CC, 62-63) (Slight variations in counts may occur, depending on how small fragments were to be considered manuscripts, but the “mountain of evidence” gives the New Testament great historical credibility.)

“To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.” – JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY

Michael Welte of the Institute for New Testament Studies (Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat, Institut Fur Neutestamentliche Textforschung) in Munster, Germany, has conveyed the latest (as of August 1998) count of Greek MSS as follows: 109 papyri, 307 uncials, 2,860 minuscules, and 2,410 lectionaries, for a total of 5,686.

Glenny continues, citing comparative ancient documents: “No one questions the authenticity of the historical books of antiquity because we do not possess the original copies. Yet we have far fewer manuscripts of these works than we possess of the NT.” (Glenny, PS, as cited in BVD, 96)

F. F. Bruce, in The New Testament Document, vividly portrays the comparison between the New Testament and ancient historical writings:

“Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For Caesar’s Gallic Wars (composed between 58 and 50 B.C. there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some years later than Caesar’s day. Of the books of the Roman history of Livy (59 B.C.-A.D.17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than 20 MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books III-VI, is as old as the fourth century. Of the 14 books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. A.D. 100) only four and a half survive; of the 16 books of his Annals, 10 survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh.

The extant MSS of his minor works (Dialogus de Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century. The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to C. A.D. 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (B.C. 488-428). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.” (Bruce, NTD, 16,17)

Greenlee writes in Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism about the time gap between the original MS (the autograph) and the extant MS (the oldest surviving copy), saying,

“The oldest known MSS of most of the Greek classical authors are dated a thousand years or more after the author’s death. The time interval for the Latin authors is somewhat less, varying down to a minimum of three centuries in the case of Virgil. In the case of the N.T., however, two of the most important MSS were written within 300 years after the N.T. was completed, and some virtually complete N.T. books as well as extensive fragmentary MSS of many parts of the N.T. date back to one century from the original writings.” (Greenlee, INTTC, 16)

Greenlee adds,

“Since scholars accept as generally trustworthy the writings of the ancient classics even though the earliest MSS were written so long after the original writings and the number of extant MSS is in many instances so small, it is clear that the reliability of the text of the N.T. is likewise assured.” (Greenlee, INTTC, 16)

Bruce Metzger, in The Text of the New Testament, cogently writes of the comparison:

“The works of several ancient authors are preserved to us by the thinnest possible thread of transmission. For example, the compendious history of Rome by Velleius Paterculus survived to modern times in only one incomplete manuscript, from which the editio princeps was made – and this lone manuscript was lost in the seventeenth century after being copied by Beatus Rhenanus at Amerbach. Even the Annals of the famous historian Tacitus is extant, so far as the first six books are concerned, in but a single manuscript, dating from the ninth century. In 1870 the only known manuscript of the Epistle to Diognetus, an early Christian composition which editors usually include in the corpus of Apostolic Fathers, perished in a fire at the municipal library in Strasbourg. In contrast with these figures, the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of his material.” (Metzger, TNT, 34)

F. F. Bruce writes: “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.” (Bruce, BP, 178)

Compared with nearly 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the NT, the chart on the next page demonstrates the poverty of manuscripts of some other ancient documents. (Geisler, GIB, 408)