Have We Lost the Message of the New Testament?

January 18, 2015 August 29, 2025

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario

Lost the Plot?

Have we lost the message of the New Testament through irreparable corruptions of the text? That's what some people wonder when the conversation turns to the issue of textual variants---differences in the biblical manuscripts we've discovered over the years.

For many people, issues surrounding the way the text was hand-copied can make it tough to believe that we have what the New Testament authors actually wrote. After reading books by skeptical scholars, they wonder how the text can still be intact after all these years.

Today, I still hear well-meaning believers say “just give people the Bible.” But more and more, I see the need to engage the tough questions about why we should take the text seriously--to meet people where they're at and address their honest concerns about the text. So, what do textual variants really mean?

I studied Greek and Textual Criticism under Daniel Wallace at Dallas Theological Seminary. He personally helped me think through the questions, "Are there really hundreds of thousands of textual differences in our New Testament manuscripts?" and "so what?" In other words, what do all these numbers really mean?

Textual Criticism, Variants, and "Errors" in the Bible

There are couple of things worth mentioning before we go any further. First, there is a whole field of study called textual criticism that can help answer these important questions. It's all about thinking critically about the textual differences in the New Testament manuscripts, in order to identify the original wording of the text.

Second, let's define what a "variant" is. It's any place where at least one manuscript differs from a base text. It could be a difference in word order, omission or addition of words, or even just spelling differences.

Third, we need to be clear on what scholars mean by "errors." In textual criticism, “errors” are changes like mistakes in copying. We are not talking about factual errors like mistakes in historical reporting. That's an important observation because it means that this discussion isn't related to the doctrine of inerrancy.

We Haven't Lost the Message

Here's the thing about all those variants. The number of variants we've found in ancient manuscripts dons't matter as much as the nature of the variants. We need to understand the nature of these differences in order to understand why they don't have to shake your faith.

Now, I need to explain two characteristics of textual variants or differences among the New Testament manuscripts. Scholars talk about "meaningful" and "viable" variants. What's the difference? A variant is "meaningful" if it changed the meaning of the sentence. A variant is "viable" if it may actually reflect the original words of the original manuscript (scholars call this the "autograph").

Check out these four categories of textual variants and see why even 400,000 differences don’t need to shake your faith. Here's what you'll find once you really begin to study this carefully: Among the 400,000 textual variants in NT MSS, over 99% make virtually no difference at all.

The first two categories won't help anyone come up with a new conspiracy theory about how the church has been secretly changing the Bible over the years. But, as Wallace used to say, it could potentially cure your insomnia.

1. Most textual variants (75%) are just spelling differences

Textual critics call this category of variants "neither meaningful nor viable." his refers to differences that don't change the meaning of the text and aren't likely to be original anyway. For all practical purposes, they don't really matter at all. Have you ever seen the word "color" spelled "colour?" What if was misspelled as "culler?" Whether you find an alternate spelling or an actual spelling error, the meaning is still pretty obvious. One example from the gospels is whether or not we see John spelled with one or two "N"s (really, it's the Greek letter nu). So this first (and largest) category of New Testament variants is made up of spelling differences, accounting for 75% of all textual variants.

2. Many textual variants are synonyms, word order differences, and things you can't translate in English

The next biggest category represents variants that are "viable but not meaningful." This refers to wordings that could well be original but don't really change the meaning of the text--synonyms (different words that basically mean the same thing) and word order (which makes little difference in Greek) or articles with proper nouns. For example, Greek writers could use the definite article before people’s names (e.g. “The Jesus”). In this case, whether or not the word "the" shows up before Jesus' name makes no difference. You can't even translate it in English!

3. Some textual variants would have made a difference if they weren't only in later manuscripts

The third largest category is made up of variants that are "meaningful, but not viable." By that, I mean that these variants that would have changed the meaning of the text, if they showed up earlier in the manuscript tradition. So, differences that show up only hundreds of years after Jesus' time are pretty unlikely that they tell us anything about what the original Gospel manuscripts really said. Another way to say this is that the more recent differences just tell us about how some copyists ended up changing the text, either by accident or even intentionally (e.g. to clarify an idea, the speaker, etc).

One example is John 1:30, where John the Baptist says, "after me comes a man." In Greek, the word for man is aner. But there's an 8th-century manuscript (called Codex L), where the scribe accidentally skipped a letter while copying aner and just wrote aer, which would make the translation, "after me comes air" (coincidentally, the Greek word aer sounds like the English word "air"). This is an obvious mistake that says more about the scribe's simple human error than what the gospel writer wrote in the 1st century.

4. Some textual variants do make a difference but none change any core doctrines

It's true. There are real questions about the authenticity of some of the words and sentences in the New Testament. And that's what the fourth category is about: Variants that actually do make a difference in what the text says and possibly represent the wording in the original manuscript (Scholars call that manuscript the autograph). We refer to this last and smallest category as "meaningful and viable." But here's the thing: None of them call any core doctrines into question. Not one.

There is perhaps one single text in this whole category that's related to doctrine and it has to do with demons. Does Jesus teach that certain demons can only be exorcised by "prayer and fasting" or just "prayer" in Mark 9:29? All modern Bibles signal this question with a footnote as full disclosure to the reader so that both options are obvious.

So don't get the false impression that this is just the tip of the iceberg. These kinds of differences across the manuscripts represent less than 1% of all textual variants in the New Testament.

About The One Percent:

New Testament Textual Variants that Matter Most

We need to be honest and admit that there are some questions about a few parts of the New Testament. For example, most scholars believe the story about the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) wasn't in the original text of the John. It actually shows up in different places in some manuscripts, including the margins or at the end of a page, almost like scribes who wanted to preserve the story didn't know where they should be writing it down. One theory is that it may have come from Luke's special material. But what kind of difference does this make? I like how Darrell Bock answers this question:

“What is impacted is whether or not a particular passage teaches a particular point. But in the big scheme of things, there is no fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith that is impacted by this one percent.”

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Indeed, no core doctrine is called into question by any textual differences in the NT. Most people don't know that even the famous agnostic atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman agrees with this. He mentions this in the question and answer section of Misquoting Jesus (p.252):

...essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

The Number of Textual Variants is Only One Part of the Story

It's misleading for skeptics to say there are around 400,000 textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts and leave it at that.

The reason there are so many New Testament variants is because we've discovered so many ancient manuscripts. If all we had was one codex (an ancient book) with the entire New Testament canon, we wouldn’t have any variants to talk about!

Having over 5,800 manuscripts---and not just one or even a dozen ancient, handwritten documents---is actually a good thing because it can help us have more confidence in the readings which best represent the text of the New Testament. So, the number of textual variants is only one part of the story.

Conclusion

Even though scribes made mistakes and changed their texts, we haven’t lost the message of the New Testament. The overwhelming majority of these textual variants don’t change the meaning of the text. No core doctrine of the Christian faith is called into question by any textual differences in the New Testament. None.

So, instead of making us suspicious that we've lost the message, studying the text of the New Testament gives us an appreciation of how well the text has been faithfully preserved.

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