NT Reliability

Last Night we watched the History Tour of The Truth Project. One of the coolest things in it was the piece showing that the New Testament Scriptures are the most historically reliable ancient writing that we have. A quick Google search will bring up lots of papers showing this in detail.

Here is part of how one site put it:

The New Testament is by far the most reliable ancient writing in existence today. There exist today over 24,000 copies (5,000 of them in the original Greek language) of the New Testament (either in whole or in part).¹ This should be compared with the fact that only 7 copies presently exist of Plato's Tetralogies.² Homer's Iliad is in second place behind the New Testament among ancient writings with just 643 copies.³

The earliest copy of Plato's Tetralogies is dated about 1,200 years after Plato supposedly wrote the original.⁴ Compare this with the earliest extant copy of the New Testament: the John Ryland's Papyri. It contains a portion of John 18. This fragment is dated at about 125AD, only 25 years after the original is thought to have been written.⁵....Again, Homer's Iliad takes second place among ancient writings, second only to the New Testament. The earliest copy of any portion of Homer's Iliad is dated about 500 years after the original writing.⁷