How reliable are the New Testament documents?

How close in time are our copies to the original documents of the New Testament?

There are many manuscript copies of the New Testament documents - far more than for any other ancient document. Not only that, but they also go back much closer in time to the original writers.

There are many manuscripts of the New Testament dating from within four centuries of when the books were first written. Four centuries may sound like a lot, but it is small compared to the gap for most other ancient manuscripts - see below.

One of the most important manuscripts is the Codex Siniaticus. ['Codex' means it is in book form, rather than scroll or parchment]. The British Government bought this from the Government of the Soviet Union in 1933, for 100,000 - a huge sum at the time. It is now in the British Museum.

There are also some manuscripts dating back to the second century, and fragments of manuscripts dating back to only thirty years or so after the documents were originally written.

In 'The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict', Josh McDowell cites for comparison Homer's 'Iliad'. The earliest copies of the Iliad date back to the thirteenth century. Yet scholars do not doubt that we have essentially what Homer wrote.

Or consider the 'Gallic Wars', written by Julius Caesar, about the same time as the New Testament. The earliest copy of it dates from one thousand years later. But historians don't doubt that it is authentic.

By comparison, the earliest manuscripts of small parts of the New Testament date from only about thirty-five years after they were written. So there are copies of the New Testament going back much closer to the originals than for any comparable ancient documents.
The earliest known New Testament document