Can a book be trusted when its original pages are gone and its surviving copies disagree? The evidence supports a measured answer. The copies do differ, and often. Dr. Chad Thornhill argues that those differences do not split the record on its central events. The originals are not in anyone’s hands, so some claims about them rest on faith rather than evidence. And specific claims about Jesus, such as his crucifixion, can still be tested the way historians test any ancient report.
This study follows that trail one exhibit at a time, so that you can say exactly what the evidence shows and where it stops. It draws on a conversation between Lisa Fields, the founder of Jude 3 Project, and Thornhill, who chairs Theological Studies at Liberty University’s School of Divinity and teaches Greek and apologetics. You can work through it alone in about an hour. A group can cover it in one longer session or split it at the sorting exercise. Either way, the goal is a short, accurate statement of the historical case that you could defend in front of a careful skeptic.
The claim on the table
Start by stating the skeptic’s argument at full strength. No one has the original writings. What survives are copies of copies, made by hand over centuries, and those copies do not match word for word. So, the argument runs, we cannot know what the authors wrote, and we have no basis for trusting what we read.
Before looking at any evidence, ask what we would expect to find if that argument were right. We would expect the differences between copies to reach the central claims, with some manuscripts telling one story and others telling another. We would expect the earliest witnesses to be very late. We would expect to have no way of testing what the documents report. If the argument were wrong, we would expect differences that leave the main account intact, witnesses reasonably close to the events, and at least some claims that can be checked against ordinary historical standards.
Write those two lists down, side by side. The rest of the study tests them.
First exhibit: the copies themselves
Thornhill does not deny the problem. He says it plainly: “There are lots of variants.” That admission matters. A defense that pretends the copies are identical will fall apart the first time someone opens a scholarly edition.
His claim concerns what kind of differences they are. “We don’t have those kinds of glaring sort of contradictions, even though there are differences between our copies.” He gives a test case: “we don’t find, for example, a manuscript that says Jesus rose from the dead, and a manuscript that says Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.”
Look at the logic of that example. He is not saying every variant is trivial. He is saying that the disagreements among copies do not produce rival accounts of the events the faith depends on. That speaks to the skeptic’s first expectation. If copying had corrupted the core, you would expect competing versions of the core, and on his account we do not find them.
Notice the limit as well. This exhibit shows that the copies agree on central matters with one another. On its own it does not show that what they agree on actually happened. Agreement among copies tells you about transmission. It does not settle truth. Keep those two questions apart, because much careless argument blurs them.
Second exhibit: what is missing
Many statements about an error-free Bible apply to the original documents, not to any translation. Thornhill names the difficulty that creates: “we don’t possess any documents, at least that are, are known to be the original autographs.” He continues: “Most of our manuscripts are from the fourth century or later. We do have some fragments that are earlier than that, most of them from the second and third centuries, a couple that are debated that may be first century.” Those dates are his summary of the record, and a group that wants to go further should check them against a current scholarly survey.
His conclusion is careful. Because a claim about flawless originals rests on documents no one possesses, “it really then becomes more of a, of a theological discussion than an apologetic one.” Lisa Fields makes the same point from her own side. Once the argument moves from the manuscripts we have to originals no one has seen, she says, “but then you switch from evidence to faith.” Both still affirm a high view of Scripture. What they decline to do is present a faith conviction as if the manuscript evidence proved it.
For the Hebrew Scriptures, the gap is wider. Thornhill says “we don’t have manuscripts that even would remotely be considered originals based on, on their dating.” He still holds that “we have good reasons to believe that the copying was, was done with a high degree of accuracy,” and in the same breath he names a limit on that judgment: “a lot of our understanding of, of how the Old Testament was copied relies on later rabbinic traditions.”
He also raises a question about what “original” even means. Traditional belief holds that Moses wrote the first five books, yet “if Moses authored them, there are details that occur after Moses’ death that obviously Moses didn’t author.” Then he asks: “So if we’re talking about the autographs, which autographs are we talking about”?
Observation task. Read Deuteronomy 34:5-12. The passage reports Moses’ death and burial, and verse 6 adds that no one knows the place of his sepulchre “unto this day.” Ask what that phrase tells you about when this paragraph was written, relative to the events it describes. Then ask what follows and what does not. It shows that the book as we have it includes material written after Moses. It does not show that the book is unreliable, and it does not tell you who added the passage or when.
Third exhibit: one claim, tested the ordinary way
If the originals cannot be produced, is there anything evidence can establish? Thornhill’s answer is to stop trying to certify the whole collection at once and to test particular claims. His chosen example is the crucifixion: “it’s pretty well established, for example, that, that Jesus died by crucifixion.” He adds that a large majority of scholars, whatever their faith, accept it, and he explains why that matters: “the reason that they accept it is because there’s good evidence for it.”
Pay attention to how he handles expert opinion. He insists “it’s not that we should believe these things because scholars say them.” A head count of scholars is not the evidence. The evidence is what persuaded them. Part of it, in his account, is timing. He says “the gospels are written within potentially one, probably two generations of Jesus followers,” while “a history that discusses Julius Caesar, for example, might be written several hundred years after Julius Caesar lived.”
He applies the same method to Jesus’s reputation for miracles. He says there is “some evidence outside of the New Testament for that,” less than for the crucifixion. He also grants that people explain the reports differently, some offering medical or psychosomatic accounts. What he defends is narrower: “there was a fairly widespread belief that things, that these things were happening.” That is a claim about what people believed, and it is weaker than a claim that miracles occurred. An honest investigator keeps that difference visible.
One more qualification belongs on the table. Thornhill acknowledges that historians still debate their own tools, including “what criteria should we use and are the criteria that we’re using even good criteria.” He reports that “All those discussions are, are ongoing right now.” Stating the historical case accurately means admitting that the method itself is contested.
What the texts say about themselves
Scripture makes its own claims about where its accounts came from. Luke opens his Gospel this way: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4). “Perfect understanding” here means a thorough grasp, gained by tracing the matter carefully.
John states his purpose just as directly: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31).
Read these as an investigator would. Luke tells us what kind of document he meant to write: an orderly account resting on eyewitness reports, written so that a reader could be certain. John tells us he wrote in order to persuade. Neither statement proves the accounts true. Each does tell us what claims the documents make, and that tells us which historical questions are fair to ask of them. A work that claims eyewitness sources invites questions about sources. A work that admits its persuasive aim invites us to weigh its testimony with care, as we would any advocate’s.
A sorting exercise
This is the center of the study. Copy the statements below onto cards or a sheet of paper. Sort each into one of three piles: the evidence establishes this, a scholar argues this and the evidence supports it in part, or this is a faith conviction the evidence cannot settle. Some will cause disagreement, which is useful.
- The surviving copies of the Gospels contain many variants.
- No known variant reverses the account of the resurrection.
- The original documents were without error.
- Jesus died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.
- Jesus performed real miracles.
- Many people around Jesus believed he performed miracles.
- The scribes who copied the Hebrew Scriptures worked with great accuracy.
- The Gospels were written closer to their events than most ancient histories.
For each card, say what evidence placed it in its pile and what new evidence would move it. In a group, have one person argue for moving a card to a different pile while the others answer. If a participant is skeptical, do not treat that person as a debate opponent. Ask them to sort first, since their choices will show where the case actually needs to be made.
Thornhill warns that this subject rewards preparation: “if you don’t have a grasp of the evidence, it’s going to be really hard” to hold the conversation well. He also cautions against assuming bad motives in critical scholars. Sometimes an agenda is present, he says, but often “people are really just looking at this from a, from a critical perspective based on their training.” Sort the claims on their evidence, not on who usually makes them.
Questions for discussion
- Look back at the two lists of expectations you wrote at the start. Which expectations did the evidence meet, and which remain open?
- Agreement among copies speaks to transmission, not truth. Where have you heard those two questions run together, in a sermon, a debate or your own thinking?
- Thornhill and Lisa Fields both say a claim about the original documents moves from evidence to faith. Does that admission weaken the Christian case, strengthen its credibility, or do something else? Explain.
- The crucifixion and the belief that Jesus worked miracles rest on different amounts of evidence. How would you explain that difference to someone without overstating either one?
- Luke claims eyewitness sources, and John states a persuasive purpose. How should those statements shape the way a historian reads them?
- Which card in the sorting exercise did your group argue about most? What would you need to learn to settle it?
Before the next conversation
Write four sentences, no more, that you could say to someone who tells you the Bible cannot be trusted because the originals are lost. One sentence should grant what is true in the objection. One should state what the copies show. One should name a specific claim about Jesus and the reason historians accept it. One should mark honestly where evidence ends and faith begins.
Read your sentences aloud to someone else, or to yourself if you are working alone. Strike any word that claims more than the exhibits above support. What remains is smaller than a knockout argument, and it is something you can defend.