Recently I've been chatting to a bloke about the new testament, and he raised an objection. He'd read that there were thousands of variations between the various manuscripts. He felt that they'd been changed for "religious" reasons, and hence were untrustworthy. He wasn't willing to take the word of an expert that there was no problem - he wanted primary source proof.
It's interesting that this sort of question is still raised in this post-modern day and age. Friends of mine tell me that this whole historical reliability question is still very much a live issue. Anyway, here is what I wrote to the bloke -
Regarding primary source evidence, I would recommend you get hold of the Greek New Testament, published by the United Bible Societies and available from Koorong and the Bible Society Bookshop. This text is prepared specifically for the purposes of translation. The introduction contains a list of all of the manuscripts referred to, including citations from the church fathers, and also the date and content of the manuscript. The text itself contains every variation in extensive footnotes, listing the sources of the variations, and the degree of confidence that the selected variation is authentic.
Most of the variations are trivial. I've just randomly opened a page, and landed on 2 Corinthians 12:10. The book shows that there is a variation in this verse, some manuscripts have the greek word "kai" (meaning "and"), and other manuscripts have the greek word "en" (a broad preposition, meaning "with" among other things). Most variations you will find are of about this level of significance.
All my greek-reading friends can correct my definitions, but I think everything else I said was pretty kosher...
