If you spend any time in comment sections of any video or article about the reliability of the Bible, you’ve probably seen claims like this: “The New Testament wasn’t written until way later,” or “Most of it wasn’t confirmed before 100 AD,” which is usually followed up by something like, “It’s all made up.” It sounds convincing to some, but only if you haven’t looked into the actual manuscript evidence or historical context. So let’s talk about that. Today we’re looking at what we can know—not from faith, but from secular, historical, and archaeological evidence.

No, We Don’t Have First-Century Complete Copies. But…

Let’s be honest—we don’t have a complete manuscript of any New Testament book from the 1st century. That’s true. But does that mean they didn’t exist or weren’t circulating? Not at all. In fact, we have earlier evidence for the New Testament than for any other ancient document. ANY.

Take the manuscript called P52, which is a fragment of the Gospel of John. Most scholars date it to around 125 AD, just a few decades after the original was likely written. That’s incredibly early by ancient standards. We also have ones called P90 (John), P104 (Matthew), and P64 all dated between 100–150 AD.

And that’s just the manuscripts we’re talking about. There’s much, much more. There’s other writings from early church leaders like Clement of Rome (c. 95 AD), Ignatius (c. 110 AD), and Polycarp (c. 110–130 AD). All of these quoted from the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, and more. They didn’t quote from legend—they were referencing texts already considered authoritative by the early church within decades of Jesus’ death. And as far as the idea of it all just being a legend, again, that doesn’t follow scholarly consensus. They’ve actually studied this idea, that Jesus was just a legend and found, compared to other ideas and stories that there was not enough time between the events that happened and it becoming widely believed for it to be a legend. Jesus actually existed and wasn’t just a legend.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into the historical evidence behind the New Testament’s reliability, a great resource is Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. It’s packed with well-researched, scholarly responses to common objections, and a ton of evidence for God, Jesus, and Christianity. I own a couple copies myself. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can get it in hard back or soft cover.

Compared to Other Ancient Texts? It’s Not Even Close.

Critics like to uphold these high standards for the New Testament, but those standards don’t hold up for other ancient texts. If we judged ancient history by the same standards critics use for the New Testament, we’d have to throw out almost everything we know about the ancient world. Here’s how that standard looks for other texts:

• Plato: Earliest copy = ~1,300 years after his death

• Tacitus (Roman historian): Earliest manuscripts = ~800 years after he wrote Annals

• Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars: About 10 manuscripts, earliest is ~1,000 years later

In contrast, the New Testament has over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, and more than 19,000 in other ancient languages (Latin, Syriac, Coptic, etc.). Many of these date to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. That’s far beyond anything else.

So, Was It Made Up Later?

It’s fair to argue about believing what the New Testament says. But to claim the text didn’t exist until long after the apostles or that it just popped out of nowhere after 100 AD doesn’t hold up to history. If you’re being honest, you’re not making claims like that, unless your ignorant of the facts.
The Gospel accounts and letters were already circulating, being quoted, copied, and passed around the Roman Empire within decades. That’s not something we assume by faith, that we hope happened. That’s what the historic, verifiable evidence shows.

So next time someone brings up that objection, or you have it remember that it’s not as big of a deal as it sounds. The manuscripts we do have — it’s more than enough to put the objection to rest.