How do theists justify the translations of the scriptures?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

the fact that there are over 25,000 copies of the bible hand written and preserved over 2000 years

I've heard this nonsense before, and it is manifestly untrue.  There are absolutely, positively NOT 25 000 copies of the Bible that have been preserved for two millennia.

What IS true is that there are 25 000 handwritten manuscripts of the NT, but even this is a misrepresentation of what the situation is.  There are no extant manuscripts from the first century, and only eight (I think) from the second.  For the first four centuries, there are approximately 100 manuscripts.  The copying craze started after that (largely due to the advent of monasteries).

But what is a manuscript?  It is anything that is written by hand, irrespective of length.  The oldest bit of the NT is a fragment of John about three inches long - for historians, this counts as a manuscript.  We don't have anything more substantial than that until around 200 CE.

The overwhelming majority of that 25 000 number so often bandied about weren't written until well after the NT was codified - say, between the 11th and 16th centuries (Mr. Guttenberg largely put the brakes on copying out the Bible by hand).

So, are there 25 000 manuscripts of all or part or the NT?  Yes, but it is almost entirely irrelevant from an historical perspective.  All that really matters are the hundred or so from the first four centuries.


Boru