05 Big questions · The Bible
Has the Bible been changed over time?
The Bible was copied by hand for centuries, and those copies contain differences. Most are small; some involve longer passages. Comparing manuscripts helps scholars identify these differences, and modern Bibles often explain important ones in their notes.
A little deeper
It's a fair question. Ancient texts were copied by hand for centuries before printing existed, so how would anyone know if the words had drifted?
The answer is comparison. Scholars have thousands of New Testament manuscripts, in different languages, copied in different regions, often centuries apart. Comparing them shows where copies agree and where they differ, which makes it possible to spot many changes that crept in along the way.
Most of the differences are small: spelling variations, word order, or a scribe accidentally repeating or skipping a line. A few are longer passages. This is normal for any hand-copied ancient document. Scholars call the study of these differences “textual criticism,” and it's done openly, footnoted in most modern Bible translations.
A famous example is the ending of Mark's Gospel, where the earliest manuscripts stop at 16:8 and later manuscripts add extra verses. Good study Bibles flag this directly rather than hiding it — which is itself evidence of an honest field, not a cover-up.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include Old Testament manuscripts over a thousand years older than the previously oldest known copies. They show strong continuity with later copies — and also some differences between ancient versions of the same books.
It's also worth separating “the text was changed” from “a council decided which books belonged in the Bible.” Early Christians did discuss and settle which books were widely recognised as authoritative Scripture. That's a question about the contents list, not about secretly rewriting individual books.
So the honest answer is: yes, copies differ, and that is exactly what scholars study. Because the differences can be compared and are openly noted, readers can see where the questions lie rather than having to guess.
What Christians agree on
- Hand-copied manuscripts contain differences, most small and some longer.
- Important variations are openly documented in the notes of modern translations.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls show strong continuity with later copies, alongside some differences.
- Deciding which books belong in the Bible is a separate question from whether the text of those books was altered.
Read it for yourself
- Mark 16:8–20Check the note after verse 8 in most translations — a well-known example of a textual question discussed openly.
- Isaiah 53Isaiah survives in a near-complete pre-Christian scroll among the Dead Sea Scrolls, closely matching later copies with some differences.
- Deuteronomy 4:2An ancient warning against adding to or subtracting from the text, showing the concern for accuracy is not new.
Each Bible reference links to the passage on Bible Gateway (NIV UK), so you can read it yourself rather than take our word for it. Short quotations elsewhere are marked with their translation.