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Continued from here...
Thanks Mr Asgar Ali for such an extensive work on your part to research and get back with all these difficult theological jargons which can topple any layman.  I doubt you have thoroughly read most of the underlying differences between these manuscripts that you have mentioned.

And here is the problem...

In highlighting these issues, you have forgotten to outline the difference in doctrines between these manuscripts.  Errors that lead to change in doctrine are ones that make or break arguments, not pen slips leading to spelling mistakes.  

Let me illustrate how such a test can be made [1].  It will help you to see how scholars can confidently reconstruct the text from existing manuscript copies even though the copies themselves have differences and are much older than the autograph (i.e., the original).

Pretend your Aunt Sally has a dream in which she learns the recipe for an elixir that would continuously maintain her youth.  When she wakes up, she scribbles the directions on a scrap of paper, then runs into the kitchen to make up her first glass.  In a few days her appearance is transformed.  Sally is a picture of radiant youth because of her daily dose of what comes to be known as "Aunt Sally's Secret Sauce."

Sally is so excited she sends hand-written instructions to her three bridge partners (Aunt Sally is still in the technological dark ages--no photocopier) giving detailed instructions on how to make the sauce.  They, in turn, make copies which each sends to ten of her own friends.

All is going well until one day Aunt Sally's pet chihuahua eats the original copy of the recipe.  Sally is beside herself.  In a panic she contacts her three friends who have mysteriously suffered similar mishaps.  Their copies are gone, too, so the alarm goes out to their friends in attempt to recover the original wording.

They finally round up all the surviving hand-written copies, twenty-six in all.  When they spread them out on the kitchen table, they immediately notice some differences. Twenty-three of the copies are exactly the same.  One has a misspelled word, though, one has two phrases inverted ("mix then chop" instead of "chop then mix" ) and one includes an ingredient that none of the others has on its list.

Here is the critical question:  Do you think Aunt Sally can accurately reconstruct her original recipe?  Of course she could.  The misspelled words can easily be corrected, the single inverted phrase can be repaired, and the extra ingredient can be ignored.

Even with more numerous or more diverse variations, the original can still be reconstructed with a high level of confidence given the right textual evidence.  The misspellings would be obvious errors, the inversions would stand out and easily be restored, and the conclusion drawn that it's more plausible that one word or sentence be accidentally added to a single copy than omitted from many.

This, in simplified form, is how the science of textual criticism works.  Textual critics are academics who reconstruct a missing original from existing manuscripts that are generations removed from the autograph.  According to New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce, "Its object [is] to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the documents in question."[2]  

The science of textual criticism is used to test all documents of antiquity--not just religious texts--including historical and literary writings.  It's not a theological enterprise based on haphazard hopes and guesses; it's a linguistic exercise that follows a set of established rules.  Textual criticism allows an alert critic to determine the extent of possible corruption of any work.

New Testament specialist Daniel Wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the New Testament, this number is very misleading.  Most of the differences are completely inconsequential--spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like.  A side by side comparison between the two main text families (the Majority Text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.[3]

Of the remaining differences, virtually all yield to vigorous textual criticism.  This means that our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure.  In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.[4]

Greek scholar D.A. Carson sums up this way:  "The purity of text is of such a substantial nature that nothing we believe to be true, and  nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardised by the variants."[5]

This issue is no longer contested by non-Christian scholars, and for good reason.  Simply put, if we reject the authenticity of the New Testament on textual grounds we'd have to reject every ancient work of antiquity and declare null and void every piece of historical information from written sources prior to the beginning of the second millennium A.D.

Has the New Testament been altered?  Critical, academic analysis says it has not.

I have tried to explain you how this system works.  The more number of manuscripts, the better it is.

After making claims against the authenticity of the Bible, you ridiculed it.  So please answer the questions that I put forward earlier:

1} Out of these tons (1000s) of errors, could you list as little as a tenth of them?  Mathematically that'll be a hundred.  When listing these, also notate what they ought to be.  
2}  Revision so often of scripture is news to me as well.  If this is done every so often, could you please provide some evidence of the last five updates.  Please include atleast 20 errors of each update that were rectified, since the Bible has tons of them.  Include references, dates, and names of the editors.

If you cannot answer this, it means that your claims were false and in the future bring sound objections to the table for discussion...

Thanks


_________________________________________
[1]  Gregory Koukl - Stand to Reason
[2]  Bruce, F. F., The New Testament Documents:  Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1974), 19.
[3]Wallace, Daniel, "The Majority Text and the Original Text:  Are They Identical?," Bibliotheca Sacra, April-June, 1991, 157-8.
[4]Geisler and Nix, 475.
[5]Carson, D.A., The King James Version Debate (Grand Rapids:  Baker, 1979), 56.

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Suppose your doctor writes back to you after you had your full medical check up over a growth that you suspected was cancer.  Now when your doctor tries to call, you have left for your Hajj (Pilgrimage) to the middle of nowhere and he can in no way get you on the phone to break the news.  He then decides to contact you using email, fax, sms and telegram.  When you get the message you are still confused because the messages do not look the same and have errors so you decide to compare the message...

Sms: Dear Mr Asgar Ali, U dn't hav cancer.
Fax:  Deer Mr Agsar Ali, you do not ave cansa.
Email:  Dear Agsra Ali, you not have cancer.
Telegram:  Dear Mr Ali Asgar, you do not cancer.

Do the above set of messages even with minor spelling errors not give the true message?  Does it mean that just because the message has errors "you do" have cancer?  Or does it mean because the messages have errors, you now have TB or something!  It will be ludicrous to think this!

The question must be asked what kind of errors are in question here.  A smart educated enquirer will always do this instead of condemning the whole Biblical narrative.

Out of the 20,000 lines you are saying just because of 40 lines the whole Bible is corrupt??  That is about 400 out of 138,020 words?  That is less than half a percent!!  If this is the level of irrationality against the Bible then you might as well have TB instead of cancer based on the messages your doctor sent!!

There are no doctrinal errors in the manuscripts.

Compare this to the Quran where Mohammed told people to worship Allah's daughters al-ʿUzzā, Manāt and al-Lāt (pagan goddesses) in Qur'an 53:19–22 ; 16:57 ; 37:149 which was later changed to read otherwise.  These verses amongst others were labelled as Satanic verses and removed from the Quran.  Now, Mohammed recited the Quran and which was written by someone else and the excuse that excuse that was given was that Satan tempted him into uttering these verses.  What is the proof that it was really Gabriel in the first place giving the Quran?  Afteral, Quran does contradict the Bible which was given by the Creator God initially, so why would God give something totally contradictory to his initial Word??  Logically, Mohammed was revealed all the scriptures by the devil.  If it was from God, then it would not be contradictory.  Suppose, that the New Testament was corrupt atleast the Old Testament which was complied much earlier would agree with the Quran!  

We have in our presence three sets of scriptures NT, OT and Quran, which of these do we believe?  The NT and OT are in harmony and Quran is way of the mark with incoherently disjointed ideas with no real eyewitness to anything.  It does beg the question whether it was really Gabriel who revealed the scriptures.  If Mohammed had heeded to the following scripture he would be classed as a false prophet according to the Bible...

Galatians 1:6-9 ~ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—  not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.