The scholarly discipline of comparing extant manuscripts to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the original wording of a text. Biblical textual criticism works with over 5,800 Greek NT manuscripts, 10,000+ Latin manuscripts, and thousands in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, Gothic, and other ancient versions. For the OT, it works primarily with the Masoretic Text (Hebrew), the Septuagint (Greek), the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew, Aramaic), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Vulgate (Latin). The goal is not doubt but certainty — the more manuscripts and the earlier the manuscripts, the more securely we can identify the original reading.
Biblical textual criticism is one of the great stabilizers of Christian confidence in Scripture. Four points. (1) Abundance of evidence. The NT is the best-attested ancient document by an enormous margin. By comparison, the works of Caesar exist in about 10 manuscripts (the earliest 900 years post-composition); the NT exists in 5,800+ Greek MSS alone, some from the 2nd century (within 100 years of composition), some from within 30-50 years (the P52 John fragment, c. AD 125). (2) Variants are mostly trivial. Textual critics classify the variants: the vast majority are spelling differences, word order, or nonsensical copyist errors. A small number are meaningful but not viable (lack manuscript support to be original). A tiny fraction are meaningful and viable — and none affect any core Christian doctrine. (3) Famous contested passages. Mark 16:9-20 (the longer ending), John 7:53-8:11 (the adulterous woman), 1 John 5:7 (the Comma Johanneum) are well-known cases where modern translations bracket or footnote the passages because they are absent from the earliest manuscripts. Their absence doesn't change Christian doctrine. (4) Inerrancy applies to the autographs, not to every manuscript copy. The Chicago Statement (1978) is explicit: the doctrine of inerrancy applies to the original manuscripts (autographs), and textual criticism is the God-given means by which we recover them with very high confidence. Far from undermining Scripture, textual criticism is one of the supports for Christian confidence.