John Beversluis on the "Original" Text of the Bible

Since there are thousands of surviving copies, [text critics assure us,] we can study them and thus arrive at a "close approximation" to the originals. However, this seemingly authoritative explanation leaves the most important question unanswered: Since the autographa have not survived and nobody has laid eyes on them for 2,000 years, how could anyone possibly know what was in them--much less, which copies approximate most closely to them? Since there is nothing to which existing manuscripts can be compared, the very idea of the original manuscripts and which manuscripts approximate most closely to them are useless ideas and should be abandoned. I can judge that a photo is a good likeness of you if and only if I have seen you and know what you look like. If I have not, then I am the last person on earth to ask. The situation is not improved by assuring me that there are thousands of photos of you. The fact is that I have never seen you, so ten million photos would not help. (John Beversluis, “The Synoptic Gospels,” unpublished paper as cited in Robert M. Price, Bart Ehrman Interpreted: How One Radical New Testament Scholar Understands Another [Durham, N.C.: Pitchstone Publishing, 2018], 148-49)