Textual Variants are the Achilles' Heel

You can't condemn someone to death based on the testimony of witnesses that don't agree.

On the evidence of two or three witnesses the death sentence shall be executed; a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one witness.

Deuteronomy 17.6 NRSVUE

Both with regard to interrogations and examinations, at a time when the witnesses contradict one another, their testimony is void.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 5.2 Sefaria.org

Textual variants challenge the ability of the formulas for salvation in the "testimony" of the New Testament to condemn anyone to death in the World to Come, and I believe that Christian apologists are acutely aware of this fact and are trying to cover it over like nakedness in the Garden of Eden.

Part of the need to believe in Jesus is an avoidance of the eternal wrath of God in what the Book of Revelation calls "the second death" (20.14), and Paul is clear that what Jesus saves the believer from is the wrath of God (1 Thessalonians 1.10). God must be able to inflict wrath in order for Jesus to save from that wrath, and if there's no wrath, then there's no salvation.

Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

John 3.18 NRSVUE

The "testimony" of the New Testament seeks to establish a new basis for God's wrath apart from obeying the words of God in the Hebrew Bible and apart from God's requirements that every individual apply their innate ability to make choices and be judged for their choices as the sole basis for all real or imagined moral merit.

The textual variants void the "testimony" necessary to authenticate and give authority to formulas of salvation based on faith through grace or belief without the need to be judged for the fruits of one's deliberately chosen actions, and without proper "testimony" no one can be put to death or considered guilty of a capital punishment.

Between Trent Horn's video, entitled "the Worst Argument against the Bible", or Wes Huff's response video with Dr. John Meede about his comments on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Christian apologists reveal that their strategy of damage control is to try their best to trick people into believing the variants are not a problem.

The Counsel of Trent YouTube channel

Trent Horn and Wes Huff like other apologists think that the significant and consequential variations can be diluted by insignificant and inconsequential variations, but that's kind of just a magic trick.

Otherwise, it's dismiss the criticisms, minimize, conduct damage control, and protect the label that they put on the Bible, and Trent Horn even so far as to attach a negative label to the skeptics, who use the textual variants to undermine the credibility of its claims to authority and condemnation.

It's not enough to claim that your favorite parts don't have significant variations, and therefore, your understanding of the meaning of the text remains intact and correct because the integrity of the everything does become absolutely suspect. Applying some pejorative like "the Muslim argument" to frighten people away from holding reasonable positions of skepticism as a result of the variations and contradictions is not an actual argument for why the variations and contradictions should be dismissed and ignored.

Catholics like Trent Horn must be asked, however, how could there be enough people filled with the Holy Spirit in an unbroken chain of succession from the Apostles to pass on the ability to transform the wine and bread of the Eucharist through transubstantiation into the literal blood and body of Jesus, but not enough people filled with the Holy Spirit in that chain of succession to pass on an unadulterated version of the gospel in writing?

Why can't the Divine be present in whatever specific Catholic dogmatic definition when it comes to the scribe while preserving the words and actions of Jesus in the same way as it is when the bread and wine of Eucharist are blessed by the priest?

For Christians in general, who still hold onto the exclusionary formulas of salvation, why could the Holy Spirit not preserve a consistent and authentic version of the life and teachings of Jesus when all it would have taken was for the Holy Spirit to influence or inspire the hand of the scribes to keep it right?

If the New Testament accounts really were like different witnesses in a trial, then the accused would have to be acquitted or be given an air-tight case for appeal because you can't condemn someone based on testimony that doesn't agree.

If you can't condemn based on the "testimony" of the New Testament, then there's nothing to be saved from through faith in Jesus.

Salvation by grace through faith is null and void.