I understand how some people can take comfort in the existent of early Bible manuscripts.
(The below is my personal thoughts, respecting that others may feel differently)--
For me, early Bible manuscripts are not a source of comfort at all- not discomfort either, I'm just rather neutral about it. My reasons are--
1) The existence of manuscripts does not prove truth
2) I could go and study Greek or Hebrew or other languages. But even if I would speak the words fluently, I would not be in the culture, so I would never truly understand the language. And yes, there are archeologists pointing whom guess about culture, but the best guesses in the world are not me being there in that time and place. Frankly, even if I got in a time-machine to go there, I still won't completely understand.
3) Frankly, I don't think learning Greek is the most efficient and direct way of learning about God. When something is troubling I'd rather simply ask Him in faith.
I think what the early Bible manuscripts show and what the Dead Sea Scrolls show is that we have almost an exact duplicate of 2,000 - 3,000 year old texts. Texts that much care was taken when making copies of by the scribes.
The Bible itself is a book that shows culture in what the time was like if you read it and understand it. The thing about the Bible is that there are a lot of cross references. Most people think the Bible reads like a story or novel, but that is not the way it is written, nor the way it should be read. Verses and context comes to life when you are able to build a complete story through cross-references and really understand the times and the way the people were, and I disagree because I think that a lot can be learned by the culture. We have Bible dictionaries, encyclopedia's, we know the timelines of when things occured, politics of the era, who was in power and what other cultures were like in those times.
In my opinion, the larger picture is all there for the one who wants to put it in the larger, proper perspective. That is one of the things I find fascinating with the Bible is learning little things about the culture.
I'll give you an example. In those days the males stayed with the family (in Jesus time) and it was the eldest male's job to take care of his mother if her husband had passed. So before Jesus died he told one of His disciples, 'this is your mother, mother this is your son'. What He was in essence doing is because He knew He would be crucified and die, He was ensuring care for His mother after His death. Another interesting thing of that time is that the sons stayed with the family, for instance if a son married, the woman always left her family to move to the place of her husband;s family and that was how it was done. One of the major reasons is because land was one of the only things that was inherited because the people (Hebrews) were heavily taxed by Rome and needed the land to survive and needed the land to stay in the family and not be divided or sold because the entire future generations depended on it. It was not easy to buy land again, so it was cherished as the inheritance to the males in the family.
So, it does add to the BIble for me to know and learn these cultural aspects because then things are put in context.
Just my opinion but those are some examples of why I enjoy that aspect.
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