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Trustworthiness of the Bible's Text: The Science of Textual Criticism

This article explores the science of textual criticism, which examines the various manuscript witnesses of the Bible to create an edited text that accurately represents the original. It highlights the minor variations among manuscripts and the extensive evidence supporting the integrity of the Bible's transmission.

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Trustworthiness of the Bible's Text: The Science of Textual Criticism

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  1. Is the Bible’s Text Trustworthy?

  2. The Science of Textual Criticism • A science has grown up around the area of the Bible’s transmission called textual criticism or lower criticism. • The attempt of textual critics is to examine the various “witnesses” of Scripture in the manuscripts that exist and to create an edited text that accurately represents the original.

  3. Not all manuscripts of the Biblical documents exist in identical form. • “It was inevitable that such handwritten copies would contain a greater or lesser number of differences in working from the original.” (Bruce Metzger) • Textual critics make clear that the variations that do exist among the manuscripts are truly minor in significance. None of them would alter a single Bible teaching.

  4. The evidence available has affirmed the integrity of the transmission of the Biblical documents.

  5. The Accuracy of the OT Text

  6. Qumran Caves

  7. Isaiah Scroll

  8. The Accuracy of the NT Text • 5656 Greek manuscripts • 19,000 manuscripts of translations

  9. Codex Sinaiticus

  10. John Rylands Manuscript

  11. The accuracy of the NT Text • 5656 Greek manuscripts • 19,000 manuscripts of translations • The writings of the church fathers

  12. “Besides textual evidence derived from NT Greek manuscripts and from early versions, the textual critic has available the numerous scriptural quotations included in the commentaries, sermons, and other treatises written by early church Fathers. Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for knowledge of the text of the NT were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”

  13. Josh McDowell produces a chart showing 36,289 quotations up to the time of Eusebius in the 4th century recorded in the writings of only seven early church writers.

  14. The manuscripts as a whole support the substantial preservation of the ideas contained in the autographs.

  15. “The interval then between the date of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established” (Kenyon, “The Bible and Archaeology”).

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