Even though it seems annoying,
textual criticism is important because the trustworthiness of the Bible is
important. We want to have a foundation for
our faith. We want to know that what we
believe is true. And in order to know the
truth we need to have an authoritative source of truth. But what if there is a question about the
trustworthiness of the Bible? Some
people have concerns about the historicity of the Bible, others have concerns
about its content, but textual criticism deals with issues concerning the text
of the Bible.
There are “multiple copies” of
the Bible so to speak. It’s not as crazy
as it first sounds, though. In the case
of the New Testament they made oodles and oodles of copies so that lots of people
could read it. But this was way before the
printing press, so they made copies by hand, so you’d expect the odd ‘typo’ to
get in. Having said that, though, most
of the variations in the manuscripts don’t make a difference to the overall meaning
(for example, spelling errors). So if someone
says to you “you can’t trust the Bible because there are so many variations in
the manuscripts”, don’t worry. There’s
not one single Christian belief which is in doubt because of a textual
variant. Thank you textual critics who've gone through and checked out stuff like that!
We can trust the Bible. God worked through people to write down the Bible. He was in control of the writing
process. He has also continued to be sovereign
as the Bible has been preserved, transmitted and translated. And more amazingly, He teaches us the Bible from
the inside. His Spirit is inside us,
helping us to understand the Bible, to remember it and to live it out.
The creator of the universe
speaks to us. Wow.
