II. In our previous study we noted that the original autographs of the New Testament letters perished long ago, but there are about 5,000 ancient copies (both uncials and cursives) of these letters. Some of these copies are fragmentary, while others are nearly complete. In addition, the voluminous writings of early Christians contain frequent quotations of scripture. Much of this correspondence is especially valuable because it dates from the end of the first century to shortly thereafter.
A. Obviously, any time copies are made of original letters, mistakes can be made. While the original authors of the New Testament were inspired in their writing, copyists are not. Unintentional errors may be committed. Similar words may be confused (as in the English "affect" and "effect"). Words are left out, or a word is accidentally repeated. Sometimes explanatory remarks which were written in the margin by one scribe are accidentally copied into the body of the text by the next scribe. Occasionally a scribe may insert a new word or thought into a text because he believes he has detected a previous mistake or omission, when in reality there was no mistake to begin with.
B.Consider one, brief example. In the King James translation Acts 8:37 reads, "And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." The Greek text the King James translators examined had these words written in them. In the intervening centuries archeologists have uncovered other, older manuscripts which suggest that v.37 may have been added by a scribe who wanted to "help out" the text with an explanatory addition. The American Standard and New American Standard translations add marginal notes in the place of v.37 which explain that some manuscripts and authorities include this verse.
III. The question arises: How Important are these textual variations? Can we have confidence in our New Testament translations?
A. The answer is a resounding YES! First, we need to realize that there are more copies of the New Testament than any other book from the ancient world. While there are variations among these manuscripts, the large number of copies provides the means of checking these variations.
B. If we were to put ten intelligent men and women in a large room filled with 5,000 copies of the New Testament, some of which contained variations, and gave them all the time and resources they needed, would they be able to produce an accurate, reliable copy? Of course they would!
C. Almost all of the variations are of trivial, inconsequential matters which do not affect the text. For example, should we add or delete an "a", "and", or "the"? Which form of the same Greek word should we use? Westcott and Hort put it this way: "The proportion of words virtually accepted on all hands as raised above doubt is very great, not less ... than seven eighths of the whole. .. .The amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation ... can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text." The bottom line is that textual critics agree on the genuineness and reliability of the New Testament.