The disagreement on the identity of God's word.

1. Psalm 119:89-97 offers seven statements about God's Eternal Divine Word:

• God is always faithful to his Word
• His judgements remain firm
• His Word bring life
• Avoiding death rests upon loyalty to his Word
• Hope for eternal salvation comes through his Word
• His Word preserves persons form wickedness
• While his creatures reflect God’s perfection only in a limited way, God’s Word remains utterly perfect.

2. Variant readings in our Scriptures have been present from the very first copy of the original text.
Some scholars have even suggested that an original author(s) may have produced a number of different copies of his text.

3. Shortly after 325 C. E. the canon of biblical text was established in the midst of the known differences in each copy. The question was not "which individual copy contained God's Word" but what general documents were to be included in the canon of Scripture.

4. God's Eternal Divine Word can be differentiated from that which we receive through human endeavors. Despite the weaknesses inherent in the Church's participation in copying and delivering God's Word, the proclamation of God's message remains clear.

Rob

 

The Word of God has been transmitted over more than two millennia by fallible believers.

It is easily demonstrated that there are discrepancies between manuscripts.

What is harder to determine is which variant among the many is the original. It’s educated guesswork.

Yet each one of the manuscripts was, at one time, a treasured copy of the Word of God for an ancient people.

God’s Word, even copied by fallible people, is still powerfully effective and able to do the work that God intended.

Examination of variants is a scholarly endeavor that attempts to bring us closer to an understanding of God and his ways.
Today’s believers have to unique opportunity to compare thousands of ancient manuscripts and attempt to determine what might have been the original wording.
Yet our walk of faith is no greater than those who came before us.

Rob

 

Manuscripts are just one source for determining the text of the Old and New Testaments. There are the ancient Versions like the LXX, Old Latin, Latin Vulgate, Old Syria, etc etc

We also have thousands of quotations in the writings of the Early Church Fathers, which are many times of more value than the manuscripts and Versions