> Now you may find security in what you call textual criticism, but in truth
> this can tell you nothing about what was actually in an original autograph.
> Let's take the book of, say, Jude. Someone had to write the first copy of
> this book, which may not have been even close to what "textual criticism"
> has determined is the probable reading of the original. Let's suppose that
> someone wrote Jude and made only one copy of it. Now let's suppose that
> someone didn't like the way that it read, rewrote it to say what suited him,
> and then destroyed the original. After this, he saw that his corrupted copy
> was reproduced several times and circulated in the area he lived in. Since
> the original had been destroyed, there was no way that anyone could compare
> the corrupted copies to the original or to other copies that had been made
> from the original. As the corrupted version of the book gained acceptance,
> other scribes made copies, at which time they made unintentional mistakes in
> copying. Over time, these mistakes multiplied, but so many of the
> manuscripts existed that lower critics were able to determine what was the
> probable reading of the original. In reality, however, all that they
> determined was what was the probable reading of the book as a copyist had
> intentionally corrupted it and then destroyed the original. Lower critics
> would have no way of knowing that this had even happened. So what guarantee
> can you give us that such as this did not happen in the transmission of the
> biblical text? How can you guarantee to us that any biblical book is even a
> halfway faithful copy of the "original autograph"?
Hmmmmm.....Aren't you the one that has written so many articles that
I have read in which there are constant references/complaints about
the inerrantist's "what if scenarios?"
Michael P. Hughes