While certainly true in a way, it is not so different from the late 1400s-1700s. The Wycliff, Tyndale, Geneva, Bishops, King James, 1611,1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769 are all updates of and from scholars determining what is true and not true, with some potentially nefarious reasoning leading to the KJB/V. While the reason was not necessarily money (although the KJV was kind of copyrighted due to laws), it certainly had reasons to become what it was and why it was.
I love the KJV, it is a fantastic version, there is no doubt about that. But we should not elevate it to a position that it is above the other good versions due to some divine rite. History of textual criticism does not bear that out.
As I stated on
page one:
Where is our faith?
Is it in history or the Bible?
Is our faith in scholars who say these manuscripts are better because they are older?
How do we know they are not lying or if they are in great error?
Maybe the manuscripts they are using are faulty. How do you truly know?
Also, if God cannot preserve His own Word for us in some form perfectly, then how can I determine what is true or false within it if it is an imperfect Word? I cannot sit in the seat of God and determine what He said or did not say. God does not call us to do that within His Word. There is nothing like the Modern Scholarship Approach even remotely found in Scripture. Such an approach is foreign to Scripture.
In the Bible: We can see a pattern of God preserving copies of His Word, and not the original autographs. So the idea that we need to go to the original languages (imperfect copes that are maybe closer to the original autographs) is not biblical.
(a) Moses destroyed the original 10 Commandments on tablets of stone (the original autograph) (
Exodus 32:19), and yet a copy was perfectly made to replace it (
Exodus 34:1-4).
(b) King Jehoiakim burns the scroll of Jeremiah (
Jeremiah 36:22-23), but God had Jeremiah make another copy (
Jeremiah 36:27-28).
(c)
Proverbs 25:1 says, “These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.” (
Proverbs 25:1).
In the New Testament, Philip heard the Ethiopian eunuch read from a manuscript of Isaiah.
“And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?” (
Acts of the Apostles 8:30).
Although Scripture does not specifically say this was a copy of Isaiah, and not the original autograph of Isaiah, logic dictates that the most plausible explanation is that the Ethiopian eunuch had a copy of a manuscript of Isaiah (and not the original). For the odds of him just happening to have the original would seem highly unlikely.
Philip calls this copy of Isaiah he possessed as Scripture.
“Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.” (
Acts of the Apostles 8:35).
2 Timothy 3:16 says
all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
So the copy of this Scripture was inspired by God.
So the belief of “OAO (Original Autograph Only) Proponent” that says that we need to look to the original language manuscript copies (that is closer to original autograph) because it the original autographs only were perfect (even though we don’t have them), and the copies are flawed and full of errors is unbiblical. Believers in God's Word can trust that God has preserved a copy of His Word for us today that is perfect (Which would be consistent in the way God operates involving the preservation of His Word). This then leads us to conclude that there must be a perfect Bible that we can find today.
For it’s what we read about in the Bible.
