That's just it; we DO know, and it is much more than "a reasonably good idea of what the original probably said". That way of stating the problem seems to me to be grossly overstating the degree and nature of the uncertainty:
"...no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals."
Bruce, F. F., The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 19.“If all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, [the patristic quotations] would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”
Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 34."Once again the reader should be reminded of a point made earlier. Though textual criticism cannot yet produce certainty about the exact wording of the original, this uncertainty affects only about two percent of the text. And in that two percent support always exists for what the original said--never is one left with mere conjecture. In other words it is not that only 90 percent of the original text exists in the extant Greek manuscripts--rather, 110 percent exists. Textual criticism is not involved in reinventing the original; it is involved in discarding the spurious, in burning the dross to get to the gold."
[emphasis mine]
Wallace, Daniel, "The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?," Bibliotheca Sacra, April-June, 1991, 157-8.
And here is a compendium of quotes from other scholars on the subject of the degree of uncertainty:
Geisler and Nix make a comparison of the textual variations between the New Testament documents and ancient works: "Next to the New Testament, there are more extant manuscripts of the Iliad (643) than any other book. Both it and the Bible were considered 'sacred', and both underwent textual changes and criticism of their Greek manuscripts. The New Testament has about 20,000 lines."They continue by saying that "the Iliad [has] about 15,600. Only 40 lines (or 400 words) of the New Testament are in doubt whereas 764 lines of the Iliad are questioned. This five percent textual corruption compares with one-half of one percent of similar emendations in the New Testament.
"The national epic of India, the Mahabharata, has suffered even more corruption. It is about eight times the size of the Iliad and the Odyssey together, roughly 250,000 lines. Of these, some 26,000 lines are textual corruptions (10 percent)."
Benjamin Warfield in Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament quotes Ezra Abbot's opinion about nineteen-twentieths of the New Testament textual variations, saying that they: "...have so little support...although there are various readings; and nine-twentieths of the remainder are of so little importance that their adoption or rejection would cause no appreciable difference in the sense of the passages where they occur."
Geisler and Nix make the following comment about how the textual variations are counted: "There is an ambiguity in saying there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, since these represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament. If one single word is misspelled in 3,000 different manuscripts, this is counted as 3,000 variants or readings."
Although he was dealing with fewer manuscripts than we have today, Philip Schaff in Comparison to the Greek Testament and the English Version concluded that only 400 of the 150,000 variant readings caused doubt about the textual meaning, and only 50 of these were of great significance. Not one of the variations, Schaff says, altered "an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching."
Fenton John Anthony Hort, whose life work has been with the MSS, says: "The proportion of words virtually accepted on all hands as raised above doubt is very great, not less, on a rough computation than seven-eights of the whole. The remaining eighth, therefore, formed in great part by changes of order and other comparative trivialities, constitutes the whole area of criticism.
"If the principles followed in this edition are sound, this area may be very greatly reduced. Recognizing to the full the duty of abstinence from peremptory decision in cases where the evidence leaves the judgment in suspense between two or more readings, we find that, setting aside differences of orthography, the words in our opinion still subject to doubt only make up about one-sixteenth of the whole New Testament. In this second estimate the proportion of comparatively trivial variations is beyond measure larger than in the former; so that the amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text."
Geisler and Nix say, concerning the observations of Hort above, that "only about one-eighth of all the variants had any weight, as most of them are merely mechanical matters such as spelling or style. Of the whole, then, only about one-sixtieth rise above 'trivialities', or can in any sense be called 'substantial variations'. Mathematically this would compute to a text that is 98.33 percent pure."
Warfield boldly declares that the facts show that the great majority of the New Testament "has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no, variation; and even in the most corrupt form in which it has ever appeared, to use the oft-quoted words of Richard Bentley, 'the real text of the sacred writers is competently exact; ...nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost...choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings."
Schaff quotes both Tregelles and Scrivener: "We possess so many MSS, and we are aided by so many versions, that we are never left to the need of conjecture as the means of removing errata." (Tregelles, Greek New Testament, "Protegomena," P.X.)
"'So far,' says Scrivener, 'is the copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of Holy Scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully its general integrity in the midst of partial variation. What would the thoughtful reader of Eschylus give for the like guidance through the obscurities which vex his patience and mar his enjoyment of that sublime poet?'"
F. F. Bruce in The Books and the Parchments writes that if no objective textual evidence is available to correct an obvious mistake, then "the textual critic must perforce employ the art of conjectural emendation - an art which demands the severest self-discipline. The emendation must commend itself as obviously right, and it must account for the way in which the corruption crept in. In other words, it must be both 'intrinsically probable' and 'transcriptionally probable'. It is doubtful whether there is any reading in the New Testament which requires it to be conjecturally emended. The wealth of attestation is such that the true reading is almost invariable bound to be preserved by at least one of the thousands of witnesses."
That textual variations do not endanger doctrine is emphatically stated by Sir Frederic Kenyon (one of the great authorities in the field of New Testament textual criticism): "One word of warning already referred to, must be emphasized in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading...
"It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain: Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.
"Scholars are satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principal Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us, of Sophocles, of Thucydides, of Cicero, of Virgil; yet our knowledge of their writings depends on a mere handful of manuscripts, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds, and even thousands."
Gleason Archer, in answering the question about objective evidence, shows that variants or errors in transmission of the text do not affect GOD's revelation:
"A careful study of the variants (different readings) of the various earliest manuscripts reveals that none of them affects a single doctrine of Scripture. The system of spiritual truth contained in the standard Hebrew text of the Old Testament is not in the slightest altered or compromised by any of the variant readings found in the Hebrew manuscripts of earlier date found in the Dead Sea caves or anywhere else. All that is needed to verify this is to check the register of well-attested variants in Rudolf Kittel's edition of the Hebrew Bible. It is very evident that the vast majority of them are so inconsequential as to leave the meaning of each clause doctrinally unaffected."
Benjamin Warfield said, "If we compare the resent state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must...declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied - a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words - such as been the providence of GOD in preserving for His Church in each and every age a competently exact text of the Scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating its comparatively infrequent blemishes."
The editors of the Revised Standard Version say: "It will be obvious to the careful reader that still in 1946, as in 1881 and 1901, no doctrine of the Christian faith has been affected by the revision, for the simple reason that, out of the thousands of variant readings in the manuscripts, none has turned up thus far that requires a revision of Christian doctrine."
Burnett H. Streeter believes that because of the great quantity of textual material for the New Testament, "the degree of security that...the text has been handed down to us in a reliable form is prima facie very high."
Frederic G. Kenyon continues in The Story of the Bible: "It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries (of manuscripts) and all this tudy is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of GOD."
Millar Burrows of Yale says: "Another result of comparing New Testament Greek with the language of the papyri is an increase of confidence in the accurate transmission of the text of the New Testament itself."
Burrows also says that the texts "have been transmitted with remarkable fidelity, so that there need be no doubt whatever regarding the teaching conveyed by them."
http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/myredeemer/Evidencep8.html
Cordially,
Actually, we don't. We simply have much later manuscripts, undoubtedly changed (deliberately or inadvertently) by subsequent scribes. For example, scribes would often try to harmonize the texts, so one that is out of harmony is likely to be closer to the original.
What we think is the most "original" text we can put together is cobbled together by textual analysis from thousands of different manuscripts. They often disagree in key places, often in bunches or "families" -- due to copies coming from other copies. But often, even the documents in a "family" disagree with each other. You have to look at consistency with that writer's other material, at structural inconsistencies, and at the simple logic of the words, among other factors. I do not claim to be trained in this subject, but I have learned much from people who are.
Expert after expert points out the inconsistencies.
I think your experts are putting their faith ahead of tehir analysis.
Here is a detailed analysis of some of the discrepancies, inconsistencies, and contradictions:
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible2.htm
http://www.crivoice.org/autograph.html
Anyone who works with Scripture in the original languages knows that there are errors of spelling, grammar, and syntax in the biblical text as we have it today. It is also an easily demonstrable fact that there are hundreds of variants among the different manuscripts of the biblical text (see Sacred Words or Words about the Sacred). We sometimes forget that the Bible was not written on a word processor in English, and it is difficult to keep in mind that there is no “master text” of the Bible. We only have it in hundreds, even thousands, of manuscripts that all contain differences of greater or lesser degree. Our modern translations are based on an analysis and comparison of all these manuscripts.
On a different level, a careful examination of parallel biblical accounts, where the same story or account occurs in more than one place, reveals that in many places the accounts are different. For example, in the Gospels there are many places where the accounts of Jesus’ activity and sayings are recorded in multiple versions that vary from each other (see The Synoptic Problem).
There are places where the events are ordered differently (the cleansing of the temple or the day and time of the crucifixion in the Synoptic Gospels and John; see The Time of the Crucifixion: Chronological Issues in the Gospels), the same sayings are set in different contexts (the sermon on the mount and the sermon on the plain in Matthew and Luke), or the same event is accompanied by different sayings (the confession of Peter in Matthew and Mark). Even when all of these do correspond, there are often different Greek words attributed to Jesus, sometimes closely synonymous, sometimes giving a different nuance to the saying (for example, Matt 5:3, 6 and Luke 6:20-21). There are other places in Scripture where this occurs as well, such as the parallels between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles or between 2 Kings and Isaiah.
On a still different level, if one approaches the biblical text without the presuppositions of inerrancy, there are also historical difficulties. There are biblical accounts that do not correspond to what we know of the events, or the same events are recounted in different places within Scripture in considerably different scenarios (see History and Theology in Joshua and Judges). There are also discrepancies in the use of numbers, genealogies, Scriptural citations, etc. (see The Date of the Exodus).
To many students of Scripture these factors present no serious hindrances to accepting the Bible as the authoritative word of God, beyond needing to understand and interpret the message as it is presented with these factors. However to the inerrantist position these are potentially fatal observations. In an absolutist position, which many inerrantists take, none of these can be allowed to stand. While some of these such as the historical discrepancies can be explained by various means, the difficulties with the biblical text itself is a much more troublesome problem to inerrant views. While they are affirming the absolute inerrant nature of the biblical text, it is obvious that there are physical inaccuracies within the text.
The solution to this dilemma of wanting to maintain an inerrant text while faced with a text that is obviously not inerrant, is to affirm that it is only the original writings that were inerrant. While the inaccurate copies we have now were corrupted in the process of transmission, copying, and translation over the years, the original versions as they came from the hand of the original author were without any such inaccuracies. This position of “inerrant autographs” is a common way of maintaining inerrancy in the face of textual evidence to the contrary. In fact, some churches, for example the Wesleyan Church, incorporate such a statement into their doctrinal position on Scripture.
Now, this may be a valid move solely as a faith affirmation. But I contend that it does not really say much, and certainly does not give us any place to stand in the actual study and use of Scripture in the church beyond making affirmations about it. And it raises questions of credibility from those who do not so readily accept the faith affirmations.
There are several problems with the idea. As I have suggested, I think the main reason for affirming inerrant autographs is the simple fact that the text that we have now is obviously inaccurate in some details. So to maintain the concept of inerrancy, it is simply moved back to a context where the validity of the assertion cannot be verified since we do not have any of the autographs.
However, I find it extremely problematic to assert something about a part of the Christian faith that is as important as Scripture in a way that cannot be confirmed in the light of totally different evidence that can be confirmed. In other words, I think that smacks far too much of a rationalizing effort to bolster a fundamentally flawed idea than it does of good theology or good biblical study. Again, as a faith affirmation about the authority of Scripture, I understand what it tries to say. I just don’t think it says it very well.
There are other logical problems, as well, that drift into theological ones. If God supervised the writing of Scripture to the degree that people produced absolutely inerrant writings beyond their own capability to do so, why could God not have, or why didn’t he, just as easily superintend the transmission of that text so that it would remain inerrant as it was copied through the centuries. What is the purpose of having inerrant originals if that inerrancy is not to be maintained in some way? What purpose is served in allowing a perfect text to deteriorate?
And if we allow this, how then do we know we can trust the text we have today since it is admittedly inaccurate in some details, and since we do not have the “originals” with which to compare it? If our faith is in an inerrant text, and if that text has been allowed to deteriorate in one area to the point that it is no longer inerrant, how do we know that other areas have not likewise been corrupted? If the trustworthiness of the text depends on it being inerrant, how do we affirm that trustworthiness and reliability when the text we are using is in fact not inerrant?
In other words, if the criteria of inerrancy is to be the judge of truth, it solves nothing to push the inerrancy into the distant past since we only have the text today as it is. If that criteria is valid, then we do not have the truth.