Really, now, how important is it to actually identify where (and when) the New Testament has been corrupted, altered, or misrepresented? “Woe unto them who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!  Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and intelligent in their own esteem!” (Isa.5:20-21, Darby). Woe to them who would change the NT writings.

Well, I believe the New Testament writings (original autographs) were written by ordinary men living extraordinary circumstances—sincere, God-fearing men who had no earthly (or mystical) idea that they were creating history as they wrote their letters.  But neither Yahweh our God nor any ghostly spirit, or supernatural apparition, holy or otherwise, wrote all those words.  Evidently, the only words Yahweh wrote were the Ten Commandments upon both sets of stone tablets (Ex.31:18; 32:16; 34:1), the first of which, as you probably know, were dashed to pieces by Moses.  But the fact that men actually penned the words in the New Testament does not mean that (1) it is unreliable or (2) the writing was not inspired in some manner.  (Technically, the Bible was not inspired.  Only the writers were inspired.  The OT and the NT were put together by men who saw a need to gather together the writings.  Later, the NT writings were collected, sorted, and canonized (listed and accepted by the Roman Church) so that other writings could be excluded, like those written by various persons deemed to be heretics.)

I believe that the original biblical writings were inspired by God.  But the question arises: What do you mean by inspired?  I mean to say that the spirit of God so moved certain people that they were, in a sense, driven to write what they knew, heard about, or witnessed, and that they did so from their memory and from their perspective.  They did not write what a spirit told them to write like secretaries or stenographers who were possessed by a supernatural being or spirit.

Memories are faulty things and perhaps some of these men did not record exactly what transpired but what they thought transpired.  Some even made mistakes, I am sure.  Does this make their writings of no value?  Absolutely not!  What we have today, in the very least, even given the textual alterations or accretions,  is the gist of what went on in the first century, however much that term might express; the New Testament is not a history book detailing all the known facts of any given event.  The Gospels have differing accounts of similar events because the writers, living, breathing, thinking persons, apparently saw them that way.  That they are different from one another lends credence to their stories.  If they presented exactly the same story, you would know for a fact that some “wood-shedding” was going on.  That is, because they are so alike in virtually every detail, collusion must have occurred—a conspiracy to recount the same story would have happened and they made sure we got the same testimony.  But the Gospels are different from one another, so they are believable, at least on that level—but they are not contradictory in the sense that they oppose one another.  Nevertheless, does this mean that we should turn a blind eye to other men later on, some that purposely and some accidentally, altered the writings of the good men who created the original autographs?  I think not.  But denying that problems exist is to fear that the true authority of the Bible. 

The Christian apologist’s knee-jerk reaction to textual criticism is to gather his forces and present “proof” that biblical corruption is a myth.  This kind of defense only goes to show that they are misinformed (assuming they are being honest) and misled into accepting a fairy tale.  The faith they have is faith in a book and if that book is challenged, then their faith is challenged.  If the book is shown to be in error to any degree, then their faith is in error.  If the book is in error and their faith is in error, then they have no salvation.  Nevertheless, where does salvation come from? Does it come from a book—any book?  No!  A thousand times, no!!!  (Continued)