Sceptics can throw out some frightening figure

THE SCIENCE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM CAN ELIMINATE MOST NEW TESTAMENT VARIATIONS

Sceptics can throw out some frightening figure, and say "There are 200,000 variations in the NT," and create doubts in Christians. However, we can have fundamental certainty that the scribes preserved the NT accurately because by using the principles of the science of textual criticism, most of the variations between manuscripts can be ruled out. Most of these "200,000 variations" are spelling mistakes, homophones (such as in English, "two," "too," "to"), words accidentally repeated twice by scribes, etc.

For example, if the same word is misspelled 3000 times, that counts for 3000 variations. Once one realises this, the number of significant variations takes a huge downward plunge.

Scholar Ezra Abbott maintained 19/20ths of NT variations have so little support that they can be automatically ruled out. Scholars Geisler and Nix, building upon the work of F.J.A. Hort, said only about 1/8 have weight, with 1/60 being "substantial variations."

Furthermore, this number of variations is high precisely because so many ancient manuscripts of the NT exist allowing for more mistakes--but also a much greater ability to detect and eliminate those mistakes, unlike the case for (say) Caesar's Gallic Wars with its mere 10 copies.

Scholar Philip Schaff maintained only 400 of all the 150,000 variations he knew to exist caused doubt on textual meaning, with 50 being of great significance.

Even then, he said no variation 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."