The Divine Inspiration of the Bible (excerpt)

W.E. Vine
11/18/12 - Evidences

"In speaking of these supposed inaccuracies (of the Bible) we are of course referring to the original autographs and not to translations. Considerations of the subject of inspiration must be based upon the originals as now represented in the ascertained texts, always bearing in mind that extant manuscripts are copies of copies of the originals… Though the autographs themselves do not exist, the evidence goes to show that the resultant text arrived at by the collation of the best manuscripts practically represents the originals.

"The importance of most of the variations in the manuscript readings has been greatly exaggerated. Westcott and Hort tell us that the 'proportion of words virtually accepted on all hands as raised above doubt is very great, not less, on a rough computation, than seven-eighths of the whole. As to the remaining eighth, the variations here are formed in great part by changes of order and other comparative trivialities.' These writers further tell us that 'the amount of what can in any sense he called substantial variation…can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text.' There is no doctrine in Scripture which would be affected if all the disputed words, or those about which there is any doubt, were omitted."