Does the doctrine of the inerrancy of the original manuscripts matter?

Well, my answer is yes, it matters because it affirms the reality of objective historical inspiration.

There is an objective measuring rod for us to return to, to move back toward.

To the degree that we come close to the wording of the original, we come close to the very words of God.

How can we trust that the scriptures we read today are faithful to the original manuscripts?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper explores the preservation of New Testament

manuscripts showing how their careful transmission throughout history ensures the Bible's accuracy and reliability.

The seminar was originally given in September 2001, just days after the 9-11 attacks, and includes John Piper's reflections on those events.

His remarks offer a timely perspective on faith

in the midst of tragedy.

So we're at step three, do we have the very words

written by the biblical authors?

So after all these years of transmission of the text, can we count on what we are looking

at as what was originally written if we were to believe it was inspired and true, which I hope we do.

We do not have the actual piece of paper or papyrus or parchment that a biblical writer actually wrote on.

There are no extant original manuscripts, nor are they of any other document, by the way,

in the first centuries.

How were the manuscripts of the New Testament then preserved?

If we don't have the one that Paul wrote on, what do we have? The first printed Greek

Testament, for example, was published in 1516 by Erasmus. Before that, all copying was by hand.

We owe our Bible to the meticulous love and care given by countless monks and scholars of the first

1,500 years of the Christian era.

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