11.3. Why textual criticism?

11.3. Why textual criticism?

There are at least two reasons why textual criticism is important for students of the bible.

1.    The autographs, the documents written by the original writers, are no longer available. Nobody can tell us where these documents are, only God knows. The autographs could have led to idolatry among the Christians, as was the case with the brazen serpent among the Jews in the Old Testament. A good hypothesis is that the original documents were worn out and had to be replaced by new manuscripts. The texts of the Old and New Testaments have been preserved in different manuscripts.

2.    The second reason why textual criticism is important is because there are differences between the various manuscripts that we have in our possession currently. Students of the bible want to know how the differences came to be, and what the original text looked like. It should be emphasised that the differences in the manuscripts are minor and do not touch on any major doctrine of the Christian faith.