TODAY'S DEVOTION ON THE BIBLE
Not one ancient manuscript of the Bible is exactly like another, all have differences or “textual variants,” as they are called. After all, all ancient manuscripts were copied by hand, and no human hand is perfect.
What kind of mistakes are there in the ancient manuscripts? Only small and unimportant mistakes, the kind one makes when copying something. And when copying by dictation, most errors are simply attributable to mistakes in hearing, such as “b-r-e-t-h-r-e-n” being misspelled “b-r-e-t-h-e-r-n.”
All biblical scholars agree that the vast majority of textual variants are “trivialities,” small and unimportant differences that do not affect in any way the true meaning of Scripture. Besides, with the thousands of ancient manuscripts to compare with one another, textual variants are easily detected and corrected.
Don Walton
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