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Purpose of Textual Criticism
- Textual criticism aims to recover what the original New Testament authors wrote, not to interpret or criticize the text.
- This discipline is crucial because variations exist across thousands of manuscript copies made over centuries.
Many Manuscripts, Many Variations
- The New Testament has over 5,700 manuscript copies and fragments, more than any other ancient text.
- This abundance leads to numerous textual differences, making establishing original words challenging.
Common Accidental Changes
- Most common manuscript changes are accidental, like simple misspellings due to no standardized spelling or spell check.
- These unintentional scribal errors vastly outnumber intentional text alterations.