Aaron Blumer does a nice job reviewing several key passages on the
How and What of scripture preservation. Claims are made in these passages, but three things are not promised:
- The passages do not actually say there will be a recognized form with every jot and tittle perfectly preserved.
- Neither Jesus nor the other speakers or writers in these passages say that the word will be accessible for “every generation.” Even if a letter-perfect form of God’s word could be identified with certainty, the promises do not preclude the possibility that this form could be lost for some generations then recovered again (the fact that something has not passed away does not mean we must know exactly where it is.)
- None of those who heard these promises when they were given could point to a written form they knew to contain every preserved jot and tittle. That is, already multiple copies existed, and variations among them existed—not only in jots and tittles but (by Jesus’ day) in whole words. (When Jesus spoke, the Scriptures available were hand made copies of the Hebrew OT and Greek versions of the OT known collectively as the Septuagint).
Regarding the perhaps unsatisfying results of this analysis, Blumer writes,
Some will object that if we cannot identify the perfectly preserved text or translation, we do not have preservation in any meaningful sense. But this argument is a distraction from facts we cannot escape. Whether or not we like the implications of what Scripture says (and doesn’t say), the Bible still says only what it says—no more and no less.
This is key, even if there are other passages that could be construed as explaining the details of preservation. Do we accept Scripture as authoritative? Do we trust that God has made known in Scripture what he wanted to make known, or do we insist on Scripture saying what
we decide should have been said or needs to be said? Can we tolerate a Bible that is silent on a topic that is dear to us?
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