Not all modern scholarship is humanistic

We have identified a crucial distinction that evangelical scholarship affirms: evangelicals employ standard textual-critical methodology to determine Scripture’s text, recognizing it as the only viable approach[1]. The methodology itself remains neutral—what matters is the interpretive framework applied to the results.

Textual criticism over the past two centuries prompted evangelicals to reformulate their doctrine of Scripture, leading most to abandon claims for the inerrancy of particular texts or translations and instead locate inerrancy in the autographs[2]. This represents a sophisticated evangelical position, not a capitulation to skepticism.

Textual criticism involves careful examination of ancient manuscript copies to determine the purest form of the original text; while the process itself is scientific, fundamental valuation decisions involving human judgment factor into choosing one reading over another[3]. Evangelical scholars apply these same methods but reach conclusions supporting biblical reliability.

The results are striking: most scholars affirm the Bible agrees word-for-word with the original across both Testaments, with most variants readily identifiable and easily resolvable—consisting of spelling errors, incidental word omissions, transpositions, and similar insignificant matters[3]. More significantly, no significant readings are in doubt, and none alter or bring into doubt any biblical doctrine[3].

Christian scholars recognize that while God inspired Scripture’s content, He entrusted human authors with composition and copyists with transmission; despite textual variation from hand-copying across millennia, nearly all variants involve no significant doctrinal issues[4]. This isn’t humanistic skepticism—it’s evangelical confidence grounded in rigorous evidence.

[1] Bernard Ramm, “Are We Obscurantists?,” Christianity Today (Washington, D.C.: Christianity Today, 1957), 1:10:14.
[2] Vincent Bacote, Laura C. Miguélez, and Dennis L. Okholm, Evangelicals & Scripture: Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 106.
[3] John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 128.
[4] Amy Anderson and Wendy Widder, Textual Criticism of the Bible, ed. Douglas Mangum, Lexham Methods Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 184.