The real thing, the corrupt, and the fakes - discern, Christian

[This is a comment from another site...] This is all true until you come to the 19th century and adoption by scholars of the Alexandrian manuscripts put together by, basically, atheists. This is a break. The deletions, the changes in wording regarding the divinity of Jesus, etc., the corruptions are not just different from the KJV and underlying manuscripts, but they are different from the line of manuscripts, the traditional text, that culminated in, not just the KJV, but all the great and godly Reformation translations that changed the world. And that traditional text was always in the possession of God's remnant even in the darkest times of antichristian power.

The Holy Spirit preserves the real thing, whole and pure, and the regenerated Christian has the ability to see it, and also to see the corrupted versions (just as a regenerated Christian is able to see fakes like the Book of Mormon or the Koran). God doesn't say no fakes or corrupted versions will exist, but He does say the real thing WILL exist, for His own who are able to discern it.

Because this subject (all the manuscript issues) affords so many rabbit trails for scholars who love sophistry more than truth, and who love to dictate to God's Word more than they love to engage and receive from God's Word humbly these scholars are very loathe to give up their toy.

Finally, you say: "God did not drop His Word from heaven in some well-protected golden box" In a real way I believe He did. I believe in supernatural preservation. I also believe a regenerated Christian will know the real thing from a corrupted version of it. In my pre-Christian days this subject matter would come up regarding the Homeric epics. Great, inspired works that have mysterious authorship. I could see then that these works were shepherded into time by 'higher influences' or forces, if you will. Including the final form they attained at the hands of 'editors.' No human editor had a hand in their final form in terms of meaning and inspiration and form and what not. No human is capable of that. The same with the Bible. Yet humans *can* corrupt the Bible, and delete and change wordings, and the atheistic, of whatever degree, *love* doing that.

No, when talking of scholars, an Erasmus was not in the same category as a Westcott and Hort. Anyone who can't see that, who can't see how the Holy Spirit works in these matters, will of course 'buy' the corrupt manuscripts as being equal with the traditional text which is the Word of God, and will easily and blithely say things such as "well, decisions were made by scholars regarding the traditional text" etc., etc., as if the two things are equal. As if, for instance, the time of the canon coming into final form in the early centuries of the first millenium of this era, by the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, is the same process that gave us the 19th century scholars and their *newly discovered* *better* manuscripts. A regenrated Christian has the ability to discern the truth in such things, and the 19th century scholars and their manuscripts stink. Stink to high heaven.