Sermon on a YouTube Comment About Textual Variances

From studying this, and reading the New Testament Apocrypha, I understand a lot of how people back in the day used to read the Bible. Back then it wasn't about perfect word order, but rather having the right meaning. You look at Barnabas' or Ignatius' quotations from Mark or Luke or even the Old Testament, you see various differences in the texts, but generally, you know exactly what part of scripture it comes from, and the original meaning is in tact.

I also happen to look at the Great Isaiah Scroll--I read it as scripture, too--and I know exactly what verse I'm at, from having read Isaiah probably more times than any other book of the Bible. It's all preserved... the meanings of the text. And I know what Daniel's (Dr. Daniel Wallace) saying. It's really moot, the differences, as the contextual framework is all contained in the book. Like, really, the person who claimed the Bible had to be exact to the original--in both word order, word and everything--was probably disingenuous, and the only reason we have this idea floating round, is because we do have Bibles in print that have said the same exact thing for over five hundred years.

In some cases, the word is important. For sure. But, still, when the word's changed a little bit--such as in Psalm 22 there's a verse that either says "Pierced" or "Lion's Tooth" it still means a puncture in the hand and foot. And that's probably due to scribes in Jewish Circles changing the Bible ever so slightly, to push out the miracle of Christ in prophecies. Though, Jesus did say "Not one Yote or Tiddle shall be altered", he means in the contextual sense of what the gospel means. Not in the literal sense, of the actual words.