However, the point I want to make is that if you can't trust one word in your Bible, then what makes you trust the rest of it?
Sorry, after stepping away from the thread for a bit, I realised that this is really the heart of your position, and I should really have responded to this post moreso than any of the others. My apologies. Let me try and give you a cogent reply for why I think my position is tenable, and your characterisation of my position (and that of a great many evangelicals) is false. Put simply, I have a high degree of trust in the text of any number of translations, including the KJV, but any doubt I may have about this or that reading that comes from copies of the text does not logically mean that the rest of the text must be cast into doubt.
Let me give you an example:
Let's say I write a letter to you and your future family (i.e. your descendants) about an important matter that can effect both you and your future family in a good way. Now, let's say this letter got lost for a short while and one of your children had tried to re-write the letter from memory. However, they only get portions of the letter written and they have left out many key important sentences that were within that letter. The general message is still there but the details in key points have now changed. Yes, the words that they remembered correctly are still true, but those words that can't be remembered or those words that have been re-worded have changed the precise meaning of the letter now. It is not the same letter anymore.
First things first - your analogy isn't entirely applicable, because your idea of the 'letter' being lost, and then copies having to be written from memory, is not the case with the biblical manuscripts. In many cases, it is quite possible to discern the genealogy of texts (that is, which texts are descended either from which specific texts or which type of texts), which is indicative of copies being made from earlier copies, not from memory, but from visual inspection of an earlier MS. In fact, some of the changes in the text are demonstrably transcriptional in nature - that is, words are changed because the original word and the changed word appear very similar in the Greek, have no clear theological objective that would indicate an intentional change, and only really make sense if we assume the scribe was looking at an earlier manuscript when they made the copy, and simply got it wrong.
The second problem is related - your analogy assumes there is only one copy, with one stream of transmission (parent-child). The reality of the Greek MSS of the New Testaments is that we have thousands of copies, and these are not all in a single linear line. Rather, there is a multiplicity of MSS descended from the autographs in the same way that branches move from a single trunk. Thus, it is often quite simple to compare the different 'branches', and see what words remain the same, and which ones change. This allows you to compare and see where the text differs from earlier readings in a way not possible in your analogy.
Thirdly, those words that ARE different (and we can clearly see WHICH readings are different and thus additions/subtractions) are not 'key parts of the text'. Simply put, there is doctrine, no key belief, affected by variant readings among the MSS. It's telling that the key facts of the gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus, are simply not affected by these variants. Your use of 'key points' in your analogy is disingenuous.
God's Word (not many different conflicting Words) have been preserved thru out all generations. This is what the Word of God teaches. It teaches that His Word (singular) has been preserved for all generations and that it is perfect (To see a list of passages: Click
here). Granted, His Word has been preserved thru different languages, but that does not mean that God's Word or message has been changed, though.
By your argument and your very specific idea of preservational infallibility, we must assume one of three things. Either: 1) God has preserved at all times in history the correct NT in all manuscripts. 2) God has preserved at all times in history the correct NT in a specific group or subset of all the MSS, none of which contain any textual differences or corruptions, or 3) God has preserved at all times in history the correct NT in one specific manuscript.
Which of these three options is the one you think is true, and if so, can you identify which document(s) are the correct ones?
For if one word, I mean just one word proved to be untrue, then it would put in doubt those words in Scripture about Jesus Christ dying and raising from the dead to redeem us from our sins (1 Corinthians 15:4).
Simply, no. If I said "The sky is blue. The grass is fluorescent pink", the falsity of one does not prove the truth of the other. That a MSS might contain words that are not genuine does not affect anything else that MSS may say
prima facie, and certainly and assuredly DOES NOT impinge on the original text of the autographs at all (that is, if we both accept that it is the words of the apostles that actually matters - you may not believe that, I'm not sure. Some KJVO believe it doesn't matter what the apostles wrote).
And, again, it doesn't matter what MSS you pick up, there is nothing in them that puts into doubt the attestation of the NT to the death and resurrection of Jesus.