Textual Criticism and Doctrine

Abstract

It has frequently been declared that textual criticism has no relation to Christian doctrine. Research on the text of the New Testament is considered to be a technical discipline whose objective is to recover from ancient manuscripts the proper words of the text. Major conceptions of God, of man, of sacraments, of inspiration and epistemology, of the supernatural, of resurrection and future life, all are touched in the examples of textual variation. The Christian's reach to apprehend and apply the great doctrines to life is affected by the Scriptural text he reads. It is the great responsibility of textual criticism to refine the New Testament text toward an ever increasing purity. The points of textual variation comprise a substantial body of critical issues which only textual criticism can resolve. It must lay the foundation on which alone doctrinal interpretation of the New Testament may be soundly based.Keywords: ancient manuscripts; Christian doctrine; epistemology; God; New Testament; textual criticism; textual variation