Three Questions on the Inerrancy of Scripture

Here is a presumed evangelical scenario and three questions (the main question being at the end) for your thoughts.

First the milk:

PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS SCENARIO OR ITS THREE QUESTIONS IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH DOUBTS ABOUT THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE!!!

This scenario and its questions are designed to make one ponder their faith and their relationship with God in Christ. Too many believers have such a struggle with uncertainty concerning the theology of the Faith that they are often fearful of either asking or even considering particular questions about our Faith. Many believers are so unsure of the intellectual side of the Faith that they treat theology like a glass bowl so delicate that the slightest question could forever smash it.

While I myself see the Faith and its theology as an indestructible castle built upon the foundation of God in Christ, individual believer’s faith is not so indestructible. Therefore, if you are struggling with doubts, disregard all of this but pray to God to help you with your doubts.

Now to the meat:

Amongst learned evangelicals it is common knowledge that only the original autographs of the New Testament are inerrant. Every single copy of the NT that we currently possess contains errors in the text which change the meaning of what we believe to be some aspect of the Scripture. Hypothetically, only the original documents written by the apostles are free from error. Let it be known that none of the known errors in the various ancient NT manuscripts alters any significant doctrine in any way. One of the points of significant doctrines being significant is that they are repeated by the author numerous times in a book, numerous times in the author’s various books and numerous times in various books by various authors.

But two points:

1) With specific reference to the autographs, nowhere does the Bible claim inerrancy for itself either as a whole or with an individual book. The idea of inerrancy is a logical corollary to the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures but it is a foreign idea in the Scriptures. In truth, it was a doctrine formulated by at Princeton Theological Seminary in the latter half of the 19th century.

2) The inerrancy of the autographs is a hypothesis that cannot be proven due to the fact that we do not have the original autographs and we never will. They have long since been destroyed by time and there is no way to recreate them.

The apostle and/or his secretary wrote down the original Scripture on an original scroll, parchment, etc. This original scroll is the original autograph and is the document or version which is deemed by all learned evangelicalism to be THE inerrant copy.

Now for the three questions:

1) If the apostle and/or his secretary made copies of this original inerrant document, were these copies made by the apostle and/or his secretary inerrant?

2) If we agree that the original autographs are inerrant, if we agree that the subsequent copies contain errors, then which copy of the original autographs contained the first error? The first copy, the second copy, the third or fourth?

3) Since we do agree that only the first editions of the autographs are inerrant and all the other editions contain errors, then there are only 27 inerrant editions of the NT documents and 100s of millions of errant editions. There could only be one complete inerrant version of the entire NT which was very early on completely lost to history and the Church while there are 100s of thousands of subsequent editions that we still have and have never been lost. Thus, we can practically presume that God has had no problem at all giving all the believers of the Church for two thousand years for all faith and practice documents that have errors in them. If this scenario is indeed the case, then why would God not mind giving all the believers of the Church for two thousand years for all faith and practice original autographs with original errors in them?