Bible Preservation

From Dr. James White on aomin.org (My highlights, bold, and colours):

In my debate with Bart Ehrman almost exactly a year ago the issue of Ehrman’s radical skepticism about our knowledge of ancient documents came up. I pointed out that given his standards, God could not have begun His revelation of Himself until 1949, when the photocopier was invented. Why? Because given his presuppositions, it would require that level of photographic copying to allow for the promulgation of God’s revelation. God couldn’t speak until we could guarantee an absolutely perfect chain of transmission! But such ignores the entire scope of the history of God’s dealings with His people.

Consider the example of the New Testament. Did the New Testament writers display a modernistic view of the validity and transmission of the Old Testament text? Or did they recognize that God had preserved the text in such a way that they could quote from the Greek Septuagint (the text known to their target audience) and still identify this translation as the Word of God? Surely, their use of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament raises all sorts of challenging, difficult questions. But you know what? I have never received greater benefits than when I have, in trust and expectancy, knuckled down to do the work to figure out those difficulties. I feel sorry for the modern believers who think that instant answers and easy solutions must be theirs right now! Microwave theology. True, valuable, long-lasting insights come through patient meditation and study, and only in God’s time. We are rarely patient enough to obtain such lofty understanding, and the confidence that comes there from.

But, someone is sure to respond, how can we trust the Bible if there are textual variants? To which I respond, the same way Jesus or Paul or Luke did. There were textual variants in the days of Jesus and the Apostles. Only if you errantly assume, as Ehrman does, that this artifact of the mechanism of God’s means of preservation is, in and of itself, fatal to the truthfulness of the text, can you come to the conclusion that all is lost. But there is no reason to join Ehrman in his radical skepticism.

Source: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2010/01/05/inspiration-inerrancy-preservation/