The first step of Bible transmission--inspiration--was miraculous and is scientifically impossible.
All subsequent steps of Bible transmission are not inspired or inerrant, but God has providentially preserved the Bible.
This preservation probably isn't miraculous or supernatural like the original inspiration.
Textual criticism helps to preserve the Bible.
Textual criticism is the science of comparing the copies, specifically their differences, in order to figure out what the originals said.
Or it is the process of identifying errors in the copies and correcting them in the standardized text.
No, but it's one of the best ways to understand Scripture.
How to understand a Bible passage:
What did the Greek or Hebrew say?
What does the English say?
What did it mean?
What does it mean today?
Read the Bible regularly.
Pray for understanding before reading.
Do what the Bible says.
Follow the Holy Spirit's leading.
Learn biblical Greek and Hebrew and read the passage in the original languages.
Read the passage in multiple translations:
Prioritize word-for-word translations.
Word-for-word translations can contain interpretive paraphrase.
Thought-for-thought translations may amplify one possible meaning of a passage and exclude other possible meanings.
Use paraphrases as commentaries.
Read any footnotes that are in the passage.
Follow cross references that are footnoted in the passage.
How does the passage fit into its immediate context, the book of the Bible or the whole Bible?
What other passages relate to the passage?
Ask questions about the passage.
How does the passage apply to your life?
Does this passage say anything about Jesus?
Did he say anything about the subject at hand?
What was the author's intent in writing this passage?
How was the passage understood by its original readers in their culture?
Discuss the passage with others.
If it is a narrative passage, imagine you were there.
Imagine God talking to you personally in this passage. (He is.)
Look up words in Strong's.
Read commentaries or google the passage.
anti-intellectualism
Higher vs lower criticism
Textual criticism is belief-agnostic.
Also, I may have just used a big word wrong.
Most textual critics are conservatives.
Next, we must emphasize that 99 percent of the four hundred thousand variations are irrelevant to the proper translation and understanding of the Greek text. Even the most liberal textual critic agrees here.
...from The King James Only Controversy, 2nd Edition, 2009, p 64
If indeed the Comma was a part of the apostle John’s original writing, we are forced to conclude that entire passages, rich in theological meaning, can disappear from the Greek manuscript tradition without leaving a single trace. In reality, the KJV Only advocate is arguing for a radical viewpoint on the New Testament text, one that utterly denies the tenacity we discussed in chapter 3. Even "liberal" scholars admit the outstanding purity of the New Testament text and the validity of the belief in that text’s tenacity. Here we find otherwise very conservative people, the KJV’s defenders, joining arms with the most destructive critics in presenting a theory regarding the NT text that, in reality, destroys the very basis upon which we can have confidence that we still have the original words of Paul or John. Surely this is not their intention, but in their rush to defend what is obviously a later addition that entered into the KJV by unusual circumstances, they have had to adopt a position that does this very thing.
...from The King James Only Controversy, 2nd Edition, 2009, p 104
