How Accurate Are Bible Translations?

Sometimes people in their ignorance say that since the original Bible manuscripts no longer exist, our Bible translations of today are unreliable. It is therefore interesting to note the following opinion of a recognized authority on the matter. In his work Auf Den Spuren Jesu (In the Footsteps of Jesus), Gerhard Kroll says the following:

“Two of the leading English text critics, B. F. Westcott and J. A. Hort, estimate the number of textual variants as being 250,000; that is, for every two words of the original text there are three textual variants. Only laymen can be terrified by this fact. According to the results of the textual critic, seven eighths of the New Testament text is unquestionable; that is, we are unable by any scientific means to give the original reading of the remaining one eighth of the text. But many of the variants of this eighth part are insignificant, because they are mere orthographical discrepancies or transpositions of words that have no effect on the sense. Deducting these, there remains only one sixtieth of the text that could be labeled as being questionable. But from this sixtieth part most of it could be considered as being irrelevant as far as the content is concerned so that only one thousandth of the entire text could be said to contain significant differences. However, out of this one-thousandth part only a few passages are important as far as doctrine is concerned. And even these are not that important inasmuch as the Biblical testimony of these respective dogmatic teachings does not depend just on this one particular uncertain passage.”

Therefore the final conclusion of this textual critic Kroll is: “In general, the scientific conviction is well established that, in essence, the textual arrangement has been preserved without error.”