ARTICLE X: The Autographs
    We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy.  We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.  We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs.  We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

    Article X deals directly with the perennial issue of the relationship of the text of Scripture that we presently have to the original documents which have not been preserved except through the means of copies.  In the first instance, inspiration applies strictly to the original works of the inspired authors.  What this does indicate is that the infallible control of God in the production of the original Scripture had not been miraculously perpetuated through the ages in the copying and translating process.  It is plainly apparent that there are some minute variations between the manuscript copies that we possess and that the translating process will inject additional variants for those who read the Scripture in another language than Hebrew and Greek.  So the framers of the document are not arguing for a perpetually inspired transmission of the text.
     Since we do not have the original manuscripts, some have urged that an appeal to the lost originals renders the whole case for the inspiration of the Scripture irrelevant.  To reason in this manner is to do despite to the very serious work that has been done in the field of textual criticism.  Textual criticism is the science which seeks to reconstruct an original text by a careful analysis and evaluation of the manuscripts we presently possess.  This task has to be accomplished with respect to all documents from antiquity that have reached us through manuscript copies.  The Old and New Testament Scriptures are probably the texts which have reached us with the most extensive and reliable attestation.  For more than ninety-nine percent of the cases, the original text can be reconstructed to a practical certainty.  Even in the few cases where some perplexity remains, this does not impinge on the meaning of Scripture to the point of clouding a tenet of faith or a mandate of life.  Thus, in the Bible as we have it (and as it is conveyed to us through faithful translations), we do have for practical purposes the very Word of God, inasmuch as the manuscripts do convey to us the complete vital truth of the originals.
    The further affirmation of Article X is that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.  Though we do not actually possess the originals, we have such well-reconstructed translations and copies that to the extent to which they do correspond to the original documents they may be said to be the Word of God.  But because of the evident presence of copy errors and errors of translation the distinction must be made between the original work of inspiration in the autographs and the human labor of translating and copying those autographs.
    The denial has in view the important point that in those minuscule segments of existing manuscripts where textual criticism has not been able to ascertain with absolute certainty what the original reading was, no essential article of the Christian faith is affected.
    To limit inerrancy or inspiration to the original manuscripts does not make the whole contention irrelevant.  It does make a difference.  If the original text were errant, the church would have the option of rejecting the teachings of that errant text.  If the original text is inerrant (and the science of textual criticism must be depended upon to reconstruct that inerrant text), we have no legitimate basis for disobeying a mandate of Scripture where the text is not in doubt.  For example, if two theologians agreed that the original text was inerrant and if both agreed as to what the present copy taught and further agreed that the present copy was an accurate representation of the original, then it would follow irresistibly that the two men would be under divine obligation to obey that text.  If, on the other hand, we asserted that the original manuscripts were possibly errant and the two theologians then agreed as to what the Bible taught and also agreed that the present translation or copy faithfully represented the original, neither would be under moral obligation to submit to the teachings of that possibly errant original.  Therein lies the important issue of the relevancy of the character of the original manuscript (pp. 146 - 49).