Gerhard, Exegesis I On Holy Scripture, ch. xvi. “The greater part of the variations lies in the words rather than in the things expressed “and makes the reason for correction more for exactness than for necessity,” as Franciscus Lucas Brugensis points out” (p. 313). He argues for providential preservation, but not in the sense of the “TR only” crowd. Discrepancies in Greek copies exist, but not the point of undoing the sufficiency of the Scriptures. On this Robinson notes (link): The other matter — “divine preservation” — seems rarely to have been a major issue until the rise of the so-called “KJV-only” faction during the 1970s and beyond. Those few evangelical writers who made any statement regarding “divine” or “providential” preservation generally accepted that concept as applying to any Greek nt manuscript or text, whether the tr, Westcott-Hort, or any other. The nt textual witnesses in their aggregate were considered to reflect the “providentially preserved” text. As with Biblical inerrancy, one can affirm providential preservation as permeating all biblical documents and editions, with no required limitation of either inerrancy or preservation to a single manuscript, texttype, edition, or translation. The realissue regarding the original Greek text remains a matter of theory and evidence, best served without the imposition of extraneous a priori theological assumptions that predetermine textual decisions and force the adoption of certain variant readings on grounds ultimately theological and not text-critical.
See preface to KJV 1611, where they note that even the apostles were willing to call the LXX “God’s Word” though translated, and somewhat poorly at that.
Maurice Robinson, “The Case for Byzantine Priority.”
Robinson (fn. 109) notes that Tertullian, De Praescr. Haer., 36, appeals in the early third century to the apostolic cathedrae in the primary Greek-speaking region of the Empire as places where the “authentic writings” of the NT authors either had originated or were first sent and where authoritative copies could still be found. The significant point is that Tertullian’s appeal was not made to North Africa, Europe, Egypt, or Palestine, but to those same primary Greek-speaking regions from which we have no extant evidence during the first three centuries. [He does, however, include Rome, which, together with southern Italy, still makes the same point: Age iam, qui uoles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuae, percurre ecclesias apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc cathedrae apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae authenticae litterae eorum recitantur sonantes uocem et repraesentantes faciem uniuscuiusque.] [Note that Tertuallian goes so far as to claim that the originals/copies in these places are as good as having the living voices and faces of the apostles.]