Exactly how tall was Goliath?
The Need for Textual Criticism Sherlock Holmes said, “There is nothing like first-hand evidence.”1 Unfortunately, the original documents (technically called “autographs”) of the Old Testament books all perished due to time and natural causes. But they did not disappear before scribes copied them, and then later scribes copied those copies, and on and on. We, therefore, possess only copies of the originals. And what is more, our copies differ to varying degrees when compared to one another. Almost every ancient book is in this situation: the original is lost, and only different manuscript copies remain. However, through the discipline of textual criticism, we can have a high degree of certainty as to the content of the original Old Testament manuscripts. Avid English Bible readers have already encountered the differences in our manuscripts. Most have seen the solid line that appears after Mark 16:8 or John 7:52 with a note saying something like “This passage does not appear in (some of)...