Good post, Rob. Jongkind's book looks like a good one. I should probably get it.I've read this article before--it covers a lot of material...certainly worth reading.
I approach things from a background of science. I recognize this bias of mine. It's not that I dismiss God's preservation of Scripture (I don't), I desire to define and observe the evidence of how preservation works.
God's preservation in creation is a general preservation.
When speaking of Scriptural preservation it is an implied special preservation, analogous to verbal plenary inspiration.
Does preservation of God's Word require verbal plenary preservation (every word/letter, fully or completely preserved - Matthew 5:17-20)?
How is the Word of God preserved?
Even the phrase 'preserved Word of God' needs to be defined:
Is God's Word only that which was written? ...for there are prophets of God whose words have not been preserved in writing (e.g. 1 Samuel 10:10-12).
Can translations be trusted to represent the preserved Word of God? The use of a variety translations the NT seems to imply that translations can adequately convey the Word of God.
I stumbled across a booklet published by Tyndall House called, 'An Introduction to the Greek New Testament' (by Dirk Jongkind). It echos some of Wallace's criticisms of [the doctrine of] Providential Preservation but clarifies the idea of a general preservation of Scripture.
Providential Preservation
The distinctive reason for accepting the Textus Receptus is rarely historical but rather theological, and it rests on the notion of providential preservation. That is, God in his providence steered the course of history in such a way that at the time of the invention of the printing press and the dawn of the Reformation, the church had access to the perfect shape of his Word. Therefore, Textus Receptus proponents avoid the historical question Is this the text backed up by the best historical evidence? by answering the following theological question in the affirmative: Is this text given to us by God?
In the English-speaking world, this position is often combined with a strong preference for the King James Version, which is based on the Textus Receptus. The attachment to this old and beautiful translation is so strong that even a fresh translation of the Textus Receptus is off limits. In my personal experience of interacting with “King James Only” advocates, their defense of the Textus Receptus rest chronologically (and sometimes even logically) on their respect for the King James Version. Thus, they accept the Textus Receptus because it served as the source for the King James Version.
… I have no problems with the notion that God has preserved his Word. On the contrary, I believe that he did. But I do not believe that God is under any obligation to preserve every detail of scripture for us, even though he granted us good access to the text of the New Testament. Or conversely, God could have given us a fixed master copy of the Scriptures, yet he chose not to. I believe that God, and his grace, preserved his Word for us but also that there is no apparent external reason to believe that the Textus Receptus is in someway special or set apart from the rest of the manuscript tradition. There is no divine confirmation that the text printed by Erasmus and those immediately after him was the restored (or perhaps intended) shape of the text that the apostles had delivered to the church.
Rob
The distinction between general preservation and special preservation is a good one, a good way to distinguish the two concepts.
The question on whether or not the non-recorded prophecies of the Bible are preserved is, to me, a moot one. The Word of God as preached by such prophets is of course perfectly preserved in the mind of the omniscient God, even if such prophesies have not been written down and passed down. However, they are not something we need to know as presented in the four purposes of Scripture preservation given above in post #19. So they were no doubt culture- and era-specific.