Inerrancy in the original autographs?

Michael Bird argues that one of the problems with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) is that the statement places emphasis on the inerrancy on the original autographs. The problem, as my brother-in-law eloquently stated, is that we don’t have the original autographs. Bird argues:

To maintain that divine inspiration is confined to the initial autographs is a position that is textually problematic, as it is theologically indefensible.

He brings up the textual difficulties in Jeremiah, which contains many different readings  between the LXX and the MT. Also, he notes that the end of Deuteronomy, which contains the record of the death of Moses, could not have been written by Moses. Both books exhibit editorial activity which progresses the development of each book. Bird says:

Limiting inspiration to an initial autograph creates a host of problems when we realize that our biblical texts sometimes had secondary additions and subsequent editions, since it would imply that our inspired autographs have noninspired sections laid over them.

The picture of the “original” autographs especially when applied to the Old Testament is not clear-cut. We want to maintain that, in Bird’s words, God is faithful to his revelation. If, however, we consider his revelation as coterminous with “the” original documents, we have some serious evidence-to-the-contrary to contend with. Bird’s solution is to “see inspiration as extending to the human literary processes which preserved the meaning and power of God’s Word to achieve the ends for which it was given.” I agree with that assessment.

I still have questions though. What do we do with the pericope adulterae or the end of Mark, for example?  Are they editorial additions inspired by the Holy Spirit? Does the fact they do not occur in the earliest manuscripts enough to excise them from the canon? From my vantage point, what seems to work for the OT doesn’t work as well for the NT and vice versa. This issue isn’t enough to challenge my faith – I find biblical Christianity a much better explanation for the world than any other worldview. Yet, this issue remains one of the most problematic issues for biblical inerrantists.

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