Thank you for the question on the translation and copying of the Bible, “To my understanding, the Bible was first written in Hebrew and later translated to various languages. How sure and correct can the translated versions be considering common human errors?”
The TaNaKh or the Old Testament was written in mostly Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek and or Aramaic.
Here are some thoughts in addressing the question on the accuracy and copying errors.
A. There are no original autographs or original writings of the Old Testament or the New Testament. Since they were written on papyrus/paper or animal skins, those writings has deteriorated over time.
In the Old Testament, the priests were entrusted with preserving the scrolls of the Old Testament. In Deut. 17, the text states that the king was to copy the Laws. “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel” (NIV).
The text states that king or leader of Israel is to make a copy of this Law taken from the priests. Thus the priests were to ensure the original autograph was to be preserved. If it became worn out from reading, then they would make a copy the original and keep it. Since the priests believed the words written down are the very words of God great care was given in keeping and copying them. Thus the king/leader will make a copy of the Law, but the priest had the original one or through time to make a copy of the original autograph.
We find that the Ethiopian Eunuch was able to obtain a copy of scroll of Isaiah and was reading it in Acts 8.
B. Old and New Testament scholars have collected or has access to the fragments or scrolls that have been preserved through the centuries. Some of those fragments and scrolls have been dating from the 1500 CE to the 2nd BCE.
C. Scholars would collect and photograph/digitalized the scrolls. Scholars would date the scrolls based on the age of the paper, the lettering style, carbon dating, etc. to give an estimate date.
D. Scholars have compared the writings of the scroll on a book, like Isaiah or the Gospel of John with other scrolls through the centuries. They have noted the differences in spelling, deleted words or even added words in their opinion.
E. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given greater assurance as to the accuracies of the Old Testament text. The Dead Sea Scrolls has been dated to 2nd BCE to 1st CE of the Old Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls has all the Old Testament books except for Esther. There are also other writings were found.
The discovery of the Scroll of Isaiah can now be compared with scrolls in the 12th-15th centuries. The finding is that the differences between the scrolls are insignificant which is amazing. It is not like whole paragraphs or chapters are different or deleted. They are spelling errors and insertion of consonant, vowel which is duly noted.
G. Granted that the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls enables to compare from the 2nd-1st century to the scrolls to 1500’s, but what about the copies from the 3rd-1200 BCE? It is reasoned that if the Dead Sea Scrolls were meticulously copied which has been discovered, then it is assumed that the copyists during the Babylonian Captivity back to the reign of David and Solomon to the time period of Joshua and Judges were carefully copied.
One may have read that there are hundred of thousands of errors in the Bible. How can one rely on the Bible with that many errors? It must be remembered that when individuals mention that there are hundred of thousands of errors, one has to understand how those words are used. So for example, if the word church is spelled skurch, churck, churst, each of those spelling is consider one error. We must remember that they had no eraser. What was written could not be corrected so great care was given. There are 950 scrolls of the Old Testament and for the New Testament there are over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts catalogued, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. Imagine counting every letter to note the differences!
As scholars compared the scrolls by reading the context and looking at the word, they are able to discern the intended word. For example the word, church from churck.
If you were to copy the Gospel of John without any correction, how many mistakes would you make? And if someone was to read it, can they discern the errors and determine the correct word? For the most part, they can especially if they have another copy to compare with one copy of the Gospel of John.
The same principle would apply to the New Testament scrolls even as scholars compare the quotations of early Church Fathers and fragments of New Testament. Dr. Daniel Wallace is one of the premier scholars on New Testament manuscripts as his organization is searching and categorizing all New Testament fragments and manuscripts.
SUMMARY: I believed that God has preserved his words through the centuries.