Either God has been faithful to preserve His pure words with nothing added or He has failed and the scholars of today who do not believe any Bible on this earth is the perfect word of God are right.
This is a false dichotomy. Consider those Biblical scholars who are theologically conservative and who accept the inerrancy of the autographs. The vast majority of these do not accept the Joannine comma.
Earlier I gave the example of Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad who edited The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text. Now these are scholars who reject the idea that the oldest extant manuscripts are necessarily the best. They argue that the oldest mss (Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, etc.) are Coptic and have survived because of the dry, hot climate and that they need to be considered carefully in light of the Textus Receptus/Majority Text. They ask if it is proper to ignore 85% of the textual evidence in favor of a very few older manuscripts which may not reflect the mainstream text at all. IOW, these are textual scholars who are saying things that are music to the KJV-only adherents' ears --- and yet, even they do not include the Johannine comma in their Majority text.
I think Hodges and Farstad make some good points, and I enjoy reading their edition of the Greek text. They recognize the importance of the Majority Text, but as textual scholars, they know there have been scribal errors in the transmission of the text. Even the TR disagrees with the Majority text at times. This does not mean they do not believe God has failed. 99% of the variants are simple scribal errors of orthography, word order, etc.
Textual scholars classify unintentional scribal errors as:
1) errors of the hand
2) errors of the eye
3) errors of the ear
4) errors of the mind
and there are names for the various types of scribal slips in each category.
This is not only a NT problem. The Talmud (b. Shabbath 103b) warns about the need for care in distinguishing between pairs of letters which are graphically similar:
"... one must not write the alef as an 'ayyin, the 'ayyin as an alef, the beth as a kaf, or the kaf as a beth, the gimmel as a zadde, or the zadde as a gimmel, the daleth as a resh, or the resh as a daleth, the heh as a heth or the heth as a heh, the waw as a yod or the yod as a waw, the zayyin as a nun or the nun as a zayyin, the teth as a pe, or the pe as a teth, bent letters straight or straight letters bent, the mem as a samek or the samek as a mem, closed letters open or open letters closed."
Even conservative scholars who believe in the inerrancy of the autographs accept the fact that the extant mss are not in complete agreement. Scribes were human and they made various copying errors. But if you read the Greek text and look at the critical apparatus listing the variants, you will see that almost all of the variations are minor things which do not significantly affect the meaning.
It is true that there are a few disputed passages which have theological significance. BUT not one Christian doctrine rests solely on any of these few passages. For instance, the inclusion or omission of the Johannine comma does not affect the doctrine of the Trinity.
Since the Johannine comma is a disputed passage, I think it is better not to use it as a "proof-text" in discussions. Just my $.02.
Regards,
Marjorie