Was B.B. Warfield’s View of the Autograph the Same as the Protestant Orthodox?

To answer this question Richard Muller [PRRD, Holy Scripture, pp. 413-414] observes,

The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice and the separate argument for a received text free from major (i.e., non-scribal) errors rests on an examination of the apographa [i.e., copies of copies] and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographs [i.e., originals] as a prop for textual infallibility.

1.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the inspiration of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

2.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for a received text also rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

3.) Again, for the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the infallibility of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

4.) The Protestant Orthodox weren’t foolish enough or illogical enough to seek an infinite regress of the lost originals.

5.) The Protestant Orthodox did not use the autographs as a prop as Warfield did. Consider Muller’s footnote placed at the end of the quote above.

A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hoge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield…The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logic trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics – who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.” p. 414, fn 192.

Pre-Critical and Post-Critical Bibliology are not the same in form and content. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical textual criticism are not the same in method and conclusion. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical views of the autograph and apograph are not the same in explanatory force and scope.

The modern church has separated from its Protestant roots concerning Bibliology and those who claim otherwise naively cry, Peace peace; when there is no peace.