The autographa are the original manuscripts of the books of Scripture as they were first written by the inspired authors—the very documents penned by Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, and the rest, or by their amanuenses under their direction. The doctrine concerning them is a careful and important refinement of the church’s confession of inerrancy: it is the autographa, the original God-breathed text, that are properly and strictly without error, while the apographa—the copies and copies of copies through which Scripture has been transmitted—may contain the minor slips and variants that inevitably arise in hand-copying. This distinction is not an escape hatch to dodge difficulties, as critics sometimes charge, but a precise statement of where the quality of inerrancy resides: inspiration was the act of God breathing out the original text, and it is that text which shares His perfection. The autographa themselves have perished—no original manuscript of any biblical book survives—yet this is no cause for alarm, for God in His providence has preserved the text with such fidelity, across so many thousands of manuscripts, that the wording of the original can be established with very high confidence, and no article of faith hangs upon a doubtful reading. The doctrine of the autographa thus holds two truths together: that the inspired original was perfect, and that the preserved copies, while not the object of inspiration, faithfully convey to the church the substance of that perfect Word.