To "johnny"

We seem at odds on at least two major issues, and it is these that I would like to address before trying to deal with the others. The major theme of your arguments has centered around the unreliability of the NT document that we have now. You seem to have several problems with the NT: most importantly, how much deviation there is in the current text from the original MSS, and secondarily; issues such as the lack of an official canon, and the fact that the NT documents were not originally conceived as "scripture".

I will also show the scriptural evidence for the concept of the trinity and how it is not a doctrine formulated by the church, but the articulation of an incredibly complex body of data and concepts into a rule of faith. More on that later, but for now the NT documents.

To be fair, considering the nature of the NT documents, whether they were originally conceived by the authors as scripture is irrelevant to the point. The church recognized the truth contained in them, and at a later date the documents were compounded into a canon. But the much more significant charge of manuscript corruption to the degree that the original message cannot be reconstructed has to be dealt with.

Without a set scripture, you will simply change the NT to read whatever suits the muslim understanding, using the quran to determine; what is right or wrong, what is true and what is not, what is the invention of the church and what is the true doctrine of Jesus. This, in and of itself, is a logical fallacy:

If you say that there is truth and falsehood in the Bible. And one of the purposes of the Qur'an is to indicate what is the truth and what is the falsehood. If one is out to prove that something (the Bible) is wrong, then of course one uses the material available to do so. If one is to prove that something is correct, then you would use the other material available. Since the Bible contains both truth and falsehood, one can do both.

But how do you decide which is the truth and the falsehood in the first place?

Now, maybe you have not understood how flawed this approach is. You are employing circular reasoning. You want to show the truth of Islam / the Qur'an. But since the truth of Islam is the goal of your reasoning you cannot use it in the process or for the foundation of your argument as well.

But in your stated approach:

you do exactly that, because you use the Qur'an to decide which part of the Bible is right and which is wrong. That makes your argument circular and therefore a logical fallacy.

This is from San Jose State’s Critical Thinking homepage; http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/tour/tourfrm3.html

"What's the difference between a valid deductive argument and a fallacy? In the case of the fallacy of circular reasoning, the difference is not be as obvious as you might expect. In the fallacy of circular reasoning, which is often called begging the question, you assume to be true what you are supposed to be proving. But that's also true for all valid deductions, where the conclusion (what you are trying to prove) is derived from the premises or assumptions. This difference is that, in circular reasoning, the conclusion is contained in a single premise or assumption, while in a deductive argument the conclusion is derived from both premises."

If you have already declared that the Bible is corrupted and contains falsehood then EITHER you base your arguments on something (the Qur’an}that might not be true, and your argument itself is therefore invalid, because it is reasoning from unverified and possibly false premises. OR you try to separate the true from the false [according to Islam] in order to get "pure" premises, but then you use the Qur'an to do so and make your argument circular which invalidates it too.

I agree that it is valid to use the Bible for the attempt to prove Christianity wrong. But if you want to postulate any corruption in the Bible [as most Muslims do], then the Bible cannot be used anymore for a validation of the Qur'an without committing one of the above logical fallacies.

You will have to come up with an independent validation of the Qur'an FIRST. THEN you can use the Qur'an to separate the true from the false in the Bible. BUT this independent validation of the Qur'an hasn't made its introduction to me yet. THAT is what you have to show me first.

But on the other hand, if you discard the Bible, then you are pulling the rug under the Qur'an since the harmony with the earlier revelations is one of the biggest reasons the Qur'an brings for its own validity. And you just discarded it!

This objection is met with:

Wrong again. The Qur'an makes clear that the peoples who had received revelation before have distorted those books, that is one of the reasons for the sending of the Qur'an, to guard what was sent before..ie. to be able to tell what is right and wrong in what is claimed to be the previous revelation. If the claimed previous revelation is not in accord with the Qur'an, then that part which is not in accord is wrong. The part which is in accord with the Qur'an is ok.

This is valid ONLY if you have ALREADY shown the Qur'an to be right. WHERE have you or anybody done so?

There must also be some independent, scholarly way of verifying exactly what of the NT scriptures is corrupted and how it got that way (not simple speculation but detailed tracing of where the corruption came in) and what of the NT documents is truth. Witness this exchange:

>The only way to reconcile the statement "jesus is a
> prophet of islam", is to pick and choose what scriptures you want to
> believe. But there must be some valid reason for deciding WHY one
> passage will stand and others won't.

I think you better let your scholars worry about that. It was not the
Muslims who claimed that 1 John 5:7 was a fabrication, your own
scholars said it. And ever if we were to accept your Gospels as God's
inerrant words, even then a more stonger argument can be raised in
support of Jesus being NO GOD compared to him being god.

Notice I state that, especially with the charge of massive corruption in the NT text, there must be some valid reason for deciding WHY one passage will stand and others won't. Instead of answering how you can distinguish the difference, you shifted the burden to christian scholars. You completely ignored the question and switched the conversation to the charge of corruption again. Then, you added that you can still prove that Christ was not divine. I should like to know how You would be able to determine what of the NT is still correct, after you have alleged so much corruption?

The answer, of course, is to view everything through the lense of Islam, because you have NO proof of what is corrupt and what is not. You cannot show me how to arrive at your conclusions other than using the Qur’an to prove itself. Please stop making these unsubstantiated claims.

And I have to reiterate my argument from above: It is the as yet unvalidated Qur'an which claims to be in accord with the earlier scriptures. If this claim of harmony turns out to be false, then it is the problem of the Qur'an and not the problem of the Bible. It is the Qur'an which claims harmony and it isn't there, so the Qur'an claims something that is wrong. I cannot understand that it is so hard to comprehend that if the Qur'an makes false claims that this is a problem for the Qur'an and NOT for the Bible.

On to the rest of the issues.

To answer the charges of textual corruption, I will have to take several paths: first, I would like to discuss the issue of the texts and quote some of the same sources.

Text and Manuscripts of the New Testament (from the Zondervan Pictorial Encyc. of the Bible)

No other body of literature has been preserved in quantity even comparable to the number of extant manuscripts (MSS) of the NT. The writings of some ancient authors are represented by only one MS from ancient times. A few have survived in a few dozen works, and a very few, number in the hundreds. With over 5,000 Greek MSS, and more than 10,000 translations, no body of work comes close to the NT.

The MS tradition of the NT is distinctly superior to that of other ancient lit. contrasted with other ancient lit, where the oldest MSS are dated a thousand years after the author, the NT has 2 of it’s most important MSS written within 300 yrs, and fragments that were written within 1-2 centuries after the biblical authors wrote.

Since classical scholars assume the general reliability of these secular works even where the time interval is great and the MSS few, it is clear that we can assume with far greater assurance that the presently available NT text reliably represents what the authors originally wrote.

With the vast amount of had copies that were made during the early centuries thousands of textual variants were introduced into the various MSS. Technically speaking, it is impossible to determine the exact original wording from any given MS. Rather, a comparison of MSS must be made and principles established for determining as nearly as possible the exact form of the original text.

Textual criticism is a basic discipline, but a prerequisite to all further NT studies, since the determination of the text to be used must precede the interpretation of the text.

In making a copy of a book by hand, any scribe, ancient or modern, would certainly introduce errors, either accidentally or intentionally. When his MS is copied the errors are passed along. In general, the more copies between 2 versions, the more likely to have errors. But it is conceivable that an 11^th century MS could have been a direct copy of a 4^th cent. copy, which itself was directly copied from an original, while an 8^th century copy of a 7^th century MS could be 20 copies removed from the original. Even with the large number of extant MSS available, we have no way of telling if any are the direct ancestors of the original.

It must not be supposed, however, that the text of the NT rests upon precarious grounds because of the multitude of copies, or because of the great number of variants found in the MSS. There is, in fact, virtually no question concerning by far the greater part of the words of the NT. Virtually all MSS of any given part of the NT say essentially the same thing. Only about one word in a thousand involves a substantial question of meaning or serious doubt of the correct text. No Christian doctrine rests upon insecure textual evidence.

Witnesses to the text are known from 3 basic sources: Greek MSS, ancient translations (VSS) and quotations from ancient writers.

Most of the works of the church fathers are in Gk. and Latin. Their quotations are so extensive that the NT could be virtually reconstructed from these sources alone. As with the VSS, the goal for patristic quotation is the information it gives concerning the NT text. To the extent to which the NT text that a church father used can be determined, that particular form of the text can be assumed to have been known and used at the time and in the general location in which that church father lived.

The transmission of the text brought variations in the copies. This was especially true of most of the NT epistles, which were simply correspondence between groups and individuals. Since the message of the book or letter was the important thing, a person making a copy might not necessarily feel obligated to strictly duplicate the word order or details that did not affect the sense. At the same time, the significance of this divergence between MSS must not be exaggerated.

The differences between the MSS that arose by repeated copying led to the development of families of MSS. It was evidently not long before comparison was being made between MSS and it was being discovered that there were many differences, especially between MSS of different localities. During the next centuries there occurred a period of convergence of MSS. Although copying of MSS by hand continued to mean that virtually no two MSS were completely identical, nevertheless from the 8^th century on, almost all MSS represented the standardized form of the text.

The variations that creep in to the MSS can be classified as unintentional or, much less frequent, intentional. Unintentional variations include errors of seeing writing and of judgment. Intentional errors are the results of scribes’ attempts to correct what they thought were errors, to make a text less ambiguous, or to strengthen the theology. There is virtually no evidence of a scribes intentionally weakening the theology or purposely introducing heresy into his MS. Although all sorts of variants may be found in the extant MSS, these represent minutiae in the total text of the MSS. The scribes generally copied the text with great care, even when the text may not have seemed to make sense.

The principles of textual criticism regarding internal evidence are 1) the reading that at first seems more difficult in the context is more likely to be original. An ancient scribe, faced with 2 or more readings would likely choose the easier one to understand. Thus, in John 1:18, "the only God…" is preferred over "the only son…." 2) the shorter reading is more likely to be original than a longer reading. 3) the reading that the other reading could have developed from is likely to be the original. For example: in mark 9:49 the original text is doubtless the rather enigmatic, "for everyone shall be salted with fire" which a prosaic scribe altered to the innocuous "for every sacrifice shall be salted with salt" (newer trans. will use the older version) by the same token, a reading that has a definitely heightened theological or devotional emphasis is likely to be a scribal alteration rather than the original. 1 Cor. 6:20, "so glorify God in your body" led some scribe to make a pious addition, "and in your spirit, which is God’s"

An important application of the above principles relates to parallel passages. Since a scribe would be tempted to harmonize parallels, a reading that is not thus harmonized is generally preferred.

The application of the above principles of internal evidence to a large number of variants will make it possible to evaluate the degree of reliability of individual witnesses and, more importantly, of groups of witnesses or text types.

In conclusion, while the precise original wording of the NT cannot be determined with finality in every instance, the best form of the text that can be reached will be, from a technical point of view only an approximation of the original. From a practical pint of view, however, the difference involved in most variants is so slight that little or no difference of meaning is involved. One may safely conclude, then, that when sound principles of textual criticism are judiciously followed, a NT text may be constructed of which it may be said, in the words of Sir Frederic Kenyon, that "we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable word of God"

(Edited from the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Text and manuscripts of the New Testament.

Bibliography: B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, The New Testament in the original Greek. C.R. Gregory, Die griechscheischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, H.G.G. Herklots, How Our Bible Came To Us, B.M.Metzger, Annotated Bibliography of the ‘Textual Criticism of the New Testament, L.D.Twiley, The Origin and Transmission of the New Testament, F.G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, F.F.Bruce, The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable? J.H. Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, B.M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament; It’s Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration.)

I would like to look at several areas:

1. Pertaining to the the sources used; at least one, those quotes of Bruce M. Metzger, were not indicative of the quoted authors true position. and while the quotes were used to produce a conclusion that the NT we have today cannot be trusted to accurately report what the eyewitnesses saw, the authors actual opinions vary greatly from the misleading conclusions drawn.

You have cited Bruce M. Metzger, a world renowned authority on the manuscripts and transmission of the Greek New Testament (NT) text, to support the argument that the NT text has been corrupted. The impression given is that Metzger seemingly believes that the variants within the ancient manuscripts of the NT prove that scribes corrupted the text. Hence, we get the impression that Metzger feels that Christians cannot confidently assert that today's NT is a faithful replica of the original autographs.

Metzger's book is aimed at providing the methodology employed by textual critics in identifying variant readings and the possible reasons why these variant readings arose. Metzger's book also provides the textual method used to assess which variant reading actually preserves the original reading of the text.

Let me quote Metzger's views on the variant readings of the NT text and how this effects its preservation. The following quotations are taken from Lee Strobel's book The Case For Christ. In chapter two of his book, Strobel personally interviewed Metzger on the reliability and preservation of the NT text. Strobel opens up the interview with Metzger on the issue of alleged "errors" of the NT text:

EXAMINING THE ERRORS

"With the similarities in the way Greek letters are written and with the primitive conditions under which the scribes worked, it would seem inevitable that copying errors would creep into the text,' I said. "Quite so," Metzger conceded.

"And in fact, aren't there literally tens of thousands of variations among the ancient manuscripts that we have?" "Quite so."

"Doesn't that therefore mean we can't trust them?" I asked, sounding more accusatory than inquisitive. "No sir, it does not," Metzger replied firmly. "First let me say this: Eyeglasses weren't invented until 1373 in Venice, and I'm sure that astigmatism existed among the ancient scribes. That was compounded by the fact that it was difficult under any circumstances to read faded manuscripts on which some of the ink had flaked away. And there were other hazards - inattentiveness on the part of scribes, for example. So yes, although for the most part scribes were scrupulously careful, errors did creep in.

"But," he was quick to add, "there are factors counteracting that. For example, sometimes the scribe's memory would play tricks on him. Between the time it took for him to look at the text and then to write down the words, the order of words might get shifted. He may write down the right words but in the wrong sequence. This is nothing to be alarmed at, because Greek, unlike English, is an inflected language." "Meaning...," I prompted him.

"Meaning it makes a whale of a difference in English if you say, 'Dog bites man' or 'Man bites dog' - sequence matters in English. But in Greek it doesn't. One word functions as the subject of the sentence regardless of where it stands in the sequence; consequently, the meaning of the sentence isn't distorted if the words are out of what we consider to be the right order. So yes, some variations among manuscripts exist, but generally they're inconsequential variations like that. Differences in spelling would be another example."

Still, the high number of "variants," or differences among manuscripts, was troubling. I had seen estimates as high as two hundred thousand of them. However, Metzger downplayed the significance of that figure.

"The number sounds big, but it's a bit misleading because of the way variants are counted," he said. He explained that if a single word is misspelled in two thousand manuscripts, that's counted as two thousand variants.

I keyed in on the most important issue. "How many doctrines of the church are in jeopardy because of variants?" "I don't know of any doctrine that is in jeopardy," he responded confidently.

"None?" "None," he repeated. "Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses come to our door and say, 'Your Bible is wrong in the King James Version of 1 John 5:7-8, where it talks about "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." They'll say, 'That's not in the earliest manuscripts.'

"And that's true enough. I think that these words are found in only about seven or eight copies, all from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. I acknowledge that is not part of what the author of 1 John was inspired to write.

"But that does not dislodge the firmly witnessed testimony of the Bible to the doctrine of the Trinity. At the baptism of Jesus, the Father speaks, his beloved Son is baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends on him. At the ending of 2 Corinthians Paul says, 'May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.' There are many places where the Trinity is represented."

"So the variations, when they occur, tend to be minor rather than substantive?"

"Yes, yes, that's correct, and scholars work very carefully to try to resolve them by getting back to the original meaning. The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the church. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But, again, these are rare." (Strobel, pp. 82-85)

Strobel continues:

THE "UNRIVALED" NEW TESTAMENT

Metzger had been persuasive. No serious doubts lingered concerning whether the New Testament's text had been reliably preserved for us through the centuries. One of Metzger's distinguished predecessors at Princeton Theological Seminary, Benjamin Warfield, who held four doctorates and taught systematic theology, until his death in 1921, put it this way:

If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must... declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied- a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words... The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use. (Strobel, p. 91)

Strobel concludes:

As we stood, I thanked Dr. Metzger for his time and expertise. He smiled warmly and offered to walk me downstairs. I didn't want to consume any more of his Saturday afternoon, but my curiosity wouldn't let me leave Princeton without satisfying myself about one remaining issue.

"All these decades of scholarship, of study, of writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text - what has all this done to your personal faith?" I asked.

"Oh," he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, 'it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient."

"So," I started to say, "scholarship has not diluted your faith-"

He jumped in before I could finish my sentence. "On the contrary," he stressed, "it has built it. I've asked questions all my life, I've dug into text, I've studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed."

He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, "Very well placed." (Strobel, p. 93)

Hence, the last thing on Metzger's mind is to give the impression that the NT text is corrupt.

Here is how Metzger concluded one particular section in his book The New Testament; It’s transmission, corruption, and restoration:

"Lest the foregoing examples of alterations should give the impression that scribes were altogether wilful and capricious in transmitting ancient copies of the New Testament, it ought to be noted that other evidence points to the careful and painstaking work on the part of many faithful copyists. There are, for example, instances of difficult readings which have been transmitted with scrupulous fidelity. Thus elthen at Gal. ii. 12 yields no good sense and can scarcely be the form intended by the author. Nevertheless, the scribes of the earliest manuscripts... refrained from correcting it to elthon. Another instance of a manifestly erroneous reading is ei tis splagchna kai oiktirmoi at Phil. ii. 1, which could have arisen when the original amanuensis misunderstood Paul's pronunciation of ei ti splagchna... However the solecism may have originated, the significant point is that all uncials and most minuscules have transmitted it with conscientious exactness.

"Even in incidental details one observes the faithfulness of scribes. For example, the scribe of codex Vaticanus copied quite mechanically the section numbers which run in one series throughout the corpus of the Pauline Epistles, even though this series had been drawn up when the Epistle to the Hebrews stood between Galatians and Ephesians and is therefore not suitable for the present sequence of the Epistles in Vaticanus. These examples of dogged fidelity on the part of the scribes could be multiplied, and serve to counterbalance, to some extent, the impression which this chapter may otherwise make upon the beginner in New Testament textual criticism." (Metzger, p. 206)

The fact is, the early Church Fathers tried their best to preserve the original readings, and spoke contrary to those who uncritically accepted any reading that could not be attested by the NT manuscripts:

"This number [666] is found in all THE MOST APPROVED AND ANCIENT COPIES [of Revelation]. Furthermore, those men who saw John face to face bear their testimony... I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech and have corrupted the middle number in the name... Afterwards, others received this reading WITHOUT EXAMINATION." Irenaeus, 180 A.D. (David W. Bercot, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs

The second century Church Father Irenaeus is both aware of the most reliable and ancient copies from the ones that are unreliable. Furthermore, he also criticizes individuals for not critically examining manuscripts for authenticity. Since they both had the testimony of John's companions and accurate, ancient copies, they were able to know what the originals said.

"It is incredible to every man of sense that we [i.e., orthodox Christians] would have introduced any corrupt text into the scriptures. FOR WE HAVE EXISTED FROM THE VERY FIRST." Tertullian, 197 A.D. (Ibid)

"Now what is there in our Scriptures that is contrary to us? WHAT OF OUR OWN HAVE WE INTRODUCED? Is there anything that we need to take away again, or else add to it, or alter it - in order to restore to its natural soundness anything that is contrary to it and contained in the Scriptures? What we are ourselves, that also is what the Scriptures are, and have been from the beginning." Tertullian, 197 A.D. (Ibid, p. 600)

The majority of the time it was the heretics, not believers, who were trying to correct the MSS. Yet, they failed to do so since the believers had copies transcribed from the originals and knew what the ancient readings were:

"For this reason, the heretics have boldly laid their hands upon the divine Scriptures, alleging that they have corrected them... And many such copies can be obtained, for their disciples were very zealous in inserting these 'corrections,' AS THEY CALL THEM... Nor can they deny that the crime is theirs, when the copies have been written with their own hands. Nor did they receive such copies of the scriptures from those by whom they were first instructed in the faith. For they cannot produce the originals from which they were transcribed." Eusebius citing Caius, 215 A.D. (Ibid, 641)

In fact, believers warned of adding or taking away from the Word:

"If it is nowhere written, then let him fear the woe that comes on all who add to or take away anything [from the written Word]." Tertullian, 210 A.D. (Ibid, p. 600)

Hence, the early Church Fathers bear out the testimony given by Metzger on the reliability and accurate transmission of the NT text.

In conclusion, Dr. Metzger’s testimony has been used to give a false impression that the NT scriptures are not reliable. Dr. Metzger quite obviously does not believe this.

I have not been able to read for myself any of the book you have quoted for Dr. Ehrman. I know he is a highly regarded textual critic. I would like to repeat what I saw on the amazon website. You seem, originally, to have mistakenly attributed these quotes to me. I did not write these originally, they were posted by another who wrote the review. One who is presumably not christian. Let me repost HIS thoughts on the book.

1. This book is about one group of Christians in the 2nd and 3rd centuries who, writing before the canon had been set, fought heatedly against sects of Christians it considered heretical. This group - the 'proto-orthodox' - modified its scriptures to avoid alternative interpretations of Jesus, and in so doing, ironically corrupted its own sacred texts.

2. Most of the corruptions are surprisingly subtle and minor in appearance - most of them are a change in one or two words in a single passage. For example, changing a reference from reading 'Jesus' to 'Jesus Christ' was born in a manger affirms that Jesus was divine from BIRTH, that he was UNIFIED in his being as well. This one corruption could be used by orthodoxy to maintain an interpretation that resists adoptionist or separationist attack.

3. He presents an argument for each corruption, some of them truly fascinating, though. Many of them are speculative in nature, and he acknowledges that.

4. The vast majority, however, of the corruptions he lists have NOT made their way into the modern bible, at least not the NSRV Oxford bible that I own. He gives his reasons for each of these in full.

5. Importantly, none of the corruptions themselves were carried out in a systematic way - the orthodox church never seemed to have a policy of corruption. Ehrman is careful not to attribute any malicious intention to the orthodox scribes, as well.

So we have a work that is speculative in nature, is about minor changes to passages concerning Jesus, many of which have not made their way into modern translations, nor were they carried out in any systematic way.

Please notice I am quoting from the review because I have not had the opportunity to read the book for myself. My guess is that you have neither read the book or know anything about the author or his theology, you simply pulled the quotes from a mulsim website that is partial to your views.

But I can see from a non-christian source, that the book is a mans speculation on how textual variations would have come about. You cannot draw the conclusion that "what we have here is a big mess is it not?" No, it is not.

I have not been able to yet check on the sources for George Arthur Buttrick. All the local libraries are closed for the New Years holiday.

2. muslim sources have traditionally understood that the text was not corrupted, but mistranslated/misunderstood.

The Qur'an teaches that Islam is the continued faithful religion in the same line as the Prophets who were before Muhammad: The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah ... and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (42:13 AYA). The result of this view is that the Scriptures given by these Prophets are considered to be genuine Scriptures from God: But say, "We (Muslims) believe in the Revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you (Jews & Christians); our Allah and your Allah is One" (29:46 AYA).

In the Qur'an there are many references to the Jewish and Christian Holy Books. In fact the Qur'an addresses Christians and Jews in terms of the Book: O People of the Book! (5:68 AYA). The Qur'an claims that it confirms the teaching of these former Books: O ye People of the Book! Believe in what We have (now) revealed, confirming what was (already) with you (4:47 AYA).

Christians and Jews are mentioned in the Qur'an as the custodians of Scripture: For to them was entrusted the protection of Allah's Book (5:44 AYA). God gave the Scripture to the Christians and Jews so that they could make known to the whole world and every nation the true knowledge of God: And remember Allah took a Covenant from the People of the Book, to make it known and clear to mankind, and not to hide it (3:187 AYA). Some of the Jews and Christians fulfilled this mission, others did not. Just as there are faithful and unfaithful Muslims so too the Qur'an distinguishes between the faithful and the unfaithful Christians and Jews.

The Unfaithful The Qur'an describes the behaviour of unfaithful Christians and Jews as:

1/ Concealing the truth of the Scripture: Who is more unjust than those who conceal the testimony they have from Allah?' (2:140 AYA).

2/ Teaching falsely and forgetting what they had heard from their Scripture:

There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues: (As they read) you would think it is a part of the Book, but it is no part of the Book; and they say, "That is from Allah," but it is not from Allah (3:78 AYA).

They change words from their context and forget a part of that whereof they were admonished (5:13 MP).

3/ Wanting profit from the Scriptures:

And remember Allah took a Covenant from the People of the Book, to make it known and clear to mankind, and not to hide it; but they threw it away behind their backs, and purchased with it some miserable gain! And vile was the bargain they made! (3:187 AYA)

4/ Some of the Jews who were transgressors and did not know the Book wrote false Scripture:

But the transgressors changed the word from that which had been given them (2:59 AYA).

Among them are unlettered folk who know the Scripture not except from hearsay. They but guess. Therefore woe be unto them who write the Scripture with their hands and then say, "This is from Allah," that they may purchase a small gain therewith (2:78-79 MP).

The Faithful The Qur'an teaches that there are faithful Christians and Jews:

Not all of them are alike: Of the People of the Book are a portion that stand (for the right); they rehearse the Signs of Allah all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration. They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous. Of the good that they do, nothing will be rejected of them; for Allah knoweth well those that do right (3:113-115 AYA).

Nearest among them in love to the Believers wilt thou find those who say, "We are Christians": Because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant (5:85 AYA/82 MP).

According to the Qur'an, the faithful Christians and Jews did not do what the unfaithful did; they obeyed their Scriptures and worshipped God. But what about the their Scriptures? Does the Qur'an consider the Scripture of the Jews and Christians to have been corrupted by the actions of the Unfaithful? Or has it been preserved by the Faithful? Does the Qur'an consider that only part of their Scripture now contains truth? To answer these questions we need to consider what the Qur'an says of the Jewish and Christian Scripture.

1/ The Qur'an teaches that all Scripture should be respected in the same way:

O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His Apostle, and the scripture which He hath sent to His Apostle and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Apostles, and the Day of Judgement, hath gone far, far astray (4:136 AYA).

We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them (3:84 AYA).

2/ The Torah that was given to Moses, and the Gospel that was given to Jesus, are the Scriptures that the Jews and Christians possess:

Those who follow the Messenger (Mohammed), the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them (7:157 MP).

And when there cometh unto them (Jews) a Scripture (the Qur'an) from Allah, confirming that in their possession (2:89 MP).

Thus, the Qur'an is not referring to Scripture that Jews and Christians used to possess in the past, but now are lost. Rather, the Torah given to Moses, and the Gospel given to Jesus, is the Scripture that is with them (the Christians and Jews) and in their possession at the time of Muhammad.

3/ The Qur'an teaches that it confirms and explains more fully the previous Scripture:

This Koran is not such as can be produced by other than Allah; on the contrary it is a confirmation of (revelations) that went before it, and a fuller explanation of the Book (10:37 AYA).

Thus, the Qur'an sees itself as the guardian of the message of all Scripture: To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety (5:48 AYA).

4/ A Muslim is instructed, when arguing with a Jew about clean/halal food, to ask the Jew to bring his proof from the Law of Moses. Say: "Bring ye the Law and study it, if ye be men of truth" (3:93 AYA). How can he bring the Law and study it to determine the truth if it has been corrupted or abrogated? The Scripture must be reliable to make such a command. The same assumption is also seen in the following verse: And they say: "None shall enter Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian." Those are their (vain) desires. Say: "Produce your proof if ye are truthful" (2:111 AYA).

5/ Does the Qur'an teach that it abrogates the Jewish and Christian Scripture? Some may point to 2:106 to say it does. However, if there is abrogation it clearly has its limits, for just five verses after 2:106 the Qur'an asks Christians and Jews to bring your proof (2:111) from their Scriptures. This would be an irrelevant and contradictory command if it had just taught that their Scripture was abrogated. In fact, just thirty verses after 2:106 the Qur'an says that it makes no distinction between (2:136) itself and any of the former Scripture. Al-Bukhari says that 2:106 refers to abrogation within the Qur'an itself:

Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: 'Umar said, Ubai was the best of us in the recitation (of the Qur'an) yet we leave some of what he recites.' Ubai says, 'PI have taken it from the mouth of Allah's Apostle and will not leave for anything whatever." But Allah said

But Allah said: "None of our revelations do we abrogate or cause to be forgotten but We substitute something better or similar" (Qur'an 2:106).

6/ In the following verse the Books of Moses are referred to as being a reliable source of God's warning: Nay, is he not acquainted with what is in the books of Moses (53:36 AYA). Thus, there is no excuse for the one who ignores it.

7/ Say: "O People of the Book! Ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord" (5:68 AYA). How can the Jew or Christian, stand fast by the Law and the Gospel, if the Law and the Gospel have been corrupted or abrogated? Again, the assumption of the Qur'an is that these Scriptures are the reliable word of God.

8/ As Muhammad grew in power he was often called upon to act as judge and settle disputes. However, when Jews and Christians came to him he had to point them to their own Scriptures to find the judgement of God:

But why do they (Jews) come to thee (Mohammed) for decision, when they have (their own) law before them? ... We bestowed on him (Jesus) the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah- a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil). Let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein (5:43-48 AYA).

Again, the Qur'an refers to these Scriptures as God's reliable word to which the Jews and Christians should turn when desiring to know God's will. These Scriptures must be considered faithful if the Qur'an instructs Jews and Christians to submit to them.

9/ In the following verses we see Jews and Christians are urged to teach the truth of their Scriptures and to obey them: Say: "O People of the Scripture! Stress not in your religion other than the truth" (5:77 MP). Do ye enjoin right conduct on the people, and forget (to practice it) yourselves, and yet ye study the Scripture? (2:44 AYA). Christians and Jews could not teach and obey their Scriptures if their Scriptures were corrupted.

10/ The Scripture that existed before the Qur'an was to be consulted by the Arabs if they were in doubt about the message that had been given to Muhammad: If thou wert in doubt as to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before thee (10:94 AYA). Thus this earlier Scripture must be reliable to make such a request.

11/ Here the former Scriptures of the Jews and Christians are appealed to to prove the genuineness of Muhammad's mission.

Those who follow the Messenger (Mohammed), the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them (7:157 MP).

They say: "If only he would bring us a miracle from his Lord!" Hath there not come unto them the proof of what is in the former scriptures? (20:133 MP).

And lo, it is in the scriptures from the men of old. Is it not a token for them that the (religious) doctors of the Children of Israel know it? (26:196-197 MP).

How can these Scriptures be appealed to, to prove Muhammad is genuine, if they have been corrupted? The Qur'an must view these Scriptures as reliable to make such a request.

What are the Jewish and Christian Scriptures?

The Jews and Christians have always shared the same book. The Qur'an also observes this: The Jews say: "The Christians have naught (to stand) upon"; and the Christians say: "The Jews have naught (to stand) upon." Yet they (profess to) study the (same) Book (2:113 AYA). In Judaism it is called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, and in Christianity, the Old Testament. In this book are the Torah ( Law of Moses), the Prophets, and the Psalms (writings). These are the Scriptures of the Jewish Prophets before Jesus. Jesus said of this Scripture, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. (Luke 24:44 RSV). Because Jesus said this Christians have always honoured this Scripture. This Scripture is the first section of the Christian Bible.

There is a book about which many Jews and Christians do not agree: the Gospel. Christians accept the Gospel as Scripture. Many ancient copies of this book from the time of Muhammad, and before, still exist today. The Book of the Gospel is called the New Testament by Christians; this is the second section of the Bible.

Thus all the Scripture of the Jews and Christians is found in the Bible. There are in existence today ancient Scriptures from the time of Muhammad and hundreds of years before his time. Scholars use these ancient Scriptures to show that modern Bibles are genuine.

Conclusion

The Qur'an maintains that the Scripture of the Jews and Christians is the word of God and no distinction is to be made between any of the holy books. Therefore if you are a Muslim you should not attack the Bible - the Qur'an upholds it! The Bible is taught to be a source of guidance for Jews and Christians who wish to know the will of God, and so the Qur'an encourages Jews and Christians to obey their Scripture and never asks them to deny it. The Qur'an says the Jewish and Christian Scripture foretells the coming of Muhammad and it never says that faithful Jews or Christians have corrupted their Scripture.

These muslims scholars testify to the nature of the "corruption":

Muhammad 'Abduh (Egypt) -

... makes no sense at all. It would not have been possible for Jews and Christians everywhere to agree on changing the text. Even if those in Arabia had done it, the difference between their book and those of their brothers, let us say in Syria or Europe, would have been obvious.

Mawlawi Muhammad Sa'id (Pakistan) -

Some Muslims imagine that the Injil is corrupted. But... not even one among all the verses of the Qur'an mentions that the Injil or Tawrat is corrupted... it is written that the Jews -... not the Christians... alter the meaning of the passages from the Tawrat while they are explaining them. At least the Christians are completely exonerated from this charge. Hence the Injil is not corrupted and the Tawrat is not corrupted...

Sayyid Ahmad Husayn Shawkat Mirthi -

The ordinary Muslim people...believe through hearsay...that the Injil is corrupted, even though they cannot indicate what passage was corrupted, when it was corrupted, and who corrupted it. Is there any religious community...whose lot is so miserable that they would shred their heavenly Book with their own hands...? To say that God has taken the Injil and the Tawrat into heaven and has abrogated them is to defame and slander God...

The Qur'an never asks a Christian or Jew to accept it because their own Scripture has become corrupt, rather they are asked to accept the Qur'an because the Qur'an claims, 1/ to confirm the teaching of the Jewish and Christian Scripture, 2/ that Muhammad is foretold in the Torah and Gospel, 3/ the Qur'anic teaching makes clear what the Jews and Christians could not understand properly from their own Scriptures. If the Qur'an is to be taken seriously then the claims that it makes must be tested. If its claims are seen to be true then that is good evidence for accepting it as the Word of God. If its claims are seen to be false then it fails its own test and should be rejected.

Muhammad Hamidullah has quite a detailed discussion of qur’anic variations in the preface to his French translation of the Qur'an. He divides them into four classes.

1. Variations caused by a scribe who makes an error while copying. Naturally these are easy to find by comparing with other copies.

2. Variations caused by someone writing notes of explanation in the margin. Hamidullah writes:

"The style of the Qur'an was such that sometimes even the companions of the Prophet had to ask him for explanations. Sometimes they noted these explanations in the margin of their personal copies in order to not forget them. It is completely understandable that sometimes the scribe mixed the text and the commentary while trying to faithfully make a new copy from an old one. We know of the famous order of Omar, who formally forbid the adding of commentary to copies of the Qur'an.

"There are hundreds of variant readings of this type. But the fact that `the Qur'an of such and such a teacher' has a certain addition which the others don't have, leaves no doubt as to the origin of that addition. Also the information concerning this type of variant given by the classical authors is sometimes contradictory---some saying that the Qur'an of so and so had a certain addition---others denying it."

3. Variations caused by the permission originally given by Muhammad to recite the Qur'an in other dialects than that used by the people of Mecca.

"Muhammad tried to make religion easy for even the most humble. Therefore, he tolerated some dialectical variations even for the text of the Qur'an because the essential thing was not the word but the sense; not the recitation, but the application and the assimilation. He said willingly, `Gabriel permitted me to have up to seven different readings.' While guarding for himself and his fellow citizens a certain reading, he permitted the members of different tribes to replace certain words by their equivalents---better known in their tribe. (Later Othman stopped this also.) But from copies made in outer areas and kept by their descendants, the teachers from previous centuries were able to gather a certain number of such words, which are exact equivalents of those used in the official version."

4. Variations coming from the fact that for the first 150 to 200 years after the Hejira, the hand written copies of the Qur'an were written without vowel marks, and without dots to distinguish between different letters written in the same way.

Hamidullah discusses this lack of vowels and dots in another passage from the same page. He writes,

"Finally, a (last) source of variants comes from the Arab writing of the earliest times, before the use of diacritical marks. It is sometimes possible to read a word as an active verb or passive, as masculine or feminine, and the context sometimes admits several possibilities."

An example of this type of variant is found in the above photograph. Starting toward the end of line three and continuing to the end of line seven the text reads,

"God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp: the lamp enclosed in glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star: lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east or of the west..."

In the Arabic texts used for their English and French translations Yusuf Ali and Hamidullah both have [arabic letter] (yuqadu) for the passive verb "lit". This masculine form would usually refer to the preceding masculine noun "star" (kaukab). But in line six of the photograph we find one letter which has been singled out and written with vowel points. It is [arabic word]. These two points above the letter change it to the feminine passive (tuqadu) which then refers back to the feminine noun "glass" (zujaja ) as the subject.

This Qur'an was copied when it was still possible for a scholar to say, "I prefer the reading of so and so", and the man who ordered the copy, or made it, believed that the feminine passive form was correct.

Since a translator like Yusuf Ali might mention only two or three variants in his whole translation, the impression is given that there are very few. Hamidullah is one of the few Muslim authors who has been willing to admit, as we saw above, that "there are hundreds of variant readings". In fact there are thousands. In Arthur Jeffery's work where he has listed all the variants which he has found reported in any document, there are more than 1700 attributed to Ibn Mas`ud alone.

Most of them, 99.9%, are like the above example and have very little importance, but a few represent real problems such as the following example from the Sura of the Table (Al-Ma'ida) 5:63 from 10 AH. The verse reads,

"Shall I tell you of an evil worse than that, for retribution with God? He who God cursed him, and was angry with him, and made some of them into monkeys and pigs, and worshiped (the idol) al-taghut."

The translation is mine(another author who did this translation), and it represents what the Arabic says, because according to the vowel marks "God" is the subject of the verb "worshiped"! But it is impossible to have a sentence in the Qur'an which says that God worshiped (the idol) al-taghut"! No translator has translated it this way, and I, myself, know this is impossible, so something has to be wrong.

It could be my faulty knowledge of Arabic, and that would be the first thing to suspect if I were the only one with a problem. However, when we look at Arthur Jeffery's Materials For the History of the Text of the Qur'an we find that this is not the case. Jeffery has found record of 19 alternate readings; seven attributed to Ibn Mas`ud, four to Ubai b. Ka`b, six to Ibn Abbas, and one each to `Ubaid b. `Umair and Anas b. Malik. Obviously each man could have had only one alternate reading. But the multiplication of possibilities shows that the scholars recognized the problem.

Here are the readings attributed to Ibn Mas`ud.

For those who don't know Arabic, these alternate readings can be divided into three classes: the verb is made plural so that the monkeys and swine are "those who worship (the idol) al-taghut", or the verb is put in the passive tense so that "al-ght is worshiped" by the monkeys and swine, or the word `abada is changed to a noun form making the monkeys and swine "slaves" or "worshipers of al-taghut".

Moreover, in 14 out of the 19 changes all that was done was to change the vowel combinations. In the other 5 cases one or two consonants were also added.

I have chosen to reproduce the readings attributed to Ibn Mas`ud because his first reading above (marked **) is the one which has been chosen by all the translators. The verse then reads,

"...(God) made some of them into monkeys and pigs, and who served (the idol) al-taghut..."

The fact that this difficult reading has been maintained in spite of the ease with which it could have been eliminated by altering two or three vowel marks, certainly proves the care with which copies were made after the vowels were added.

This website; http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_1st_quran.htm shows a fragment of the oldest extant copy of the quran. It is dated to the late 8^th century. This is fully 150 years after muhammed died. One of the charges that you have made is that "Do you have any originals? No, of course not, what you have are copies of the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals!"

Now, let me ask you; do you have any of the original copies of the qur’an? All you have are "copies of the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals!"

My point in all this about the qur’an is not that muslim scholars don’t have the actual reading of the true qur’an, but that these sorts of variations are endemic to working with ancient manuscripts. In truth it doesn’t matter to me if you have the original or not, because I don’t believe even the original is inspired. But the reality is, if you have more manuscripts, then you have a better chance of reconstructing what was said.

4. what exactly is meant by corruption.

I would like to discuss the idea of the corruption that occurs. There are nearly 25,000 whole or fragmentary copies of the individual books of the Bible in our possession today, with some dating back four, six, and even eight centuries before the compilation of the Quran. Due to the fact that everything was hand-copied, thousands of variants arose. Yet, textual critics who are not necessarily Christians, have carefully examined these variants and have concluded that we have 98.33% of the original reading, with the 1.77% still remaining intact within the variants. Hence, we have virtually 100% of the original reading faithfully preserved via the manuscript copies. Further, the critics have also established the fact that none of these variants affect any major doctrine, since most of them are nothing more than misspellings, numerical discrepancies, and scribal notes which were assumed to be part of the text by later scribes. An example of a variant is given here for further clarification:

Y*u hav on a illion llars
Yo ave w*n mill dollars
You have won a * dollars
You * million ars

A careful examination of these variants would lead us to the conclusion that the original document read, "You have won a million dollars." This exemplifies the majority of the variants found in the Bible, and clearly demonstrates that these in no way affect any tenet of faith whatsoever.

One further note to make is a comparison of our understandings of the "word of God":

Jesus walked on the earth, performed miracles publicly and was, at least according to orthodox Christian Theology, "the Word that became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14) The public was his eyewitness and many wrote about him. Though he handed down no sacred writings personally, his life was the gospel. The Apostles were eyewitnesses to his works and privy to his teachings like no others, and several of those apostles either wrote directly or dictated messages about him. These writings, about Jesus and about the Christian faith, became the NT.

Muhammed received his visions (the word of God) and told others what he had heard. He was not attended by miracles and claimed none other than the Qur’an itself. He told others his visions and after he died they began to collect what he told them into a written form.

In Christianity, multitudes saw "the word of God who was made flesh and who made his dwelling among men". If the apostles had begun to invent myth about Jesus, many eyewitnesses would have been able to refute them.

In Islam, no one saw or heard the word of God with the exception of Muhammed. He told everyone else what he had allegedly heard himself.

An analogous situation in Christianity would be if Peter alone knew of Jesus, and told all the other apostles what he said. The others would have no way to verify if Jesus even existed or what exactly, if anything, he said. Assuming that they believe Peters testimony, then the others write down what Peter said that Jesus said.

In Christianity, the "word" (Jesus) was out in the open for all to see.

In Islam, the "word" (the Qur’an) was hidden, never heard by any others personally.

Even if we could be absolutely sure that the text of the qur’an is the same as what muhammed gave, there was NEVER any eyewitness(earwitness to it) verification is therefore impossible. That is a dubious history.

I would also like to note your admission that "It is true that not one of these variant readings affects the substance of Christian dogma". For someone who has been trying to prove that 1) our scriptures are a "big mess", and that 2) even conservative christian scholars admit that we cannot trust our scriptures in an attempt to discern correct doctrine, this is truly amazing.

Hello Dr. Saifullah

I have been involved in discussing this issue with "johnny", and had not even noticed that you responded to one of my posts until now. I would like to carry on the discussion, though, but will have to do this "underground" since the moderators will not allow this on the NG.

First off, I would like to say that I have visited your website before and must give you credit. It seems like a thorough discussion of many different aspects of Islam, as well as the polemics that run between Islam and Christianity. I have frequently relied on your site to try and gain the proper view point of Islam. It seems that very often, in Muslim_Christian dialogue, there is a noticeable amount of basic misunderstanding of our respective positions. As such, we end up debating straw man issues. Hopefully I can avoid that, but I welcome your corrections, if I have misrepresented the Islamic position.

> > You are also correct in saying that they (the various churchs) do not

> > have a single canon. But all the canons, with the exception of the

> > syriac churchs, contain at least the same 27 new testament books. The

> > syriac, does not recognize 2 Peter, 2-3 John and Jude or the

> > Revelation. The Ethiopic Church has all 27 plus 12 more discussing

> > church order. The Coptic church uses 2 epistles of Clement plus the

> > 27. the Greek, Roman, and Protestant church all recognize the 27 New

> > Testament works, but vary somewhat on the Old Testament lit.

>

> That is not suppose to prove the "inspiration" of Christian scripture. It

> simply proves that there is no way to show which scriptures are from God

> and which are not. Further, it must be emphasized that the modern day New

> Testament is based on a scholarly consensus rather than being a "Word of

> God" or "Inspired by God". The links below would provide you with ample

> picture of what we are talking about concerning the modern day New

> Testament.

>

> http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Bibaccuracy.html

> http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Mss/criteria.html

> http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/criticaltext.html

I think it would be of value to clarify that both you and I have differing ideas as to how we view the "word of God".

Jesus walked on the earth, performed miracles publicly and was, at least according to orthodox Christian Theology, "the Word that became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:12) The public was his eyewitness and many wrote about him. Though he handed down no sacred writings personally, his life was the gospel. The Apostles were eyewitnesses to his works and privy to his teachings like no others, and several of those apostles either wrote directly or dictated messages about him. These writings, about Jesus and about the Christian faith, became the NT.

Muhammed received his visions (the word of God) and told others what he had heard. He was not attended by miracles and claimed none other than the Qur’an itself. He told others his visions and after he died they began to collect what he told them into a written form.

In Christianity, multitudes saw "the word of God who was made flesh and who made his dwelling among men". If the apostles had begun to invent myth about Jesus, many eyewitnesses would have been able to refute them.

In Islam, no one saw or heard the word of God with the exception of Muhammed. He told everyone else what he had allegedly heard himself.

An analogous situation in Christianity would be if Peter alone knew of Jesus, and told all the other apostles what he said. The others would have no way to verify if Jesus even existed or what exactly, if anything, he said. Assuming that they believe Peters testimony, then the others write down what Peter said that Jesus said.

In Christianity, the "word" (Jesus) was out in the open for all to see.

In Islam, the "word" (the Qur’an) was hidden, never heard by any others personally.

Even if we could be absolutely sure that the text of the Qur’an is the same as what Muhammed gave, there was NEVER any eyewitness(earwitness to it) verification is therefore impossible. That is a dubious history.

1) The Qur’an is supposed to be literally dictated word for word, from a template in heaven that has always existed. (I understand that not all Muslims hold the position that it has always existed) Any words added or subtracted would be a human corruption of what God himself said.

2) The Bible, according to Christianity, was inspired by God, but written by men.

In Christianity, the message is the gospel- which Jesus lived and spoke.

Consider this; He spoke in Aramaic, but the Bible was written in Greek. So we can see that from the beginning, it is of relative unimportance what the exact words are. It was never a criterion of spreading the message that Jesus’ words be only understood in his mother tongue of Aramaic. Matthew 28:19 says "therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.."

The exact words are not the message, the Gospel can be told in all different languages, it can be told by different authors, it can be reworded in different translations. It is not bound to an original language. If it were, then it would be important for Jesus words to have been recorded in the original.

Fortunately, His message is not restrained to exact words, but ideas and concepts that can be retold. The power of the Gospel is not in it’s eloquence, but in it’s ability to change men’s lives. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power."

However, the message handed down in the Qur’an, when we contrast with the Gospel, is a message that must be exactly reproduced. This is why it must be learned in the Arabic. Because it loses it’s power in the translation. The Qur’an’s only miracle is it’s supposed eloquence and the power of it’s words. Yet, it does not translate well, losing it’s force when expressed in English. This is why muslims insist that it must be learned in Arabic and memorized in Arabic. My copy of the Qur’an is not really a Qur’an, but only "the meaning of the Qur’an."

The bulk of your web links listed above, speak to 3 different areas: we don’t have the original copies, there are variations, and the art of textual criticism is a human endeavor.

This website; This website; http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_1st_quran.htm shows a fragment of the oldest extant copy of the quran. It is dated to the late 8^th century. This is fully 150 years after Muhammed died.

I can’t imagine that you would be saying that we need to have the originals in place for the message to be valid, because you would invalidate your own scriptures in so doing.

I imagine then, that the real issue is that there are variations, and with the textual criticism itself.

I will speak to the variations in a further section. As you have posted a few examples on your website, it believe that the conclusions drawn can be refuted by simply looking at the textual variations themselves.

As I am sure you are aware of, the transmission of the NT writings by hand is bound to introduce an amount of errors, just in the sheer magnitude of copying all of it. So that there are variations, of this kind is not really surprising. Where I am so often confused by the Muslim position, is how they can see the variety of manuscripts as a detriment to the process. The more witnesses that you have to an event, the more likely to accurately reconstruct the event. If we had only one copy of the NT, it would certainly make for a more monolithic statement of faith, but would, of course, completely lack in corroboration.

Given that we don’t have one copy and only one copy, let’s say there were 2. Whatever variations there are would have to be given equal weight. But more copies means more material to weigh. I suppose that for the most part, I believe you to be right; textual criticism is a human endeavor. The textual critics job is not to be a theologian (well, actually theology would enter into it, but you wouldn’t want anyone’s personal philosophy on God to override the obvious readings of the scripture) , his job is to reconstruct the original as closely as possible, no matter what the text may be.

Maybe, rather than looking at the NT as "the word of God", which, of course, carries a lot of emotion with it, we can look at the NT writings as historical documents.

As historical documents, the NT writings do not support the Islamic understanding of Jesus, (which was what my original post was in regards to; i.e. who is a true follower of Jesus? Searching out the true teachings of Jesus)

TC and the Qur'an: ( http://www.rim.org/muslim/texts.htm )

"Textual criticism is not a new invention. And paleography is not a new science. So it would seem to be a fairly simple thing to get together a team of experts, board the transportation device of choice, and examine the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an which Muslims can produce. "Strangely enough," Ahmad Von Denffer tells us,

although during the past two centuries of more intense orientalist study of Islam perhaps tens of thousands of books on Islam have been written and published by the orientalists, the original studies on the Qur'an, which are the sole basis of all research on Islam, number not more than half a dozen or so. . . - apart from translations - published during the present century.

Only four German orientalists (Noldeke, Schwally, Bergstraesser and Pretzel), we are told, and two English scholars (Arthur Jeffery and John Burton) deal with the history of the text of the Qur'an. Von Denffer views this absence of study on the Quranic text as "strange" - Arthur Jeffery does not. His colleague, Professor Bergstraesser, while studying the text of the Qur'an, discoloured one of twenty alleged originals of Uthman with his own blood. Jeffery himself is barred from examining at least one manuscript which he maintains is of great importance. The examination of the Quranic text has neither been an easy, nor a safe one for non-Muslims - neither have Muslims ever endeavoured to formulate a critical text themselves.

In spite of this discouraging news, and in spite of the fact that the Archives in Munich have been destroyed by bombs and fire (so the whole process has to be begun again), I do have access to both of the English works on the text of the Qur'an - hence, this paper. And though it is obvious that a paper of this scope cannot hope to deal exhaustively with the works of Jeffery and Burton - I can still summarize their conclusions.

Jeffery's work is basically a catalogue of textual variations (comparing today's text with the oldest sources) from 15 primary codices, 13 secondary codices and some unnamed codices. He sees this as the first step towards a critical text of the Qur'an (similar to the critical texts of the Bible). His work has not made Muslim apologist particularly happy, though Von Denffer acknowleges the usefulness for his work."

From this website: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm

A discussion of the discovery of early fragments of the Qur’an found in Yemen.

"The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt," says Andrew Rippin, a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, who is at the forefront of Koranic studies today. "Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic text is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed."

That Muslims have never "endeavored to formulate a critical text", means that we have a presentation of the Qur’an as monolithic. It is presented as without variation, and transmitted as such throughout the 1400 yrs. Yet that it is not really true. There are variations. In light of the variations we do know about, would you say that you can still see the original message? What if it is discovered that there are a lot more variations than are being admitted right now? Will you throw the message of Islam out altogether?

> > Just for reference, which church Father did not accept the New

> > Testament writings as scriptural?

>

> It is well-known that the early Church Fathers did not see as New

> Testament being an "inspired" scripture. In fact, it is well-known

> among those who have studied the early Church Fathers and their beliefs.

> More info at:

>

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/BibleTex.html#Fathers

You have cited Bruce Manning Metzger, some of whose works I have read, and George Arthur Buttrick.

The church fathers you mention are Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, The Didache, Papias of Hierapolis, Barnabus, Polycarp, and Hermas of Rome. We’ll take them one at a time, and rather than quote what a scholar says about what they believe, I will simply let you read their words. (from F.F. Bruce, the Canon of Scripture, and research done from the internet)

Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthian church (c ad 96), quotes the words of Jesus as being at least on a level of authority with those of the prophets. ‘The Holy Spirit says’, he states, introducing a conflated quotation from Jeremiah 9:23f. and 1 Samuel 2:10 (‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in the Lord, to seek him out and to practise judgment and righteousness’), and then he goes on:

"being especially mindful of the words of the Lord Jesus which He spoke, teaching us meekness and long-suffering. For thus He spoke: "Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as you do, so shall it be done to you; as you judge, so shall you be judged; as you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure you measure, with the same it shall be measured to you." By this precept and by these rules let us establish ourselves, that we walk with all humility in obedience to His holy words". (1 Clem. 13) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-roberts.html

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (c 110), refers to some people who refuse to believe anything that is not recorded ‘in the archives’ (or ‘in the charters’, meaning presumably the Old Testament scriptures), even if it is affirmed ‘in the gospel’. When Ignatius replies ‘It is written’ or ‘scripture says’ (presumably meaning a gospel writing), they retort, ‘That is the question’ — in other words, ‘Is the gospel scripture?’ Ignatius responds:

"I therefore exhort you that ye do nothing out of strife, but according to the doctrine of Christ. For I have heard some saying, If I do not find the Gospel in the archives, I will not believe it. To such persons I say that my archives are Jesus Christ, to disobey whom is manifest destruction. My authentic archives are His cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith which bears on these things, by which I desire, through your prayers, to be justified. He who disbelieves the Gospel disbelieves everything along with it. For the archives ought not to be preferred to the Spirit." It is hard to kick against the pricks; " it is hard to disbelieve Christ; it is hard to reject the preaching of the apostles." ( To the Philadelphians 8.2) http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-20.htm#P2065_349142

The Didache: Roughly contemporary with Ignatius’s letters (or perhaps a decade or so earlier) is the manual of church order called the Didache (superscribed ‘The Lord’s teaching to the Gentiles through the twelve apostles’), proceeding possibly from the neighbourhood of Antioch, where ‘the gospel’ is clearly the gospel of Matthew (the form of the Lord’s Prayer found in Mt. 6:9—13 is prescribed for regular use ‘as the Lord commanded in his gospel’).

Papias. How many gospel writings Papias knew is uncertain: Eusebius preserves comments which he made on two, thinking that they contained information that was worth quoting. One of the comments Papias claims to have derived from someone whom he calls ‘the elder’: it relates to Mark’s record:

"And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." (Fragments of Papias, 6) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html

from the Epistle of Barnabus;

"And all the more attend to this, my brethren, when ye reflect and behold, that after so great signs and wonders were wrought in Israel, they were thus [at length] abandoned. Let us beware lest we be found [fulfilling that saying], as it is written, "Many are called, but few are chosen." http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/noncanon.html

Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, writing to the church of Philippi between ad 110 and 120, reminds his readers, who (perhaps by their own testimony) were ‘well versed in the sacred letters’, that

It is declared then in these Scriptures, "Be ye angry, and sin not," and, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." (To the Philippians 12:1) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-roberts.html

some other fathers that were not mentioned:

the Palestinian Christian Hegesippus could report after his journeys among the Mediterranean churches that

"But in the case of every succession, and in every city, the state of affairs is in accordance with the teaching of the Law and of the Prophets and of the Lord..." (Fragments from His Five Books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html

"For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them" and " and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read" (F irst Apology, 66.3; 67.3) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html

Dionysius, bishop of Corinth about 170, complains that letters he has written have been falsified by omissions and interpolations; of those responsible for this misdemeanor he says,

And these letters the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others, for whom a woe is in store. It is not wonderful, then, if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord's writings, when they have formed designs against those which are not such. (Fragments from a Letter to the Roman Church,4) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/dionysius.html

Marcion was a gnostic heretic who thought the OT was no longer valid. He only accepted certain words of Jesus and modified or cut out the NT writings that he had no use for.

"addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that "they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."" Against Heresies, Book 1 6:3(quoting Galatians 5:21" I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.")

"Moreover, concerning the righteousness which the law enjoined, confirmatory utterances are found both with the prophets and in the Gospels, because they all spoke inspired by one Spirit of God." To Autolycus, Book 3 12:1 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-43.htm#P1939_521204

"Is it not written respecting such: "Whosoever shall speak an idle word, shall give an account to the Lord in the day of judgment? " And again, "By thy speech thou shalt be justified," He says, "and by thy speech thou shalt be condemned." from The Instructor, Book 2, 6 (quoting Matthew 5:22 and 36, and Matthew 12:37) http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-53.htm#P3706_1120269

An elementary reading of these early church fathers will clearly show a reliance on what primarily, Jesus taught and secondarily, what the Apostles taught. Most of the writings themselves are defenses against some heresy or encouragements to other believers. To claim that they themselves never thought of Jesus as anything more than just another prophet completely misses the bulk of the testimony.

> > There are approxiamtely 5,686 greek manuscripts, 19,000 in other

> > languages, and the 32,000 quotations from the 2nd-3rd century church

> > fathers. To assume corruption of all manuscripts and all of the

> > corruptions being of the exact same nature, would be such a massive

> > conspiracy as to be unthinkable. In fact, I have seen the same kind of

> > text charges leveled at the qur'an and seen the same very reasonable

> > defense used by muslims. If we were to have THAT kind of systematic

> > corruption, then we would not see the variations that exist now in the

> > text.

> > Conclusion, the theory just is not tenable.

>

> It is a good idea to boast about how many Mss you have; the fact being:

>

> "It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the

> MS tradition is wholly uniform."

>

> George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible,

> Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under

> "Text, NT").

>

> So, the more Mss you have the acute the problem of New Testament's

> reliability becomes. If there is not a single sentence in the New

> Testament Mss that is uniform how are we going to believe what is from God

> and what is not? It is not the conspiracy that we had created. It is more

> likely the the various Churches were involved in moving the words here and

> there for the sake of "improving" the New Testament to suit their

> understand of scriptures.

I believe the best defense of the NT is not to take this kind of statement at face value, but to investigate the area of textual criticism. This will be big, so forgive me for this but I believe that when you see real life examples of what the "corruption" is, it will appear much more mundane than the conjecture of our imagination.

NT Manuscripts: Chart of Variations (from http://www.biblequery.org/ NT Manuscripts)
For the NT, just how many manuscripts exist today? Here are the counts from various scholars of just the Greek manuscripts (complete manuscripts, small fragments, and everything in between).

Ralphe Earle had counted no papyrii, 270 Uncials, and 2,400 miniscules. Total 2,760

Aland et al, The Greek New Testament 3^rd Edition (from 1975) counted 76+ papyrii, 250+ uncials, 2768+ miniscules, and 1,761 lectionaries. Total 4,855+

Bruce Metzger in 1976 counted 88 papyrii(p1-p88), 274 uncials, 2,795 miniscules, 2,209 lectionaries and 20 ostraca. Total 5,386

Aland et al. in The Greek New Testament 4^th edition (1998), counted 95 papyrii, 286 uncials, 2,818 miniscules, and 1,977 lectionaries. Total 5,176

One reason the counts differ is that a number of new manuscripts have been discovered since 1975. Also some people call multiple manuscripts what others call one manuscript with multiple pieces.

The manuscripts in other languages, including 89+ Italic (Old Latin), four Vulgate families, 8 Syriac families, 8 Coptic families, Aramaic, Armenian, 2 families of Georgian, 3 families of Ethiopic, Slavonic, 5 Gothic manuscripts, Arabic, and Persian bring the total up to over 11,000 manuscripts.
The oldest preserved bilingual manuscript is Bezae Cantabrigiensis. Here is a list of bilingual manuscripts.
Greek and Latin (20 manuscripts)
Greek and Arabic (16 manuscripts)
Greek and Armenian (1 manuscript)
Greek and Coptic (52 manuscripts)
Greek and Slavonic (3 manuscripts)
Greek and Turkish (1 manuscript)
There are three known trilingual manuscripts:
Greek and Coptic and Arabic (2 manuscripts)
Greek, Latin, and Arabic
See Greek Manuscripts of the Bible p.56 for more info.

The number of manuscript variations for the NT versus other ancient works
Here are Bruce Metzger's estimates compared with other religious literature. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Metzger estimates the New Testament has 20,000 lines, an accuracy of 99.5% with only 40 lines (about 400 words) in question. (This is probably on a letter by letter basis.) Homer's Illiad is the next most reliably preserved document. It has 643-650 manuscripts, and is 95% accurate. It has 15,600 lines, with about 764 lines in doubt. The Hindu Mahabharata has 250,000 lines and is 90% accurate according to Bruce Metzger. (See the Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics p.532-533.) Over 26,000 lines have textual corruption. (See A General Introduction to the Bible - Revised and Expanded p.474-475 for more info.)

The dates of other early documents and the number of copies compared to the NT
Here are some other ancient works.

Aristotle wrote 364-322 B.C. There are only 5 copies, the earliest being 1100 A.D.

Caesar 100-44 B.C. 900 A.D. 10 copies

Demosthenes 4th century B.C. 200 copies

Euripides’ Tragedies 330 copies (The Origin of the Bible p.182)

Herodotus 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 8 copies

Homer wrote The Iliad 643-650 copies, more than any others. 5% of the words are in question

Jubliees (A Jewish apocryphal book) 14 copies among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Mahabharata (a Hindu scripture) 10% in question

Old Testament Manuscripts 235 scrolls and fragments the Dead Sea Scrolls alone. From the Great Isaiah scroll, about 5% of the words are different vs. the Massoretic text. However, most of these are archaic vs. later words and grammar with the same meaning.

Pliny the Younger 1st century A.D. 7 copies

Suetonius wrote The Twelve Caesars 70-140 A.D. The earliest copy is 950 A.D.

Tacitus 100 A.D. 1100 A.D. 20 copies

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 460-400 B.C. 900 A.D. 8 copies

The NT, a summary of the manuscript variations
There is about 97.3% certain of each New Testament word. (Other people might have slightly different numbers if they exclude some variations as certainly incorrect.) Here is a book-by-book summary.

Matthew; there are 18,111 words with 510 in question. 97.2% accuracy.

Mark, (except 16:9-20) 11.051 words with 392 in question. 96.5% accuracy.

Mark 16:9-20, 166 words in question. –1.5% (added to mark)

Luke, 19,581 words with 532 in question. 97.3% accuracy.

John, (except 7:53-8:11) 15,436 words with 322 in question. 97.9% accuracy

John 7:53-8:11, 168 words in question. –1.1% accuracy

Acts, 18,460 words with 478 in question. 97.4% accuracy

Romans, 7,030 words with 198 in question. 97.2% accuracy

Romans, (order 16:25-27) 53 words in question. -.8% accuracy

1 Corinthians, 6,799 words with 99 in question. 98.5% accuracy

2 Corinthians, 1,495 words with 50 in question. 96.9% accuracy

Galations, 2,233 words with 35 in question. 98.4% accuracy

Ephesians, 2,385 words with 43 in question. 98.2%

Phillippians, 1,621 words with 34 in question. 97.9%

Colossians, 1,570 words with 33 in question. 97.9%

1 Thessalonians, 1,477 words with 26 in question. 98.2%

2 Thessalonians, 826 words with 12 in question. 98.5%

1 Timothy, 1,592 words with 26 in question. 98.6%

2 Timothy, 1,336 words with 13 in question. 99%

Titus, 657 words with 5 in question. 99.2%

Philemon, 329 words with 6 in question. 98.2%

Hebrews, 4,888 words with 82 in question. 98.3%

James, 1,735 words with 27 in question. 98.4%

1 Peter, 1,648 words with 46 in question. 97.2%

2 Peter, 937 words with 35 in question. 96.3%

1 John (excluding 5:7-8) 2,103 words with 24 in question. 98.9%

2 John, 245 words with 7 in question. 97.1%

3 John, 219 words with 3 in question. 98.6%

Jude, 459 words with 7 in question. 98.5%

Revelation, 9,667 words with 127 in question. 98.7%

There are a total of 133,892 words with 3,561 words in question, for a 97.3% accuracy

The following table was calculated from the manuscript variations listed at the end of each book.
The following table shows differences primarily due to typos, spelling, grammar, and word changes. Note the relatively high number of single word changes.