تويت
سلام عليكم
أقوم بدعوة شخص مسيحى للإسلام و أرجو مساعدتكم فى الرد علي، و كنت قد أرسلت له هذا الرد
أقوم بدعوة شخص مسيحى للإسلام و أرجو مساعدتكم فى الرد علي، و كنت قد أرسلت له هذا الرد
Let's discuss the following two major points:
1- Bible is the same from the time of Jesus till our time, it is only different with some books added or omitted.
2- Ancient manuscripts supported the accuracy of books of the Bible.
Actually, this is going to be a long talk somehow, so I would rather do some summarizing in here fearing a long boring reply.
In order to realize the Bible – whether it was the exact Word of God or not – we have to study it, its origins, its authors, and mostly important to see what scholars say about all that.
In other words, we have to ask ourselves: Where did the Bible come from?
No credible Biblical scholar on this earth will claim that the Bible was written by Jesus himself. They all agree that the Bible was written after the departure of Jesus peace be upon him by his followers. So, if the authors of the Bible were people other than Jesus (pbuh), then did they have Jesus or the Holy Spirit in them guiding their hands and dictating to them word for word what to write? The answer is no. Who says so? The majority of today’s credible Christian scholars do. For example:
Dr. W Graham Scroggie of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, a prestigious Christian evangelical mission, says:
“..Yes, the Bible is human, although some out of zeal which is not according to knowledge, have denied this. Those books have passed through the minds of men, are written in the language of men, were penned by the hands of men and bear in their style the characteristics of men....”
“It is Human, Yet Divine,” W Graham Scroggie, p. 17
Another Christian scholar, Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem , says:
“...Not so the New testament...There is condensation and editing; there is choice reproduction and witness. The Gospels have come through the mind of the church behind the authors. They represent experience and history...”
“The Call of the Minaret,” Kenneth Cragg, p 277
For example, we read in the Bible the words of the author of “Luke”:
“It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,”
Luke 1:3
So, Then who were the authors of the Bible?
Obviously the Church must know them very well since they are popularly believed to have received divine inspiration from God Himself. Right? Actually, they don’t. For example, we will note that every Gospel begins with the introduction “According to.....” such as “The Gospel according to Saint Matthew,” “The Gospel according to Saint Luke,” “The Gospel according to Saint Mark,” “The Gospel according to Saint John.” The obvious conclusion for the average man on the street is that these people are known to be the authors of the books attributed to them. This however is not the case. Why? Because not one of the vaunted four thousand copies existent carries its author’s signature. It has just been assumed that certain people were the authors. Recent discoveries, however, refute this belief. Even the internal evidence suggests that, for instance, Matthew did not write the Gospel attributed to him:
“...And as Jesus passed forth thence, HE (Jesus) saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and HE (Jesus) saith unto HIM (Matthew), follow ME (Jesus) and HE (Matthew) arose, and followed HIM (Jesus).”
Matthew 9:9
Did “Matthew” write this about himself? Why then didn’t Matthew write for example: “he (Jesus) saw ME, and my name is Matthew. I was sitting at the receipt of custom…” etc.
Such evidence can be found in many places throughout the New Testament. Granted, it may be possible that an author sometimes may write in the third person, still, in light of the rest of the evidence that we shall see throughout this reply or further ones, there is simply too much evidence against this hypothesis.
This observation is by no means limited to the New Testament. There is even similar evidence that at least parts of Deuteronomy were not written by their claimed author, prophet Moses (pbuh) . This can be seen in Deuteronomy 34:5-10 where we read
“So Moses....DIED... and he (God Almighty) BURIED HIM (Moses)... He was 120 years old WHEN HE DIED... and there arose not a prophet SINCE in Israel like unto Moses....”
Did Moses write his own obituary? Similarly, Joshua too speaks in detail about his own death in Joshua 24:29-33.
“And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, DIED, … And they BURIED HIM … And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel ….”
Such evidence is part of the large cache which has driven the Biblical scholars to come to the current recognition that most of the books of the Bible were not written by their supposed authors. For example, the authors of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible by Collins honestly say that the author of “Kings” is “Unknown.” But if the author is unknown then why attribute it to God? How can it then be claimed to have been “inspired”? Continuing, we read that the book of Isaiah is “Mainly credited to Isaiah. Parts may have been written by others.” Ecclesiastics: “Author. Doubtful, but commonly assigned to Solomon.” Ruth: “Author. Not definitely known, perhaps Samuel.” and on and on.
Let us have a slightly more detailed look at only one book of the New Testament, that of ‘Hebrews’:
“The author of the Book of Hebrews is unknown. Martin Luther suggested that Apollos was the author...Tertullian said that Hebrews was a letter of Barnabas...Adolf Harnack and J. Rendel Harris speculated that it was written by Priscilla (or Prisca). William Ramsey suggested that it was done by Philip. However, the traditional position is that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews...Eusebius believed that Paul wrote it, but Origen was not positive of Pauline authorship.”
From the introduction to the King James Bible, New revised and updated sixth edition, the Hebrew/Greek Key Study, Red Letter Edition
and one book of the Old Testament:
“In tradition, [David] is credited with writing 73 of the Psalms; most scholars, however, consider this claim questionable.”
Encarta Encyclopedia, under “David”
Is this how we define “inspired by God”?
Another Question that may rise: Is the Bible 100% faultless and untampered-with by the Church?
Well then, in spite of these facts are the records found in the New Testament known to be 100% completely and fully authentic such that no intentional nor unintentional changes have ever been made by the church to the text of the NT? Well, since our opinion in this matter might be biased, therefore, let us ask the Christian scholars themselves:
“It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation. Involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors”
Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633
Who is speaking here? They are the Christian scholars who wrote Peake's commentary on the Bible. ‘Peake's Commentary on the Bible’ was published since 1919, which is universally acclaimed and considered to be the standard reference for students of the Bible.
Lets read now what the Encyclopaedia Brittanica says about this point:
“Yet, as a matter of fact, every book of the New Testament with the exception of the four great Epistles of St. Paul is at present more or less the subject of controversy, and interpolations are asserted even in these.”
Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 12th Ed. Vol. 3, p. 643
Dr. Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin Von Tischendorf, one of the most adamant conservative Christian defenders of the Trinity and one of the Church’s foremost scholars of the Bible was himself driven to admit that:
“[the New Testament had] in many passages undergone such serious modification of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what the Apostles had actually written”
Secrets of Mount Sinai , James Bentley, p. 117
Who is speaking here? He is the famous Dr. Tischendorf, and I think that he is well known to be introduced.
Another scholar, Dr. Frederic Kenyon, says after listing many examples of contradictory statements in the Bible:
“Besides the larger discrepancies, such as these, there is scarcely a verse in which there is not some variation of phrase in some copies [of the ancient manuscripts from which the Bible has been collected]. No one can say that these additions or omissions or alterations are matters of mere indifference”
Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, Dr. Frederic Kenyon, Eyre and Spottiswoode, p. 3
We will see later lots of examples of tampering and insertions to the texts of today's Bible, because one Email will not be enough to mention all.
I would like to raise another point: Is the Old Testament and New Testament we have today in our hands the same as were in the hands of the apostles of Jesus (pbuh)?
Normal people would answer this question in positive, but scholars have another thing to say:
If we were to go to a Western library and look up the history of the Bible as recorded by their own eminent Christian scholars throughout the ages, we would find that they tell us that the books of the “New Testament” in our possession today were not officially approved into the New Testament “canon” of “inspired” books until many centuries after the departure of Jesus. Tens of generations of Christians literally lived and died after the departure of Jesus (pbuh) never having known nor seen such a “New Testament” or “Bible” as the one in our possession today.
The famous Christian scholar Bart Ehrman has something to say regarding this point:
“Christianity in the second and third centuries was in a remarkable state of flux. To be sure, at no point in its history has the religion constituted a monolith. But the diverse manifestations of its first three hundred years - whether in terms of social structures, religious practices, or ideologies - have never been replicated. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the realm of theology. In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in only one God; others, however, claimed that there were two Gods; yet others subscribed to 30, or 365, or more. Some Christians accepted the Hebrew Scriptures as a revelation of the one true God, the sacred possession of all believers; others claimed that the scriptures had been inspired by an evil deity. Some Christians believed that God had created the world and was soon going to redeem it; others said that God neither had created the world nor had ever had any dealings with it. Some Christians believed that Christ was somehow both a man and God; others said that he was a man, but not God; others claimed that he was God but not a man; others insisted that he was a man who had been temporarily inhabited by God. Some Christians believed that Christ’s death had brought about the salvation of the world; others claimed that his death had no bearing on salvation; yet others alleged that he had never even died. Few of these variant theologies went uncontested, and the controversies that ensued impacted the surviving literature on virtually every level. … The New Testament manuscripts were not produced impersonally by machines capable of flawless reproduction. They were copied by hand, by living, breathing human beings who were deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day. Did the scribes’ polemical contexts influence the way they transcribed their sacred Scriptures? The burden of the present study is that they did, that theological disputes, specifically disputes over Christology, prompted Christian scribes to alter the words of Scripture in order to make them more serviceable for the polemical task. Scribes modified their manuscripts to make them more patently ‘orthodox’ and less susceptible to ‘abuse’ by the opponents of orthodoxy”
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart Ehrman, pp. 3-4
So Christianity of today is not quite the Christianity of the first two centuries which Jesus (pbuh) preached through his 33 years of his earthly life! Even the scriptures are not the same as they were written in the first place. Who says so ? Bart Ehrman, the second highest eminence scholar among Biblical manuscripts Scholars of this age.
Even more, Bart Ehrman says that the Orthodox of the first two centuries was the heresy of our time, and the heresy of that time became the Orthodox of today's Christianity. Let him say it in his own words:
“The classical understanding of the relationship of orthodoxy and heresy met a devastating challenge in 1934 with the publication of Walter Bauer’s Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, possibly the most significant book on early Christianity written in modern times. Bauer argued that the early Christian church in fact did not comprise a single orthodoxy from which emerged a variety of competing heretical minorities. Instead, early Christianity embodied a number of divergent forms, no one of which represented the clear and powerful majority of believers against all others. In some regions, what was later to be termed ‘heresy’ was in fact the original and only form of Christianity. In other regions, views later deemed heretical coexisted with views that would come to be embraced by the church as a whole, with most believers not drawing hard and fast lines in demarcation between the competing views. To this extent, ‘orthodoxy,’ in the sense of a unified group advocating an apostolic doctrine accepted by the majority of Christians everywhere, did not exist in the second and third centuries. Nor was ‘heresy’ secondarily derived from an original teaching through an infusion of Jewish ideas or pagan philosophy. Beliefs that were, at later times, embraced as orthodoxy and condemned as heresy were in fact competing interpretations of Christianity, one of which eventually (but not initially) acquired domination because of singular historical and social forces. Only when one social group had exerted itself sufficiently over the rest of Christendom did a ‘majority’ opinion emerge; only then did the ‘right belief’ represent the view of the Christian church at large.”
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart Ehrman, p. 7
The main reason for these different doctrines of early Christianity was that the apostles of Jesus were not preaching the same religion that Paul did through the gentiles. We can discuss this matter later on.
Naturally, if the “history” of today's Church regarding their chosen Gospels and what are claimed to be the inspired writings of Jesus’ first Apostles were true, and these writings had indeed been accepted as authoritative at that time, then they would have been the most precious and potent documents of preaching for their doctrine. Undoubtedly, they would have spoken of nothing else, but would have quoted them and appealed to their authority at every turn as they have been doing through the centuries since. But, for some 150 years, little or nothing besides the Old Testament were known or quoted. As said by the great critic, Solomon Reinach,
“With the exception of Papias, who speaks of a narrative by Mark, and a collection of sayings of Jesus, no Christian writer of the first half of the second century (i.e., up to 150 C.E.) quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.”
Orpheus a General History of Religions, Solomon Reinach, p. 218
In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible we read:
“All the evidence indicates that the words of Jesus were authoritative in the Church from the first, and this makes it the more remarkable that such scanty attention is paid to the words or works of Jesus in the earliest Christian writings, Paul’s letters, the later Epistles, Hebrews, Revelation, and even Acts have little to report about them... Papias (ca. AD 130), the first person to actually name a written gospel, illustrates the point. Even though he defends Mark’s gospel (Euseb. Hist. III.xxxix.15-16), and had himself appended a collection of Jesus tradition to his ‘Interpretation of the Oracles of the Lord’ (Euseb. Hist. III.xxxix.2-3), his own clear preference was for the oral tradition concerning Jesus, and the glimpses that Eusebius provides of Papias’ Jesus tradition give no hint of his dependence on Mark. Neither do the more frequent citations of Jesus in the APOSTOLIC FATHERS, largely ‘synoptic’ in character show much dependence on our written gospels”
The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume, p. 137
All these signs, and others I have not mentioned here, show that the gospels we have today – in addition to the rest of books of the NT – were not the same books used in the first two centuries by the followers of Jesus.
Another question I may raise: Are the ancient copies exact copies of one another?
The Christian world today is claimed to possess anywhere up to 24,000 “ancient manuscripts” of the Bible with a very few of them dating all the way back to the fourth century after Christ (but not back to Christ or the apostles themselves). In other words, they have with them gospels and epistles which date back to the century when the Trinitarians took over the Christian Church. All manuscripts from before this period have strangely perished. All Bibles in existence today are compiled from these “ancient manuscripts.” However, any reputable scholar of the Bible will tell us that no two ancient manuscripts are exactly identical.
“In any event, none of [the original manuscripts of the books of the Bible] now survive. What do survive are copies made over the course of centuries, or more accurately, copies of the copies of the copies, some 5,366 of them in the Greek language alone, that date from the second century down to the sixteenth. Strikingly, with the exception of the smallest fragments, no two of these copies are exactly alike in their particulars. No one knows how many differences, or variant readings, occur among the surviving witnesses, but they must number in the hundreds of thousands.”
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart Ehrman, pp. 27
People today generally believe that there is only ONE Bible, and ONE version of any given verse of the Bible. As we have begun to see, this is far from true. All Bibles in our possession today (Such as the KJV, the NRSV, the NASV, NIV,...etc.) are the result of extensive cutting and pasting from these various manuscripts with no single one being the definitive reference. There are countless cases where a paragraph shows up in one “ancient manuscript” but is totally missing from many others. For instance, Mark 16:8-20 (twelve whole verses) is completely missing from the most ancient manuscripts available today but show up in more recent “ancient manuscripts.” There are also many documented cases where even geographical locations are completely different from one ancient manuscript to the next. For instance, in the “Samaritan Pentateuch manuscript,” Deuteronomy 27:4 speaks of “ mount Gerizim ,” while in the “Hebrew manuscript” the exact same verse speaks of “ mount Ebal .” From Deuteronomy 27:12-13 we can see that these are two distinctly different locations. Similarly, Luke 4:44 in some “ancient manuscripts” mentions “Synagogues of Judea,” others mention “Synagogues of Galilee.” This is only a sampling, a comprehensive listing would require a book of its own.
On page 410 of his book “The Life of Jesus Critically Examined,” Mr. David Strauss says: “Nevertheless, on the other hand, the absence of the passage [John 8:1-11] in the oldest authorities is so suspicious that a decision on the subject [of its authenticity] cannot be hazarded.”
Indeed, the New Revised Standard version of the Bible itself admits that: “the most ancient authorities lack 7.53-8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or after 21.25, or after Luke 21.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful.”
On page 447 of “Dictionary of the Bible” by John McKenzie (bearing the Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, and Imprimi Potest, official Church seals of approval) we read “The passage of the adulterous woman (7:53-8:11) is almost universally recognized as secondary by critics. It is missing in most MSS; it is cited by no Gk writer earlier than the 11th century; the style is not that of Jn; and Papyrus Bodmer, dated about 200, does not contain it. Some MSS place it after Lk 21:38.”
The text goes on to state: “The angel of the pool of Bethesda (5:3b-4) is likewise missing in the most important MSS and in the Papyrus Bodmer, and is generally regarded as secondary. There are two conclusions (20:30f; 21:24f), which suggest that 21 is not a part of the original Gospel...”
There are countless of examples that we can see regarding this point , but I think this was enough for the meanwhile, hoping that we extend our talk and study to a more detailed one later on..
I pray to God that He Almighty will lead us all to the true Path of Salvation wherever it may be. Amen
Peace and Respect..
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والرد الذى أحتاج مساعدتكم فى الرد عليه هو كالأتى:
And yes to the presentation of what we have been given as the bible.
If Mathew was the Auther of his book - he doese not reflect on the sence of I or he simply describes the things he saw. As he understood what, we now call the destruction of the ego.I am not so concerned with what is genuines for me, when I read words of Angles it ressonatets within me.Fills me with Joy.But my path is the cabbalah and you may understand this -as what is given.when Mohamed (pboh) grieved that they will not listen to Gabriel his response was -be thee like Apes then..
R/e Old testament I understood it was Jeramiah (pboh) reflecting on the stories that the hebrew people told. forgive me here speculating but i think there was claim that older scrolls were found on the rebuilding of solomons temple (?) many things i have forgotten ther refference for.As the priest of jerusalam stated regarding the living book I find when I read I hear...it is not so much the words - as the seeking or reaching out People of Islam understnad this yes ? i believ can enhance many christian understanding- I welcome sharing G-d - so do our Heads (?)The Pope reflected on this recently as you know from my reports also the priest of Chantebury in the other group- please find these as they offer a great hope..but ehy are breaking the old order now ,but of course bound by their own position. which doese serve for the good.
For me i refuse the term Arch for it reflect on thwe church the building. the term go meassure the Temple has been our snake.. the same snake on that bloody hill ....do you understand the meaning of that hill.? I ask this . The covenant belongs to all Man who understnd- but the Mosk is very precious to us all
loads of love and peace
وجزاكم الله خيرا
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