Non corrupted bible.

[FireFromHeaven]

A Muslim gave this list of corruptions of the bible. I don’t know how to refute his examples. Does anyone here know how to?

Can ye (o ye men of Faith) entertain the hope that they will believe in you?- Seeing that a party of them heard the Word of Allah, and perverted it knowingly after they understood it. (2:75)

Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:“This is from Allah,” to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby. (2:79)

Actually, the Qur’an mentions that the Bible got corrupted. Furthermore, the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, told us not to consult the people of the Book lest they tell us something false and we accept it, and lest they tell us something true and we reject it.

“After all, “we sent down the Torah to you…””, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did not receive the Torah. The story in the modern day Torah is of no importance. It goes on to show the envy of the Jews who changed it.

You read Protestant translations. What do you think of the fact that the Old Testament translation you read is not in accordance with the New Testament you read?
Add to the list that the ending of Mark is missing in the earliest manuscripts. Also the famous “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” is missing from the earliest manuscripts. So is the story of the adulteress.

What do you think about the fact that the NT misquotes the OT?

Answer: Matthew 2:13-15 makes the claim that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fled to Egypt until recalled by an angel. This is supposedly in fulfillment of a prophecy: “Out of Egypt did I call My son.” The source of the so-called prophecy is Hosea 11:1. However, in the context of the verse as found in Hosea there is no prophecy, but simply a restating of israelite history.

What is more, the following verse in Hosea is a continuation of the prophet’s statement. It says of those called out of Egypt that they sinned against God: “The more they [the prophets] called them, the more they went from them; they sacrificed to Baalim, and offered to graven images” (Hosea 11:2). The application of Hosea 11:1 to Jesus would, on the basis of verse 2, describe him, as well as Mary and Joseph, as sinners. If one reads Matthew’s so-called fulfillment of prophecy within the context of that “prophecy” then one must consider that Jesus was a sinner."

Add to this the fact that Matthew 27 supposedly quotes Jeremiah as a fulfilled prophecy when in fact the verse (similar one) is found in Zechariah.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Here are some more examples.
gawaher.com/topic/735929-…res/?p=1238433
More corruption: gawaher.com/topic/734248-…lam/?p=1229980

 

[SonCatcher]

Prophesy has two types of meaning: an immediate one and a Full one. The immediate meaning of Hosea 11:1, as your friend indicates, is of how God led the Israelites out of Egypt. The full meaning interpreted by the evangelist is how God, making Jesus’ life a microcosm of the Nation of Israel, sent the Holy Family to Egypt and later called them out.

However, while the Israelites strayed (as recorded in Hosea 11:2), Jesus fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17).

 

[Dave_Noonan]

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

 

[stephe1987]

Actually, the Bible is surprisingly accurate considering how old it is. The “differences” are very small and do not change the meaning of the text, simple copy errors (it was all done by hand). The New Testament is considered 99.5% textually pure. And although we do not have originals, we do have pages that date back to the second century. Some are even under debate to be late first century. Maybe someday we’ll find something even older, originals or something very close to it. Historical discoveries are made all the time.

 

[FireFromHeaven]

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

Doesn’t that just prove his point though?

 

[Mumbles140]

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with His holy apostles, whom He charged with spreading His word all over the Earth, and giving them the Authority to do so. Fortunately, the Spirit inspired them to record these events, and later to compile them into one of the tools for said teaching!

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Actually, the Bible is surprisingly accurate considering how old it is. The “differences” are very small and do not change the meaning of the text, simple copy errors (it was all done by hand). The New Testament is considered 99.5% textually pure. And although we do not have originals, we do have pages that date back to the second century. Some are even under debate to be late first century. Maybe someday we’ll find something even older, originals or something very close to it. Historical discoveries are made all the time.

I guess that depends on what you consider a “small” difference or something that doesn’t change the meaning of the text. For example the, Septuagint version of Jeremiah is about 13% shorter than the Hebrew version of Jeremiah. In my opinion that’s not a small difference.

 

[Khalid]

Read *What every Christian needs to know about the Qur’an *by James White (a Reformed Baptist apologist). It is about 300 pp. and is available for $15 on Amazon. It does a better job than I can. Therein he lays out, in an eirenic manner, the foundational errors in the Muslim line of reasoning, showing how it reduces to absurdity if the Qur’an’s own commands (such as the command for Muhammad to check his revelations by the revelations of the Jews and Christians, a verse that was never abrogated and applies still today, as we still have the same NT and OT that Muhammad’s contemporaries had).

I’m a former Muslim and can refute most of the charges point-by-point, but it is annoying and takes a long time. If your faith is challenged by this Muslim, tell me, and I will refute them point-by-point. Several major refutations can be made:

1. Recrimination - The Qur’an contains manifest error (was the world created in six or eight days? is Mary part of the Trinity?). Why should that which contains error be trusted, if Muslims claim that every part is fully reliable, the eternal speech of Allah?
2. Earliest history - The earliest Muslim commentators and the Qur’an believed that the Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Scriptures were corrupted, not the text itself. It is assumed the text is reliable, or many Qur’anic commandments would be senseless.
3. Circumstances of the charge - Muslims started accusing Christians of tampering with the text, and not the interpretation, because the Qur’an clearly states that Muhammad was prophesied in the Bible. This is manifestly untrue, so the Muslims, on blind faith, had to say the Bible was corrupted to remove the mentions of Muhammad - else the Qur’an, which is analogous to Christ Himself in Islam (the ahadith are analogous to the Bible), contains a lie.
4. Resulting absurdity in the Islamic system and the Qur’an - Muhammad acknowledges in places, as in Qur’an 16:43*, that the Tanakh and NT available in his day were still the word of God. Indeed, the Qur’an calls both the word of God, and says the word of God can never be changed. (A list of Qur’anic proof-texts is provided here.) But, we have manuscripts, entire copies of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, from over 250 years before the birth of Muhammad. Thus, the Scripture we have today is the Scripture Muhammad’s opponents had, and which he viewed as the word of God (he just horribly misunderstood it, based on the oral legends he compiled the Qur’an out of), as we have copies older than Muhammad.

Here is 16:43 in several translations:

Y. Ali: “And before thee also the apostles We sent were but men, to whom We granted inspiration: if ye realise this not, ask of those who [already] possess the Message.”

Hilali-Khan (KSA official): “And We sent not (as Our Messengers) before you (O Muhammad SAW) any but men, whom We inspired, (to preach and invite mankind to believe in the Oneness of Allah). So ask of those who know the Scripture (learned men of the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)), if you know not.”

Asad: “AND [even] before thy time, [O Muhammad,] We never sent [as Our apostles] any but [mortal] men, whom We inspired: and if you have not [yet] realized this, ask the followers of [earlier] revelation,”

Sale: “We have not sent any before thee, as our apostles, other than men, unto whom We spake by revelation. Inquire therefore of those who have the custody of the scriptures, if ye know not this to be truth.”

Arberry: “We sent not any before thee, except men to whom We revealed: 'Question the people of the Remembrance, if it should be that you do not know --”

 

[Khalid]

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

I agree to a point here. You can not refute it with evidence, point-by-point, effectively. You must refute it with presuppositions, showing how, the axioms of the Islamic system, or the Qur’an, when taken on its own terms, are self-refuting, and provide no ground for knowledge of the world, of the mind, or of God.

Evidentialist apologetics is pointless, as there are always “new lists”; evidence only convinces the jury, not the defense. Effective apologetics, which convinces your opponent, must by needs be presuppositionalist, and convict of the absurdity of the system which gives impulse to generate “new lists”, and shows that only Christianity avoids said self-contradiction and absurdity. You must show him that the Qur’an can not make sense of the Qur’an, let alone the Bible, but that the Bible makes sense of both itself and the Qur’an. (Or that Christianity makes sense of Islam, but Islam [the Qur’an and ahadith] can not make sense of Christianity.)

Christianity actually doesn’t avoid contradiction and absurdity if we’re not all literally descended from one pair of real, historical, literal first parents, Adam and Eve, who underwent a real, historical Fall, which leaves an indelible mark which is passed on to all descendants. (And quite a few other things. The creed for a completely self-consistent system is quite a bit longer than the Nicene, and deals more directly with epistemology. De-historicizing Genesis is just one of the most common tendencies I see that blow away any hope of truly offensive, instead of merely defensive, apologetics.*) Don’t use this type of argument as an evolutionist, or unless you are certain your system holds up under the application of presuppositional reasoning, or else you’re likely to find that the sword cuts both ways, and is held to your own throat by your debate opponent, if you have any inconsistencies in your own system

For then he can say, “so do you”.

*My post above contains mainly “defensive apologetics” (with the exception of #4, which is offensive); it will allow you to maintain the rationality of your position, but it will not convince your opponent to abandon his. “Offensive apologetics”, as I am here using it, not only allow you to maintain your own system, but convince your opponent to abandon his. Remember here that there is no magical argument that every rational person accepts on its own force.

 

[concretecamper]

Dave Noonan:

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

If you have found that the bible contains errors and problems you may want to consider looking at a better source for research.

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android

 

[concretecamper]

Dave Noonan:

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

You’re not going to be able to refute this point effectively because even if you answer all of his objections, he will come back with a new list.

if you have truly found errors and problems with the bible text you may want to consider a more reliable source for study.

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android

 

[FireFromHeaven]

g

So are the examples he gives just translation errors?

 

[Khalid]

g

So are the examples he gives just translation errors?

They are not errors in translation (although there can be errors in translation, such as the 8-year-old king in the KJV: the specific errors mentioned are not translational errors), nor are they errors in the manuscripts being translated - the charges themselves are fatuous. The charges come from reading a text, instead of contextually, with the sole purpose of finding contradiction in it. Most people read texts “normally”; one can also read to find contradiction (critical reading, for lack of a better term), and can read with an intent to harmonize (the “hermeneutic of orthodoxy”).

Basically, the problems mentioned don’t even exist except in an overactive imagination searching the Bible for so-called contradictions or difficulties. There are many more actual difficulties in the Bible (although no contradictions), but very few of them can be used to help promote Islam in any way (i.e. the Genesis 1 and 2 creation narrative “contradiction”, or the “Is Israel already holy or called to be holy?” Levitical/Deuteronomical “contradiction”, or the “Which day was Christ crucified?” difficulty). There are entire books, such as Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties, that deal with the subject and (convincingly) resolve most of what they deal with.

CARM, the site I linked to above for Qur’anic proof-texts, deals with about a hundred of the more commonly mentioned Biblical difficulties. It can be a useful resource, but, be warned, it is anti-Catholic when it deals with Catholicism, as Reformed theology tends to be. This fact does not impede its usefulness.

Recall this, above all else, as a proof of the pure fideism of Islam: Muslims deny the crucifixion of Christ, which is the best-attested of any ancient historical event. No other event of ancient history - not even the fact that Caesar was Dictator for Life, or that he adopted Augustus who was the first Emperor of Rome - are as well-attested in the historical literature as the crucifixion of Christ. If one is to deny the crucifixion, one must well deny the ability to hold any knowledge whatsoever - strong agnosticism - of any history.

The same can be said for denying the textual purity of the Bible. I believe that the Bible has been preserved in the Greek Traditional Text, as underlay the KJV and NKJV, and has been used since time immemorial by the Orthodox Church. But, the foremost textbook on textual criticism today, written by a man who by no means could be called a conservative, which espouses the most widely accepted “critical and eclectic text” theory, is Metzger: The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, where “corruption” means copyist error and “restoration” means the art of textual criticism. Very few of even the liberals or unbelievers (not even Bart Ehrman, who co-edited the newest version of Metzger, and whose theories are much more reasonable when presented to academics instead of sensationalized in trade paperback) deny that we can reconstruct the original NT as it was written with nearly 100% accuracy (although liberals deny full 100% accuracy, or providential preservation, which is what I support, in supporting the Byzantine text-type).

The debates with liberals and unbelievers come to the authority of that which was originally written, or the accuracy of the Evangelists in reporting history. (It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Luke, who wrote Luke-Acts, ranks among the premier historians of antiquity. Since his account agrees, on the whole, with the others, they gain imputed archaeological validation, etc. etc. etc. to the point where to challenge their accuracy is self-defeating folly.) The fact that the Bible or the Qur’an have been transmitted preserved does not validate the message taught in either one: it merely assures us that we have the message as it was originally written by the author of the book.

 

[FireFromHeaven]

So he just made up difference in various versions?

 

[Khalid]

I may have misunderstood your question - the fact that one Greek or Hebrew word or phrase can be represented by more than one English word or phrase does not indicate error. There are also many translations of the Qur’an (although only the Arabic is “the Qur’an”, as a native speaker of Arabic, I say unto thee, that at least 10% is completely incomprehensible, a verdict agreed upon by several prominent orientalists: an example is “samad”, as in “Alllahu-samad” in Surah al-Ikhlas; no one knows what the word means, and every translation translates it differently, like “Abrek!” in Exodus), translating the same Arabic word different ways.

“Happy is the man who walks not in the ways of the wicked” and “Blessed is the one who walketh not in the paths of evildoers” mean the same thing, and are translated from the same, underlying Hebrew text. This is the debate about “formal” v. “dynamic” equivalency in translation.

Now, think of two ways to express a given thought, both in English, originally in English, translated from nothing. They are functionally equivalent to speakers of American English: the transmit the same information. Example: “You have won one million USD” and “You have been selected to receive $1m”, for a poor example I took off of the top of my head. Now, in Biblical transmission, it’s like this:

H#PPY IS THE MAN WHO WALKETH…
HAPPY #S THE MAN WHO WALKS…
HAP#Y IS THE MXN WHO WALKETH…

With the hashes, misspellings, and case differences indicating metaphorical copyist errors. There are actually less errors in the NT than in the three above sentences per unit of material, and there are nearly 6,000 Greek manuscripts instead of only three sentences - and see, with even three sentences, how no information is lost, and how easy it is to reconstruct the original? How much more so with six thousand instances!

If this does not answer your question, please ask again!

 

[FireFromHeaven]

I may have misunderstood your question - the fact that one Greek or Hebrew word or phrase can be represented by more than one English word or phrase does not indicate error. There are also many translations of the Qur’an (although only the Arabic is “the Qur’an”, as a native speaker of Arabic, I say unto thee, that at least 10% is completely incomprehensible, a verdict agreed upon by several prominent orientalists: an example is “samad”, as in “Alllahu-samad” in Surah al-Ikhlas; no one knows what the word means, and every translation translates it differently, like “Abrek!” in Exodus), translating the same Arabic word different ways.

“Happy is the man who walks not in the ways of the wicked” and “Blessed is the one who walketh not in the paths of evildoers” mean the same thing, and are translated from the same, underlying Hebrew text.

If this does not answer your question, please ask again!

Thank you sir. That solves my problem.

 

[jakasaki]

Khalid dear old friend ~

Nice to see you back in here and to read your posts…

Be well & best regards
Pam

 

[ericc]

He’s right. There are a lot of irresolvable problems with the Bible and plenty of evidence of errors in the transmission of the text–which is why no two manuscripts are the same.

If there are a lot of irresolvable problems, then could you kindly list the top 10 problems. I would like to have a go at solving them and in the process learn a bit more about the Bible. I am surprised after 2000 yrs, nobody has resolved them. Perhaps we can do a sticky so that Muslims, if they are keen to know, have a easily available source to answer their curiosities. Before we go further, perhaps we need to define “irresolvable”. It can not be merely difficult or those that can have multiple explanations or just copyist errors. It truly must mean irresolvable, that is, a conflict of sorts that contradict each other that materially affect doctrine. Perhaps others have a better definition?

After the Top 10, we can go for the next 10 and so on.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I used the same technique that this Muslim is using when I was a Jehovah’s Witness. It’s actually a trap. Let me explain.

It starts from a false presumption, namely that that any differences that can be found when comparing texts is proof of the Muslim’s concept of “corruption.” If you engage in the argument you are agreeing with the Muslim that there are “corruptions” in the Biblical text that have to be answered for. And when you attempt to do so you inadvertently back up the Muslim’s belief that there are “corruptions,” otherwise (from their point of view) why would you argue the point?

Engaging in the argument makes the Muslim feel they have the superior religion because you have to answer for his/her misconceptions about our faith.

This is what is known as a “formal fallacy.” It’s an invalid argument because the Muslim personally interprets the differences, interpolations, and editing of the text as “corruptions,” whereas Jews and Christians recognize this as part of the inspiration process that put the Scriptures in their final form. To Jews and Christians it is only the* final form* that is canonized that is considered inspired, not the text before all the pieces and parts came together to become the canonized text.

There is another fallacy the argument is presenting. It is claiming that for the thousands of years that we’ve had the Scriptures only the Muslims (who don’t use the Bible nor are authorities on manuscript transmission) can spot impurities in Jewish and Christian texts.

But how is that? And why would they care what our text actually says?

The use of the argument is actually an invention (the JWs use this all the time), a “scarecrow” argument that is composed of a problem they create in the first place. Since there is no substance to the claim or “scarecrow,” the beliefs of this person’s religion successfully “knock over” the argument every time, thus creating the illusion that their doctrine is right.

But we don’t believe that any such problem exists. In fact it doesn’t hold up to logic for such problems to be unsolvable in Holy Writ.

If there were “irresolvable” problems with the Scriptures, don’t you think this would have caused the Church and the Jews to do away with these texts instead of viewing them as holy for more than 2000 years? Or if we were trying to hide these things to fool people into the “wrong” religion, don’t you think we would have done that by now?

In light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which show that the Bible has indeed come down to us substantially in the form in which is was written) and such documents as the John Ryalnds fragment (P52), we would have to dismiss weighty evidence to believe that the Scriptures are somehow corrupted to the point that they don’t contain what was originally written.

But suddenly your Muslim friend comes along and we are supposed to be believe that he/she has an insight that neither the great rabbis of the centuries past or the apostles and the Church Fathers possessed?

Are all the Biblical and linguistic scholars of history so incapable of being able to note any actual “corruptions” to Scripture that we had to wait for this Muslim friend of yours to be born since the actual truth of the matter lies with this one individual and their view of the matter, theirs alone? (They must be a very special and bright spot in the universe if that’s the case!)

No, this is not a logical argument to begin with and let them know this. Instead of trying to answer each and every one of their objections, force them to prove that the Dead Sea Scrolls are forged or that critical studies of manuscript transmission over the centuries is flawed. That would be necessary before other objections could be raised.

 

[Khalid]

The first several paragraphs of the post above me actually lay out a decent basic “presuppositional apologetic” as we discussed, although he uses the word “presumption” instead of “presupposition” or “axiom”.

Everyone, when thinking about philosophy or apologetics, eventually comes to presuppositionalism. There just aren’t many textbooks on it. It, like Aquinas’ theology, and Aristotle’s philosophy, is an “apologetic of common sense”, that says, “if my opponent does not accept the arguments that I do, but is likewise rational, he must reason beginning with a different set of axioms, or worldview, which is more or less [less in the case of non-Christians] coherent”, instead of attempting to find some arcane justification for why one man accepts, and another does not (all other things being equal).