Muslim

How do you know that these manuscripts are as ancient as you say they are? What proofs have you that they were not written in quite recent times? How could paper last all these centuries?

Christian

All these old manuscripts are written on parchment, not on paper, and their great age is evident at a glance. This also accounts for the loss of some pages from some of them. They are written in very old Greek characters (Unicals) which are different from later Greek writing (Cursive) as is the modern Arabic character different from the ancient Cufic, which we find on old coins. Scholars have made a special study of this; and it is well known that the Modern Greek writing itself, which is far more recent, came into use before Muhammad's time. Scholarly believers and unbelievers alike, are agreed as to the fact that these manuscripts were written not later than the dates which I have mentioned (in the text or notes), though it is acknowledged that some of them may be still more ancient than I have said. We have plenty of other MSS. dating from about Muhammad's time and onward, the writing of which is quite different.

Muslim

You have said nothing about the Hebrew Old Testament.

We have no manuscripts of the Hebrew text which is as ancient as the Greek ones mentioned above, but we know from Josephus and other historians that the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) was made from the Hebrew between 250 and 200 years before Christ, that is between 872 and 822, many years before the Hijrah, and every one knows that a translation must be more recent than the original from which it is made. We have also other translations of the Old Testament made centuries before Muhammad’s time, and of these I shall soon speak. Besides this, we have the Samaritan Pentateuch in Hebrew, but in very ancient characters. This was preserved by the Samaritans, enemies of the Jews, from the time of the Babylonian Captivity under Nebuchadnezzar. The modern Samaritans still keep it safe, and have even an ancient translation (The Samaritan Targum) of it in a later form of their own spoken language, that is to say, into the language they used to speak hundreds of years before they learned to speak Arabic.

Muslim

Have you any other proof that the Bible has not been corrupted since Muhammad's time?

Christian

Our second proof is afforded by the existence of versions of the Bible which were made ages before Muhammad's birth. These languages have long ceased to be spoken. We have the translations of the Bible into them. The principal of these ancient versions are:

(1) The Septuagint (Greek), which I have already mentioned.

(2) Three versions of the New Testament and one of the Old into Syriac. Of these, two are of especial value. The first of these is called the Curetonian from the name of the discoverer of the ancient manuscript which contains it. This version was made at its latest in the second century after Christ the manuscript was written in the fifth century. The second is the Peshitta, made at its latest in the third century: the oldest manuscript which we have was written in the fifth century. Even the third, or the Philoxenian version, was made long before Mohammad’s time, in 508 A.D.

(3) Three Coptic versions: the Buhairic, made in the second or third century; the Sahidic, and the Bashmuric or Middle Egyptian, both probably of the same date. These three Coptic versions are in the three chief dialects of ancient Egypt.

(4) Two Latin versions; one the Old Latin, made in the second century. We have manuscripts of its remains which date from the fourth and fifth centuries. The other is the Vulgate, a more correct translation made by Jerome A.D. 383-5 He translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, whereas the Old Latin was translated from the Greek version. The oldest manuscript Vulgate was written before A.D. 546.

(5) The Ancient Armenian, was made by Mesrob and published in A.D.436 just 186 years before the Hijrah

(6) The Gothic, made by Ulphilas, who died in A.D.381. The manuscripts of it date from the fifth to the middle of the sixth century.

(7) The Ethiopic, made by Frumentius in the fourth century

(8) Several Aramaic versions of the Old Testament made by Jews in the second and third centuries. The Targum of Onkelos being the most famous of these which dates from the end of the third century.

Muslim

How do you know all these dates?

Christian

From history in many cases, and in others from finding quotations from these versions in writers who lived at the periods we have mentioned. No one can quote a book before written.

Muslim

Have you any further proofs?

Christian

Only two more that need be mentioned. One, the third proof, is that we have a vast number of verses quoted from the Bible in the works of early Greek, Latin, Syrian, and even Armenian writers, all of who lived before Muhammad's time, and whose dates are perfectly well known. These quotations are so numerous that we could reconstruct nearly the whole New Testament and much of the Old from them, if we had lost all our ancient manuscripts and versions

The fourth proof is afforded by ancient catalogues of the books of the Old and New Testaments. Six of these, all drawn up before Muhammad's time and some many centuries before him, contain the names of all the books of the Bible that we now have. The most ancient of all, the Muratorian Fragment on the Canon, is torn at both ends, but it contains just the same list of books that our present Bibles do. It dates from the second century.

Muslim

You Christians seem to have taken a lot of trouble in order to refute our objections.

No amount of trouble would be too much to take in order to remove the prejudices which prevent men, for whom Christ died, from coming to Him for salvation. But it was not to refute Muslim objections that we made all these investigations and many more. We made them, in the first place, to satisfy ourselves lest we should have been led astray in religion. We did not wish to be in any uncertainty about the Bible, upon which our religion is founded; and we are told in the Bible to “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good “.(1Thess a lonians 5:21)

Muslim

But your ancient manuscripts and versions differ from one another so much that you have thousands of different readings in your Bibles. How can you be sure which is correct?

Christian

That shows how carefully we have collated manuscript with manuscript and version with version, noting even the varied spelling of the same word in different manuscripts. But the result of all our investigations is that all the varied readings put together do not alter or render doubtful one single article in our creed.

Muslim

How do you account for these various readings? Do they not prove that attempts were made to corrupt the text of the Bible?

Christian

Not at all; for, as I have said, they have not altered one single doctrine or one single precept given in the Bible. The variety of readings arose in different ways. The most usual cause was a mistake of the copyist, who often wrote from dictation. Another reason was that certain words were sometimes written and spelled in one way, sometimes in another. Occasionally also, when a note was written in the margin of a manuscript a later scribe in one or two instances mistook it for a passage that had been omitted by mistake, and inserted it in the text of the copy he made. But as we have so many copies we are easily able to detect such mistakes, and distinguish the few verses which are at all doubtful.

Muslim

If the Bible is really inspired, why should it contain all these variations and discrepancies? Surely God would ensure that in an inspired book there should be nothing to present difficulties to an inquiring mind.

Christian

Very often what appear to us to be discrepancies are not really such. If we knew all the facts of the case, we should see that there is no discrepancy at all in the matter. The doubtful passages also are few, and all taken together do not affect one doctrine of the Christian faith. The fact of the existence of so many earnest Christians in all ages since the ascension of Christ shows that these difficulties have not prevented true and earnest inquirers from becoming Christians. These very difficulties are doubtless useful as a test to our earnestness

Muslim

What a blessing it is that in our Quran there are no such doubtful verses as are found in the Bible!

Christian

If you will not be offended I shall show you that, whereas there is practically no doubt about the text of our Bible, it is certain from tradition that the text of your Quran is very far from reliable.

Muslim

Prove it, if you can: I shall not be offended.

Christian

Muslim, the Traditionalist in the Kitabu’z zakat tells us that, since Uthman’s revision of the Quran, some verses which once formed part of the book are no longer found in it. He says, for example, that at Basrah, Abu Musa Ashari said to 500 reciters of the Quran, “Verily we used to recite a Surah which, in length and sharpness, we used to compare with an arrow. I have forgotten it, except that I have preserved from it the words…….. . . . And we used to recite a Surah which we used to compare with one of the Sabuhat and I have forgotten it except that I have preserved from it the words “0 ye who……”

In the Kitabu’r Riza, Muslim quotes from 'Ayishah a tradition that the verse on Giving Suck was known at the time of Muhammad's death; but it is no longer found in the Quran.

In the Kitabu’l Hudud, Muslim proves that the verse on Stoning once occurred in the Quran and 'Umar was so firmly convinced of this that, according to Abu Daud he swore by God that he would have caused it to be entered in that volume, had he not feared lest men should accuse him of adding something to it. According to Ibn Majah (Abwabun Nikah) Ayishah affirmed that two verses, one of which was this very verse on Stoning, met with a strange fate. She says that they were duly revealed and written out, and that the manuscript was placed under her bed; but that when Muhammad died and all his wives and friends were busy in consequence, some tame animal (probably a goat) came in and ate it, and so these verses perished!

Again, the Shi’ite accuses 'Uthman of intentionally eliminating from the Quran all passages relating to Ali.

The Ainul Hayat affirms that Surah 33 Al Ahzab was originally longer than Surah 2. Al Baqarah, but was afterwards corrupted by the omission of many verses.

It is not we Christians who say these things, but some of you Muslims.

Muslim

Such statements are unworthy of credit, for they rest upon unreliable traditions.

Christian

It is too difficult a task for me to decide between your traditions which are reliable, which doubtful, and which false but fortunately the text of the Bible does not rest upon tradition but upon manuscript authority.

Muslim

Produce the original manuscript of your Taurat and Injil, written by the hands of Moses and Jesus upon whom they descended, and we shall at once admit that your Bible has not been corrupted.

Christian

Before asking us to do that, you should produce the original manuscript of the Quran, written by Muhammad, upon whom you assert that it descended

Muslim

At least we have no various readings in our glorious Quran, as you have in the Bible.

Christian

You have not so many, though it would be easy to point out a few, but as the text of your Quran is so much more recent than that of the Bible, as it forms a book so much smaller, and as it rests entirely upon the authority of a single manuscript it is not strange that you have so few various readings. In the Mishkatul Masabih chapter 3 we are informed that, by the command of the Khalifah Abu Bakr, the Quran was “collected " by Zaid ibn Thabit "from palm leaves and stones and from the breasts of those who had learned off by heart" portions of the supposed revelation. This took place in A.H. 14 Abu Bakr kept the manuscript until he died, and then "Umar took possession of it this is what Al Bukhari says. Afterwards it came into the possession of Hafsah, one of Muhammad's widows. But so many copies with different readings and so many discordant forms of certain Surahs were repeated by men who had leamt them off by heart (the Hafizun), that Uthman some years later caused Zaid with the assistance of three others to make fresh copies of Hafsah's manuscript, and, sending these to be kept in different places, compelled those who possessed other copies to give them up to be burnt. Some resisted, but in vain. That the new edition of the Quran thus published differed from the first edition seems probable from the fact that, as Qustalanil says, after Hafsah's death her copy was torn in pieces by Mirwan, governor of Medina under Mu'awiyyah.

The burning of all other copies shows that serious variations had already found an entrance into the text, and this drastic remedy prevents us from comparing ancient copies with one another. What Muslim (Kitab Fazaiilul Quran) and others tell us about the “Seven Readings” readings prevalent even in Muhammad's time points in the same direction. Muslims assure us that these were merely differences in pronunciation but this may well be doubted, for in the same book Muslim tells us that Umar bin al Khattab was so much offended at the way in which Hisham bin Hakim recited Surah 25 Al Furqan, that he took him by the cloak and brought him to Muhammad to complain of it. After hearing both men repeat the Surah, Muhammad declared that both were right, and asserted that the “Seven Readings“ were all alike admissible ! But according to Nisai, certain words (letters - haruf) occurred in Hisham’s version which was not in what others professed to have learned from Mohammad.

Ubai is represented by Nisai as saying that the fact that others repeated verses in a form different from that in which he had learnt them gave him quite a shock. If our leading men had burnt all the ancient manuscripts of the Bible and compelled all copies to be made from one which they had caused to be written, we too should have but few varied readings in our Bible, but all scholars would recognise that no reliance whatever would be able to be placed upon the text thus produced.

(The Bishop of Lahore writes: "I used to find the following illustration effective. S uppose a master dictates a piece of prose to ten scholars. Probably in each copy there will be one or more mistakes. But these are easily corrected by comparison with the other copies, since the same mistake will not be made by many. If, however, all copies are destroyed but one, there will be no admitted various readings, for no standard of comparison exists: at the same time all proof of accuracy is gone. So we see that, the larger is the number of copies preserved, the larger will be the number of various readings, yet the greater the certainty as to the text, though this seems a paradox!")

Muslim

Why do the different translations of the Bible which you now make into so many languages differ so much from one another? Why are you continually correcting and re-correcting these versions if your original text is not corrupt?

Christian

They do not differ from one another to any extent, as you may see from comparing them one another. We find that in some instances the earliest translators either used words not generally understood, or, from not knowing the vernacular languages as well as they are now known, did not make quite perfect translations. Hence we endeavour to perfect them, especially when a new edition is required.

This shows how much care we take to make the Bible understood by the people who speak each language. A change of translation does not imply a change or corruption of the original text, as you must know. Your interlinear translations of the Quran in Persian, Urdu and other tongues, may vary, and new translations have from time to time appeared, but the original Arabic does not alter.

Muslim

The Urdu, Arabic, Persian, English, Turkish, and other copies of the New Testament are only translations. How can we be sure that they agree with the original? Even if they do, they cannot be quite as good as the original.

Christian

We have the original and constantly consult it, to be quite sure that our translations and explanations are correct. As you know, these translations are made by a number of learned men, not only Europeans but natives of the various countries being employed and consulting together as to the correct interpretation of every word. Moreover, we publish the original Greek text, and are willing to teach all who desire to learn Greek, so that they may read it for themselves. If you do not choose to take this trouble, as we do, is it our fault or yours?

Muslim

Not one of the Gospels was written by Jesus Christ Himself and St. Luke was not even by an eye-witness. Even if they have been preserved free from corruption, they are only traditions, corresponding to our ahadith.

Christian

The Quran itself was not written down by Muhammad, whom you call the unlearned (ummi) prophet, but by his companions, and the whole book was not collected till after Muhammad's death. Three evangelists' accounts (if we remember that St. Mark was St. Peter's scribe) were written down by eye-witnesses, and that by St. Luke was (as he tells us) compiled by him from the statements not of one eye-witness but of many (Luke 1 1-4). The evangelists were guided by Divine inspiration, according to Christ's promise (John 14:26). Moreover, do not forget that your own Quran, as we have seen, bears witness to the Gospel, and teaches that it must be received as having “descended on Jesus”. We have proved that it has not been lost or corrupted.

Muslim

There are Apocryphal Gospels; how do you know that only the present Four Gospels are genuine, and not some of the Apocryphal ones?

Christian

We know it just in the same way that we know that the Quran is genuine, and not some other book instead. The Four Gospels have been handed down among all Christians everywhere, and not a single one of the Apocryphal Gospels has ever been received by the Christian Church as a whole. We have studied the Apocryphal Gospels and know that they are of a later date than the genuine ones. Moreover, they do not in general contradict the genuine ones, but were intended to supplement them. The latest of them, and the only one that does in one matter contradict the genuine Gospels, is the so-called Gospel of Barnabas, which is known to have been forged considerably after Muhammad's time. In it the writer was ignorant enough to apply the title “Messiah” to Muhammad! (See Sale’s remarks in the Preface to his translation of the Quran.)

Muslim

Your Bible as it now exists cannot be from God (that is, it must have been corrupted), because it uses language about God which is unfitting: e.g. it speaks of God's hand, God's eye, and again and again says that He "repented". How can we believe that?

Christian

Such an argument is meaningless when brought forward by a Muslim: for we find exactly the same style of language used in the Quran, with this addition, that the Quran represents God as "annulling” certain verses, which the Bible never does. As to His “repenting” you tell us that one of His ninety-nine "most excellent names" is (Altawwab) i.e. “He that is continually repenting” or “relenting“ from the root of tawabah “repentance.” But it is no real objection either against the Bible or the Quran that such language is used in both books for it is clear that all human language must primarily have reference to appearances and to earthly life, and is only by analogy used to describe spiritual realities or even mental concepts. It is therefore inaccurate with regard to God, but is used because we have no better way of expressing our thoughts. "To repent" in Arabic is “to turn back,” and in reference to God denotes that He "turned back" from punishing, &c. It has no moral meaning as in the case of the repentance of sinners, where it denotes turning back from sin.

Muslim

No matter what arguments you adduce to prove that the Bible is not corrupt, there is a final one that you cannot answer. We know that it is corrupt, because in many places it contradicts the Quran. Our principle is to use the Quran as the touchstone, and to accept only what is in accordance with it. This is justified by reason because the Quran is God's latest and most perfect revelation written on the Preserved Tablet before the creation of the world. It is justified by the Quran since the latter is styled the “Furqan”.

Christian

There are several weak points in your argument. Before you can rely on it, you have to prove to yourselves in the first place, that the Quran is a revelation from God. This you cannot prove.

Again, the title “Furqan” (whatever be the meaning of the word, which is really Syriac and Chaldee adopted into Arabic) is not given exclusively to the Quran, for in Surah 21: Al Anbiya', 49, and Surah 2, Al Baqarah, 50, the same title is given to the Taurat. Moreover, instead of using the Quran to test the Bible, as you say, you are bidden in the Quran itself to test the Quran by the Bible for in Surah 5 Al Maidah, 47-51 we read: -------

“But how shall they make thee their judge, since they already possess the Law, in which are the behests of God? . . . Verily, We have sent down the Law, wherein are guidance and light… And whoso will not judge by what God hath sent down such therefore are unbelievers. . . . And in the footsteps of the prophets caused We Jesus the Son of Mary to follow, confirming the Law which was before Him; and We gave Him the Evangel with its guidance and light, confirmatory of the preceding Law, a guidance and warning to those who fear God; and that the people of the Evangel may judge according to what God hath sent down therein. And whoso will not judge by what God hath sent down such then are the perverse. And to thee We have sent down the Book with truth, confirmatory of previous Scripture and its safeguard".

And in Surah 10 Yunus, 94 the command is given to Muhammad himself to make the Bible the touchstone by which to judge the Quran, for there we read: "And if thou art in doubt as to what We have sent down to thee, inquire of those who are reading the Scriptures before thee."

Therefore your principle is contrary to the Quran itself. We have also seen that the Quran never asserts that the Bible has been corrupted, but acknowledges it to be the Word of God and says that God's Word cannot be corrupted or changed. And if you appeal to reason, your reason must prove to you from what has been already said that the Bible was not corrupted before Muhammad's time, nor during his life, nor has it been corrupted since. Finally, whether or not there are differences in teaching between the Bible and the Quran, it is certain that in many points in which you object to the doctrines of the Bible, the Quran confirms them, as indeed reason also does.