Has the Bible been corrupted?

Has the Bible been corrupted?


I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the Bible.
As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur'an was the uncorrupted word of God
transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam. And although the
Qur'an says that the Gospels (al-Injeel) were given by God, they had been
irretrievably modified and corrupted in the centuries after Jesus. Why else
would there be so many versions of the Bible throughout history, with
constant editions and revisions even today? I advocated the position that
Christ never claimed to be God, but rather that Christians had forged all
verses that would indicate such a claim. And without a divinely inspired
book worth trusting, Christians have no ground to stand on. False ideas were
introduced into Christianity by power-hungry followers such as Paul, a
self-proclaimed "apostle," and others like him.


Unbeknownst to me, David was not just a Bible-reading Christian, but a
Christian with every intention of becoming a devoted apologist. So when he
heard this argument, he wasn't overcome by its logic (as I had assumed) but
instead was shocked that I had decided to enter into such a discussion
without any prodding of his own. And so began our series of informal debates
about the truth of Islam versus Christianity, as well as my intellectual
journey towards the throne of Christ.


David's response to my argument ran as follows. First, while there are
indeed many variations of the Bible obtained from more than 5,000 Greek
manuscripts, there is such a large amount of early manuscript evidence and
such a concordance between those manuscripts that we can reconstruct the
Bible and be certain of about 95% of the original content. Second, no
doctrine of the Bible is in jeopardy by any of the variations. Third, there
are so many quotations of and references to the New Testament from the
ancient world that we can reconstruct practically all of it from early
quotations alone. Fourth, there are multiple fragments of manuscripts that
can be dated to within a couple of centuries after Christ's death which we
have in our possession even now (the earliest dating to less than 100 years
after Christ, 125 AD). Fifth, he claimed that whole copies of the Bible are
available from around three centuries after Christ's death. Finally, the
previously mentioned estimate of 95% accuracy was a conservative one; in
actuality it is closer to 98 or 99%.


Blown away by the overwhelmingly convincing argument he provided, I
determined that he had made it all up, and I decided to investigate the
issue myself. The result of my investigation was that there is no evidential
reason to believe that the modern editions of the New Testament are in any
way substantially different from the original autographs themselves. To
challenge the scriptural integrity of the New Testament after sincere
investigation is to reflect a bias against it.

NABEEL QURASHI wrote:
> Has the Bible been corrupted?
>
>
> I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the
> Bible. As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur'an was the uncorrupted word
> of God transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam.

No, you don't know that, you believe it that is all. Not the same thing.

NABEEL QURASHI wrote:
> Has the Bible been corrupted?
>
>
> I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the
> Bible. As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur'an was the uncorrupted word
> of God transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam.
> And although the Qur'an says that the Gospels (al-Injeel) were given
> by God, they had been irretrievably modified and corrupted in the
> centuries after Jesus. Why else would there be so many versions of
> the Bible throughout history, with constant editions and revisions
> even today? I advocated the position that Christ never claimed to be
> God, but rather that Christians had forged all verses that would
> indicate such a claim. And without a divinely inspired book worth
> trusting, Christians have no ground to stand on. False ideas were
> introduced into Christianity by power-hungry followers such as Paul,
> a self-proclaimed "apostle," and others like him.
>
> Unbeknownst to me, David was not just a Bible-reading Christian, but a
> Christian with every intention of becoming a devoted apologist. So
> when he heard this argument, he wasn't overcome by its logic (as I
> had assumed) but instead was shocked that I had decided to enter into
> such a discussion without any prodding of his own. And so began our
> series of informal debates about the truth of Islam versus
> Christianity, as well as my intellectual journey towards the throne
> of Christ.
>
> David's response to my argument ran as follows. First, while there are
> indeed many variations of the Bible obtained from more than 5,000
> Greek manuscripts, there is such a large amount of early manuscript
> evidence and such a concordance between those manuscripts that we can
> reconstruct the Bible and be certain of about 95% of the original
> content. Second, no doctrine of the Bible is in jeopardy by any of
> the variations. Third, there are so many quotations of and references
> to the New Testament from the ancient world that we can reconstruct
> practically all of it from early quotations alone. Fourth, there are
> multiple fragments of manuscripts that can be dated to within a
> couple of centuries after Christ's death which we have in our
> possession even now (the earliest dating to less than 100 years after
> Christ, 125 AD). Fifth, he claimed that whole copies of the Bible are
> available from around three centuries after Christ's death. Finally,
> the previously mentioned estimate of 95% accuracy was a conservative
> one; in actuality it is closer to 98 or 99%.
>
> Blown away by the overwhelmingly convincing argument he provided, I
> determined that he had made it all up, and I decided to investigate
> the issue myself. The result of my investigation was that there is no
> evidential reason to believe that the modern editions of the New
> Testament are in any way substantially different from the original
> autographs themselves. To challenge the scriptural integrity of the
> New Testament after sincere investigation is to reflect a bias
> against it.

On Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:58:15 +0200, "John of Aix"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>NABEEL QURASHI wrote:
>> Has the Bible been corrupted?
>>
>>
>> I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the
>> Bible. As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur'an was the uncorrupted word
>> of God transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam.
>
>No, you don't know that, you believe it that is all. Not the same thing.

Très juste.

NABEEL QURASHI wrote:
> Has the Bible been corrupted?
>
>
> I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the
> Bible. As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur'an was the uncorrupted word
> of God transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam.
> And although the Qur'an says that the Gospels (al-Injeel) were given
> by God, they had been irretrievably modified and corrupted in the
> centuries after Jesus. Why else would there be so many versions of
> the Bible throughout history, with constant editions and revisions
> even today?


You should present those differences so that we could judge it by ourselves



I advocated the position that Christ never claimed to be
> God, but rather that Christians had forged all verses that would
> indicate such a claim.

You just don't what Jésus said


--
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aussi celui qui voit la beauté quand il regarde dans sa direction

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