The Christian New Testament Examined

[abdulwalee]

The Christian New Testament has, without question, exerted great influence upon Western life and culture. And yet the text of no other body of ancient literature exists in so many different versions. This is, in the main, the result of the almost embarrassing number of variant copies of the New Testament that have been unearthed from ancient times and from the Middle Ages.


The New Testament is now known, in whole or in part, in over three thousand Greek manuscripts. Each one of these hand-written copies differs from every other one. (The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1962 edition in 4 volumes, under the heading 'Text, NT'. The work is a compilation of over 200 contributors, including Professors of Old Testament Literature, Biblical Language, Church History and New Testament Language and Literature.) In addition to these Greek manuscripts, the New Testament is found in more than ten thousand manuscripts of the early versions and in thousands of quotations of the Church Fathers. These manuscripts of the early versions and quotations of the Church Fathers differ from one another just as widely as do the Greek manuscripts. (ibid)


It has been estimated that New Testament manuscripts differ among themselves from between a staggering 150,000 to 250,000 times. (ibid) The actual figure is perhaps much higher. A study of 150 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel according to Luke has revealed more than 30,000 textual differences alone. (ibid) Each manuscript studied and unearthed inevitably adds substantially to the list of differences. So much so that The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible unavoidably concluded that: "It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscript tradition is wholly uniform." (ibid) Many of the differences arose at a very early stage. Prior to the invention of the printing press (15th century) all copies of Bibles show considerable textual variations. Such differences, so much a part of the history of the transmission of the New Testament, continue to live on in modern day copies.


Of the manuscripts to date, only about 50 contain the entire 27 books of the New Testament. Some contain additional books and gospels that were later expunged as fabrications. In these documents, there were originally no spaces between either letters or words, no punctuation, no accents or breathing marks on the Greek words (there was only a continuos flow of letters) and no chapter or verse divisions. In fact, the system of chapters in the New Testament now in use was invented by Cardinal Hugo de S. Caro in 1328. The Cardinal also divided each chapter into paragraphs marked by letters but this was superseded by the verse system introduced by Robert Stephanus in 1551. Subsequently, where each verse was printed as a separate paragraph it led to fragmentation of the original documents and to the interpretation of verses out of context. (ibid, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1983 edition in 30 volumes, under the heading 'Biblical Literature')


The original copies of the New Testament books have long since disappeared. (ibid) Even the true identity of their authors is to a large extent a matter of debate. The time gap between the original accounts of the events and today's surviving manuscripts is a period of over 200 to 300 years. (ibid) Before this time no written witnesses are available to establish the authenticity of Christian claims. With the exception, that is, of tiny papyrus fragments from the Gospel of John (three verses) and (so its is claimed) from the Gospel of Mark. Because of their fragmentary nature, they are of no great value in establishing the texts of even these two Gospels, let alone the New Testament as a whole.


Fragmentary papyrus of this nature have been unearthed dating from the second to eighth centuries, with more than half of them dating from the third and fourth centuries. No early papyrus, however, contains any complete book of Christian scripture. The papyrus New Testament manuscripts extant today were found in Egypt and undoubtedly were written there. They prove conclusively that in Egypt, particularly in the second, third and fourth centuries, no one type of New Testament text was dominant. In those early centuries many types of text flourished side by side. Two early papyri, which overlap across seventy verses of John's Gospel, differ at no less than seventy places (even after obvious scribal errors are accounted for); an average of one variation in each verse. If texts were being changed and edited to this degree, even a gap of a century between an original and its first survival on a papyrus fragment is a long and potentially disastrous time. We simply do not know what may have happened to the words at important places. (Paragraph adapted from Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version, 1992, pp.139-140)

[Curious Christian]

The abrogation of Qur'anic verses presents a problem for Muslims today. As we all know, a man can make mistakes and correct them, but this is not the case with God. God has infinite wisdom and cannot contradict himself. Abrogation flies is the face of sura 6:34 (and 10:65) which state:


"...There is none that can alter the words (and decrees) of Allah." An even more damaging pronouncement is made in sura 4:82 which reads, "Do they not consider the Qur'an? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much discrepancies."


Muslim authorities try to explain the internal contradictions in the Qur'an by stating that certain passages of the Qur'an are annulled (Mansukh) by verses revealed chronologically later than themselves. The verses which replace them are referred to as Nasikh. Yet, there is by no means any certainty as to which disagreeing verses are mansukh and which are nasikh, since the order in which the Qur'an was written down was not done chronologically but according to the length of the suras.


From the preceding section we have found that even the text at our disposal was found and collated piecemeal, leaving us little hope of delineating which suras were the more authentic. Furthermore, Muslim tradition admits that many of the suras were not even given to Muhammad in one piece. According to tradition, some portions were added to other suras under the direction of Muhammad, with further additions to the former suras. Therefore, within a given sura there may be found ayas which were early, and others which were quite late. How then could we know which were the more authoritative?


The law of abrogation is taught by the Qur'an in sura 2:106,108, stating: "We substitute one revelation for another..." This is echoed in sura 17:86, which reads, "If it were Our Will, We could take away that which We have sent thee by inspiration." In sura 16:101 the law of abrogation is clearly defined as one verse being substituted by a better verse. Verse 101 read, "None of our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar- Knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?"


Jalalu'd-Din estimated the number of abrogations at between 5 to 500. Others say it stands closer to 225. What this shows us is that the science of abrogation is an inexact science indeed, as no-one really knows how many of the verses are to be abrogated. Underlying this claim of abrogation is another concern: How can a divine revelation be improved upon? Would it not have been perfect from the start?


Yusuf Ali in his defense of abrogation claims that there is a need for progressive revelation within scripture, saying: "its form may differ according to the needs and exigencies of the time". Christians believe in progressive revelation as well, as God reveals and changes His will for a people as they change culturally over a period of generations. The problem with suras 2:106, 17:86 and 16:101 is that they do not refer to revelations given prior to Muhammad, but refer uniquely to the Qur'anic verses themselves. One cannot claim progressive revelation within a space of only 20 years (this was the time in which the Qur'an was written). The period found in the previous scriptures spans 1,500 years! People and cultures change in that amount of time. Thus the revelations would reflect those changes. To demand the same for a revelation of a mere 20 years suggests that God is not all-knowing. The only other option can be that the recorder made corrections, and then came up with a revelation to authenticate those corrections. While you decide, let's look at some of these abrogations. Some examples of these abrogations are:


1. In sura 2:142-144, we find the change of the Qibla, the direction of prayer from Mecca to Jerusalem, and back to Mecca.


2. The inheritance laws in suras 4:7; & 2:180, provides an equal share for women and men, and then is doubled for men in sura 4:11.


4:7: "From what is left by parents and those nearest related there is a share for men and a share for women, whether the property be small or large,-a determinate share."


Here the context gives an apparent equal share for men and women but several suras below it is contradicted:


4:11: "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your Children's (Inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females: if only daughters, two or more, their share is two-thirds of the inheritance; if only one, her share is a half. For parents, a sixth share of the inheritance to each, if the deceased left children; if no children, and the parents are the (only) heirs, the mother has a third; if the deceased Left brothers (or sisters) the mother has a sixth. (The distribution in all cases ('s) after the payment of legacies and debts. Ye know not whether your parents or your children are nearest to you in benefit. These are settled portions ordained by Allah. and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise."


[Notice the discrepancy?? Any honest reader will. And furthermore: It just doesn't add up: Sura 4:11-12, 176 speaking on the inheritance law, specifies that when a man dies, and leaves behind [for instance] three daughters, two parents and a wife, the 3 daughters will receive 2/3 of the inheritance, 1/3 will go to the parents together [according to verse 4:11] and 1/8 for the wife [4:12] which adds up to more than the available estate. A second example: If a man leaves only his mother, his wife and two sisters, then the mother receives 1/3 ( 4:11), 1/4 for the wife [4:12] and 2/3 for the two sisters [4:176], which then adds up to 15/12 of the available property. ]


3. The change of night prayers from a full night in sura 73:2-4, to a half or less, or whatever was easy to do in sura 73:20.


4. The change of punishment for adulteresses, beginning with life imprisonment, found in sura 4:15, and then changed to 100 strokes by flogging, according to sura 24:2. Remember that these two examples make no mention of the previous 'missing' aya which prescribes the stoning for those who commit adultery. It is also interesting to note that Homosexuals were let off if they repented, according to sura 4:16, though this same allowance was not given for heterosexuals.


5. The change of the retaliation laws where retaliation for the crime (murder) was confined to people of equal rank (i.e. slave for slave) in sura 2:178, then it was to be carried out only against the murderer by the heir, sura 17:33 (note: Ali adds Qisas and forgiving to the Arabic).


6. The change of the days of creation from 6 (7:54; 25:59) to 8 (41:9- 12).


[41:9]:


"Is it that you deny Him [Allah] who created the Earth in TWO days? And you claim others to be equal to Him? He is the Lord of (all) the Worlds"


[The next verse begins with what verse 9 depicts as already created in two days]:


[41:10]:


"He set on it [the already created Earth] mountains, and bestowed it with blessings. And [Allah] estimated all its sustenance in FOUR days, equally for those who ask (prayers)"


[so far then, we have six days, two for creating the Earth and four more for setting on the Earth mountains, etc. - items which add to the Earth's creation and were not an intrinsic part of it's previous creation - items that are described as sustenance, i.e., that which sustains the earth but not that which created it.]


[41:11]:


'''THEN [Allah] commanded the heaven and it was STILL smoke. He said to it and to Earth: "Come together, willingly or unwillingly." They said: "We do come together, in willing obedience" '''


[Then = a continuance of this creative action by Allah, we have Allah's work on the heavens to make them into seven heavens which was still unformed smoke after six days. Notice the word STILL corroborating a sequence of events still not completed after six days!!!]:


[41:12]:


'''SO [Allah] decreed them as seven heavens (one above the other) in TWO days and revealed to each heaven its orders. And We [Allah] adorned the lowest heaven with lights, and retentions (gravity). Such is the decree of the Exalted; the Knowledgeable." '''


Notice that the word rendered "in" appears in the same context of all of 'Allah's' actions which are reported in creating the universe - three times. Notice the words "THEN", "STILL" and "SO" which demand an ongoing sequence. Hence the context demands that the word "in" = total length of time for the particular accomplishment of Allah in a series of events need to be added up to EIGHT as opposed to determining that the word "in" means 'inside the time of', or 'within'. Another Arabic word needs to have been in the original text to be rendered 'inside the time of', or 'within' which is NOT in the original Arabic text.


The phrase "In TWO days" in English demands the interpretation: a two day duration and "in FOUR days, a four day duration. Furthermore, the context would be ridiculous if one said God created the Earth in two days and added everything to the earth within four days if what is intended is the additions are within two days. This is even more ridiculous when the same word is used for 'in' in the phrases 'in two days' and 'in four days'. So why not then simply stipulate the time it took to add everything instead of being vague with 'within four days' if that what is meant, (and it is not)? Doesn't God know???? Besides the word 'within' is simply not there in Arabic or American English.


7. The change of the hierarchy of prophets, where they were initially equal (suras 3:84;2:285;2:136) and then some are elevated above the others, sura 2;253 (see Ali's note:289).


8. The changes in intercession; at first done by angels and Muhammad (suras 42:5; 24:62), and then were not acceptable to Allah (suras 74:48; 63:5; 34:23).


9. The Sword verses: the Call to "fight and slay the pagan (idolaters) wherever you find them" (sura 9:5); or "strike off their heads in battle" (sura 47:5); or "make war on the unbeliever in Allah, until they pay tribute" (sura 9:29); or "Fight then... until the religion be all of it Allah's" (sura 8:39); or "a grievous penalty against those who reject faith" (sura 9:3). These all contradict "There is no compulsion in religion" (sura 2:256).


10 .Sura 2:184 first allows a rich man to buy himself out of the fast by feeding an indigent. The following verse (185) allows no compensation.


11. Widows were to keep themselves apart for 4 months and 10 days after their husband's death (sura 2:234), which is then changed to one year (2:240).


Etc...

[Curious Christian]

Show me one single instance where the New Testament is flawed. It can be an historical detail, scientific insight or anything.

[abdulwalee]

<b>The abrogation of Qur'anic verses presents a problem for Muslims today</b>


Which Muslims?

[abdulwalee]

<b>1. In sura 2:142-144, we find the change of the Qibla, the direction of prayer from Mecca to Jerusalem, and back to Mecca.</b>


This was to test the believers, some appostated and This strenghtened others faith....

[abdulwalee]

<b>The phrase "In TWO days" in English demands the interpretation</b>


<b>The Qur'an is an arabic Book...</b>

[abdulwalee]

If you dont Understand the History of the believers during the sending down of the Noble Qur'an you couldn't posibly understand the make up of this Holy text....


<b>The barking of the dogs Doesn't harm the clouds</b>

[abdulwalee]

The abrogation of Qur'anic verses presents a problem for Muslims today. As we all know, a man can make mistakes and correct them, but this is not the case with God. God has infinite wisdom and cannot contradict himself. Abrogation flies is the face of sura 6:34 (and 10:65) which state:


<b>Who Owns The Old Testament?</b>


Who owns the Old Testament - Judaism or Christianity? This is a very natural question to ask, especially since the Old and New Testaments are nearly always found, in Christian practice at least, bound together as one book. Yet it is difficult to assess to what extent Christianity is sensitive to the fact that what the Church has called the Old Testament is also the property of Judaism and Jews, and that the Church by no means has a monopoly on it. Because of a strong awareness that the Old Testament is read by Jews, many people prefer to avoid altogether the term Old Testament (which is of course not used by the Jews themselves). At the heart of the matter is the fact that the term Old Testament was coined by Christians to distinguish these writings from the ever-growing literature of the early Church that began to be regarded as having religious authority. This appeared to put the Old Testament on an inferior footing to the New Testament and devalue it, a move that is felt to be insensitive to Jews. A further complication arises when we learn that the twenty-four books accepted as canonical by Jews (and most Protestant Christians) are increased to twenty-seven by Catholics, including some books that were not originally written in Hebrew.


The question of what Christians should do with the texts they had inherited from the ancient Israelites was the subject of lively debate from the earliest centuries of the Church. Fuel was added to the debate in the form of one overriding factor which Christianity had then and still needs to resolve: the existence of fundamental inconsistencies between the Old Testament and the New. The classic case of rejection of the Old Testament within Christian tradition is that of Marcion, a very influential churchman of the second century. He emphasised Paul's contrast between Old Testament law and New Testament gospel to an extreme degree, so much so that he rejected the whole of the Old Testament. He went so far as to claim that the loving Father of the New Testament was in fact a different God from the angry God of the Old Testament! This may be a rather extreme response, but the problem is one that still worries many today. Again, the factor which led Marcion to reject the Old Testament was, primarily, the problem of irreconcilable discrepancies between the two Testaments.


Marcion's rejection of the Old Testament was deliberate. As was the rejection in the 1930s, when anti-Jewish feeling in Nazi Germany put pressure on the Church to deny the Old Testament. The form that rejection of the Old Testament often takes in modern day Christianity is very different, amounting usually to an embarrassed silence about that part of the Bible. This attitude, which might well be said to be typical of very many Christians, is rarely articulated clearly. Of particular importance here to Christians is the supposed difficulty and obscurity of so much of the Old Testament; the apparently cruel and primitive nature of large parts of it; and also the feeling that it is irrelevant to the modern world and even contradicts the scientific views of our age. The fact that the same could be said for the New Testament is conveniently overlooked by such Christians.


The alternative to rejecting or quietly ignoring the Old Testament is to affirm its importance for the Church and to attempt to integrate it with one's understanding of the New Testament. After all, what we call the Old Testament was the Bible of Jesus and of Paul, who both felt it important and relevant to quote and read from it, as the following examples highlight:


At Luke 4:18, Jesus, whilst visiting the synagogue as a child, is quoted as reading a passage from the Book of Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.'


Some of the words from this passage have been underlined to assist in a comparison between Luke's New Testament rendition of this quote from Isaiah and the form which it takes in the Old Testament itself, where Isaiah 61:1 reads:


'The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.'


Surprisingly, the two passages differ. The Old Testament makes no mention of 'recovering of sight to the blind' whereas Luke does, and he substitutes 'heal the broken-hearted' and 'them that are bruised' for the Old Testament's 'to bind up the broken-hearted' and 'them that are bound.'


There appears to be no logical explanation for the differences, except that the text has either suffered corruption or the Old Testament which Jesus read from is not the same as the one in use today.


Here are two examples of Paul's usage of the Old Testament:


Isaiah 64:4 reads: 'For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.'


Paul quotes this passage in I Corinthians 2:9 where he says: 'But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.'


It is noticeable that the words underlined do not occur in Isaiah. The Bible commentary of Henry and Scott explains: "The best opinion is that the Hebrew (Old Testament) text has been distorted.." Whereas Peake's Commentary offers the following explanation: "The source of the quotation is very uncertain. If from the Old Testament the points of contact are so slight that no confidence can be felt in this derivation. If the source is not the Old Testament, Paul has quoted another work under a misapprehension."


Psalm 40:6-7 reads: 'Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.'


Paul reproduces this passage in Hebrews 10:5-7: 'Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.'


The misquote is clear. Peake's Commentary says (p.896): "As usual the writer (Paul) quotes from the Septuagint which reads 'but a body hast thou prepared me' instead of 'mine ears thou hast opened' as in the Hebrew version." Henry and Scott's compilers have said: "This is a mistake of the scribes. Only one of the two statements is true."


By ignoring the language in which it was first revealed, as most Christians tend to do as a matter of routine, it became very easy to interpret passages from the Old Testament and mould them to conform to New Testament views. Hence, a common way of handling the Old Testament in the early Church was to allegorise it. In this way many non-existent prophecies about the coming Messiah, the Resurrection and even the Trinity were supposedly found in the Old Testament by Christians as proof of the correctness of their beliefs. Invariably, these became to a large extent the only texts Christians were content to quote from the Old Testament. This brought with it another problem, and which again deserves an answer: what should be the response to those cases in which the New Testament understands the Old in ways that diverge from the original meaning, particularly when the peculiarities of the original Old Testament language are ignored?


The New Testament uses Old Testament material in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes the New Testament authors state explicitly that they are quoting from the Old so as to show that the events recorded in the New Testament fulfil the promises of the Old. For example the passage which Matthew quotes in his Gospel, chapter 27, verse 9:


'Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel...'


This excerpt turned out to be one of Matthew's best known mistakes. The statement he ascribes to Jeremiah is not found anywhere in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah. A passage similar to it, however, is found in Zechariah 11:13. Horne observed in his Bible commentary (Vol.2/pp.385-386): "Some scholars think that it is an error of Matthew's version and the copier wrote Jeremiah instead of Zechariah; or it may be a later addition."


Another of Matthew's famous errors is found in his Gospel at 2:23: 'And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called Nazarene.'


This prophecy is not found in any of the books of the prophets in the Old Testament. Manfred, a Catholic scholar, wrote in his The Questions of the Question: "The books which contained this description have been destroyed, because in any of the present books of the Prophets we do not find the statement that Jesus would be called a 'Nazarene'."


Psalm 14 of the Latin and Greek translations of the Old Testament read: 'Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of the people of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.'


Dont choke on this Now