I am a little more than half-way through; in and out and off and on as I have to do other things constantly with family, other interruptions – phone calls, etc.
I will let you know when I finish the whole thing.
Well, actually having finished watching the debate the biggest mystery is why shabir even bothers doing debates – wood wiped the floor with him. Shabir is starting to make Osama abdhalla look invincible.
Ibn `Abbas said, “Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Qur’an) which has been revealed to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, undistorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”
Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari 7363
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 9, Book 92, Hadith 461
What is the earliest manuscript or fragment for that hadith? My understanding is that Bukhari evolved over time, with additions being made after his death – this means that being in possession of the earliest manuscript is essential to to assess authenticity of the contents. Is it true that the earliest manuscript comes from at least 4-5 centuries after the events they purport to describe? If that is the case then we have to be wary to claim reliable historicity for these works.
I have to say that David Wood has really improved as a debater. Back in 2008-2010 he lost a majority of his debates but now he’s quite good. Something must have happened in early 2011 for him to change like this. I’m impressed.
Regarding the current debate, the hadith should have been avoided. Shabir even pointed that out at one point. I think David made a strong case with his view the Quran only attacks scribes, not the texts themselves. The Q and A were good but some were a bit off topic.
“Intetrsting. So what in your opinion was Wood’s best argument?”
I think that all of wood’s points were devastating – you have to do a serpentine logical dance to “reinterpret” vague texts in order to throw doubt on very clear ones and he demonstrated very well that the clearest verses of the quran state that the gospels and torah are absolutely not corrupted.
Wood’s very strongest argument was one that he failed to capitalize on and push thoroughly – namely that the muslim sources state explicitly that there are huge swathes of verses and entire chapters missing from the quran. In and of itself for reasonable people, that casts huge doubt on the credibility of the book regardless of what it says about the bible – it is incomplete and probably corrupted.
One weakness of Wood’s presentation was that he never raised other passages in the quran that reference christianity and judaism that are just plain wrong – namely, the claim that jews proclaim Ezra is the son of god and the vague implication that the christian trinity consists of allah, jesus and mary. Even worse, nowhere does the quran actually state who the persons of the trinity are – it never identifies father, son, holy spirit.
Shaibr never got out of the starting block – he really should have gone first since the proposition was what the quran says. Wood should not have had to explain the propositional muslim position, but all shabir did was to try and rewrite the quran to fit the muslim view.
D, if you think the clearest verses say the bible hasn’t been corrupted, how do you respond to the fact that the scholarly consensus recognizes the Quran does charge the bible with textual tampering as pointed out by Dr.Walid Saleh in his review of Gordon Nickel’s book which I’m pretty sure Wood used in his debate?
Better still why don’t you enlighten me on the historical reliability of the hadith in question? What is the earliest manuscript of it? Do you even know?
I just wanted to share this good point made by Br. Zakir Hussein.
When the Quran speaks of the People of the Book changing the words of their book with their tongues it can still refer to textual corruption since changing a vowel can change the meaning of a word and the vowels were not added to the OT until the 10th Century.
This is what he wrote:
“i had a missionary who tried to refute the claim that the Quran in surah 5:13 is speaking about textual corruption
He said this only means twisting with our mouths same as surah 3:78
I said no problem but twisting with your mouth also leads to textual corruption when u change the vowels in the written texts to represent your verbal twisting
Besides the very clear presentation by David Wood that the Qur’an:
1. Affirms/confirms مصدق the inspiration of the previous Scriptures – Surah 3:84, 2:136; 3:3-4
2. Affirms/confirms مصدق the preservation of the previous Scriptures – Surah 5:47; 10:94 (between the hands – بین یدیه = what they have at the time of Muhammad)
3. Affirms/confirms the authority of the previous Scriptures – 5:43 – why do they come to you when they have the Torah?
5:47 – let the people of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein –
5:68 – O people of the Scripture, اهل الکتاب you have no standing unless you observe/uphold/ hold fast to / do / obey the Torah and the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.”
SAHIH INTERNATIONAL
Say, “O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.” And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. So do not grieve over the disbelieving people.
10:94 – Gospel and Torah authoritative for Muhammad also. Resort to the previous Scriptures; Ask the people of the book.
and since none can change the words of Allah – Surah 6:114-5 (or 116 depending on different English translation/numbering system) and 18:27; (see also 6:34, 10:65)
therefore, the previous Scriptures were not corrupted.
also, David Wood also shows why the Qur’an understands itself on why it was revealed:
Surah 46:12 and 42:7 and 6:155-157 – revealed in Arabic because the Arabs did not have a book from God and were ignorant of God’s truth and revelation, and so that they have no excuse on judgement day.
besides these points,
David Wood Also devastated Shabir’s arguments by several other points:
Context of Surah 2:75-79
Shabir tries to say 2:79 means the Torah was completely corrupted.
1. Surah 2:75 – “a party/sect/group from among them” ( the Jews) ” فریق منهم , who used to hear the words of Allah and distort / change (the Torah) after they had understood it.
This goes with Surah 3:78 – منهم لفریقا – “from among them there is a party/group” – a party among them who distort the Scriptures with their tongues
Surah 7:159 – a faithful party / group of the Jews.
Surah 3:113-115 – a faithful party of the Jews who stayed up late at night reciting the Scriptures.
One party cannot totally corrupt all of the Scriptures because there are so many other copies globally of the Scriptures.
So, it cannot mean that all of the original Torah was corrupted or lost.
2. Keep reading to 2:85 – condemns people who don’t accept ALL of the Word of God. (in context, meaning The Torah or Tanakh)
I would add that 2:78 shows that this group is:
a. Uneducated / illiterate
b. Only going by what they hear
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
3. Shabir tried to say that Jesus said John the Baptist is greater than Him, and that there was another one coming after John the Baptist who will be greater than him, and Shabir claimed that is Muhammad, since Jesus said “no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist”.
John 1:26-31 – John the Baptist said “this is the one I am speaking about who is higher than me and I am not worthy to untie his sandals”, etc. (Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; the one who stands among you whom I will baptize in water”, etc. )
Even Matthew 3:11 – John the Baptist clearly says that the one who is greater than him whom he is not worthy to remove his sandals, this is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. (also in Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17)
So, Shabir’s argument only from Synoptics is defeated, nuked, destroyed, shish kebab-ed.
4. Shabir’s argument about the Paraclete being Muhammad was very weak, since there are no textual variants of the original Greek of those passages in John 14 and 16; and Greek writes vowels; and 14:16-17 says “the Spirit of truth” and “will be with you forever”; and “He will be in you”, etc. Also, John 16:7 Jesus says “I will send Him”, “the Helper” (paracletos), “the Spirit of Truth” (verse 13) – that argument would make Jesus into Allah, since only Allah can send prophets, an argument which Muslims would not want to do.
5. The quote from Abdullah Saeed, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, was devastating to Shabir Ally’s argument. Boom!
6. The Torah is also called Furqan فرقان (“criterion”) – Surah 2:53 and 21:48. (answering 3:3-4 which adds the Furqan to Torah and Gospel. (maybe Qur’an or maybe other OT books like Zobur or prophets.)
The only strong point that Shabir had was the Hadith of Al Bukhari of Ibn Abbas, (which Paul Williams quoted above), which contradicts Sunan Abu Dawood 4449 and Jami’ Al-Tirmidhi 2653, which said that “Muhammad said “The Torah and the Gospel are with the Jews and the Christians”. Ibn Abbas implies that they should not ask the people of the Scripture since the Qur’an comes later, etc. But Shabir admitted that other narrations/sources on Ibn Abbas are contradictory.
David Wood had a great rebuttal to that: “Don’t make Ibn Abbas’ word over-rule Allah’s word and Muhammad’s words.”
David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
Dr Walid Saleh specialises in the Qur’an, its history, redaction and manuscripts; the history of the reception of the Qur’an and its exegesis, at the University of Toronto, Canada.
He stated in a recent academic paper:
“the scholarly consensus is that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted.”
The Quran acknowledges that the gospel of Jesus is to be found in the existing gospels but is not coterminous with it. Christians are called by God in his final Testament to mankind to judge what they believe by the gospel *of* Jesus, and this teaching is confirmed by the Quran. The Quran also corrects the mis-interpretations by Christians who wrongly believe Jesus is God. Jesus bears witness in the Quran that he is just a man.
Clearly the four gospels are not the Injil. They make claims (eg about the crucifixion) that God has made clear are quite unhistorical. The Quran suggests that the ‘Gospel’ (Injil) is something given to Jesus by God (surah 5:46). So it is evident that in the Qur’an the divine Gospel was one revealed to Jesus and not books written about Jesus.
A concluding quote from Montgomery Watt (who was Professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh, and one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the West):
“While it is stated that Jesus received from God a scripture called the Gospel (or Evangel – Injil), there is nothing to suggest that this was any more like our actual gospels in the New Testament than the tawrat received by Moses was like the actual Pentateuch. Indeed Muslims usually deny that our actual gospels are the book received by Jesus, since that consisted entirely of revelations from God and not of historical statements about Jesus.”
[William Montgomery Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters. Perceptions And Misperceptions, Routledge, 1991, p. 24
I also refer you to the interesting discussion about the gospels/Injil in The Study Quran, surah 3: 3-4.
The only verse I did “cut and paste” was Surah 5:68.
I wrote all of it out by hand and then typed it all up. That’s why it took me so long. I listened to the whole thing twice and took notes, looked up all the verses, thought about context, and argumentation, etc.
Even so, so what? I could have easily typed out Surah 5:68.
David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
Dr Walid Saleh specialises in the Qur’an, its history, redaction and manuscripts; the history of the reception of the Qur’an and its exegesis, at the University of Toronto, Canada.
He stated in a recent academic paper:
“the scholarly consensus is that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted.”
I did not copy anything except Surah 5:68 for convenience.
You guys don’t even seem to read what I wrote. I wrote and typed and argued it all out from David’s presentation and even added my own comments that even made David’s points even stronger. But you didn’t see that because you didn’t even read what I wrote.
Paul Williams wrote: David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
So what? Anyone who has a brain can listen to both David Wood and Shabir Ally above, look up the verses, look at the context and arguments, and come to their conclusions.
So how is the Qur’an plain and clear and easy to understand, if when ever a Muslim’s argument is devastated, he has to resort the very common response of “but you don’t understand the deep meaning of the Arabic here” or “you are not an Arabic scholar”, etc.
You did not originally put up Walid Saleh’s article. Originally, you put the debate video up and so our comments are on how David Wood and Shabir Ally did.
David Wood had the better argument. Period.
There are lots of scholars who agree that the Qur’an does not teach that the previous Scriptures have been corrupted. You even quoted one of them on your previous blog, Paul – Abdel Haleem. (no longer there cause you took down that old blog.)
the Qur’an does not teach that the text of the Injeel has been corrupted.
“1) The Quran does not teach that the Bible has been textually corrupted – it does suggest that the Bible has been misinterpreted, key verses concealed, distorted etc.”
I am reading it. Some parts are hard to understand without having the works the author refers to. (Gordon Nichel’s -Brill text; and the 2 Qur’an Tafsirs that he talks about. referring to page numbers, without the ability to look up and understand what exactly he is saying is difficult.
Just claiming “scholarly consensus” does not make it so. I don’t know that. And if majority are modern scholars, then that can also call into question the weight of credibility by “majority”. Sometimes more ancient, but smaller in number, is better than a “majority” of something that is modern, for it is easy for scholars in the last 200 years to print and repeat.
Scholarly consensus is that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and died on the cross and was buried in Joseph of Arimethea’s tomb and that the tomb was empty on the 3rd day.
But you guys refuse to believe that scholar consensus. (because of Surah 4:157 – 600 years after the historical fact already established for centuries.
If a scholarly consensus exists amongst the experts that an ancient text clearly says something, I would not be very bright or wise if i just went with the opinion of a non-scholar, who has no relevant academic credentials, who has a missionary ax to grind, who can not even read the original language.
Sure. Their views are in the minority and they havent written peer reviewed papers defending their positions. Until then, the rational thing to do is go by the established position which is that the Quran says the bible has been textually tampered.
In order to really understand what Waleed Saleh is saying it seems to me that one would have to have Muqatil and Al Tabari’s commentaries, and all the other info – Gordon Nichel’s books also.
Is the book that Waleed Saleh is critiquing, the same book (a popularized versions of his Brill book) as:
“The Gentle Answer to the Muslim Accusation of Biblical Falsification” ?
As I recall, David Wood also cited other Islamic scholars who agreed with Abdullah Saeed, like Fakhr Al Din Al Razi (died in 1209 AD). There were others, but I would have to go back and find that also.
‘Shabir is the best Muslim debater, but on this issue, Wood clearly won.’
He may have won the debate, but not necessarily the argument.
I’m reading an interesting book by a top Christian scholar in the field entitled,
The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
by Sidney H. Griffith a professor at the Catholic University of America. He agrees with Dr Walid Saleh that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted. I’ll give some quotes tomorrow when I have time.
Ken, what is so ambiguous about the statement that a scholarly consensus exists regarding textual corruption? Mind you, Walid Saleh is one of the foremost contemporary academic scholars of the Quran, and his review appears in a peer reviewed journal. You can’t pull a fast one when your claims are subject to peer review. Do you think Wood has any chances of getting his arguments published in a top Islamic studies or religious studies journal?
the statement about “the majority of scholar consensus” is clear; but if you read the whole Pdf that Paul put up, it is difficult to know what Walid is talking about, without having Nichel’s work before me, and without having Al Tabari and Muqatil’s commentaries.
Even so (even with all the claims of “majority of scholarly consensus”), the debate as is, taking Shabir Ally and David Wood’s as it is, in listening to them in English and looking up the texts and looking at the Arabic words and text as they both mention words and phrases, Wood devastated Shabir’s argument.
Shabir is the best Muslim debater, but on this issue, Wood clearly won.
Shabir Ally is a scholar also, and knows Arabic. He should have been able to make a better case, if there is so much scholarly consensus.
As it is, Shabir Ally was very weak and Wood devastated his arguments.
Shabir even admitted that before, he was inclined toward that view (that the Qur’an never says the text has been changed), but changed his mind. But he did not make a good case for changing his mind.
You know what, Ken. I haven’t seen the debate but I’ll agree with you that Ally probably lost. He has a PhD in Islamic Studies but he hasn’t written a single paper since getting his doctorate which to me indicates a waste of the degree. One doesn’t need a PhD if all he’s gonna do is debate low level polemicists like Wood.
Paul Williams wrote: He may have won the debate, but not necessarily the argument.
I’m reading an interesting book by a top Christian scholar in the field entitled,
The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
by Sidney H. Griffith a professor at the Catholic University of America. He agrees with Dr Walid Saleh that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted. I’ll give some quotes tomorrow when I have time.
Shabir Ally also mentioned Griffith’s book as what helped him overcome his previous leaning toward the view that the Qur’an never says the text of the previous Scriptures was corrupted.
Why couldn’t Shabir mount a better argument, given that Shabir is very intelligent, a scholar, and a great debater?
I also always appreciate Shabir’s tone and gracious manners. He and Abdullah Kunde are the best at being respectful.
Paul,
Did you watch and listen to the debate?
Shabir Ally mentioned that book by Griffith also. Your comment seems to indicate you didn’t know Shabir also mentioned it.
what about your “anti-Christian” and “Anti-Bible ax to grind?
“who can not even read the original language”
Why do you criticize me when I put Arabic up of words like Isa Al Masih عیسی المسیح (original language of Qur’an) to make an emphasis or point, and you say, “speak English to me”, etc. (which is just you acting silly in most cases, cause you know what I mean and you even have “Allah” الله
and “bism’allah al rahman Al rahim” بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
at top of your blog, without translation and without transliteration.
Muhammad could not read Hebrew or Greek also; so he is disqualified also.
Allah revealed it in Arabic, so the argument of the Qur’an goes, so that the Arabs would have God’s revelation in their own language so they can learn and get out of paganism/idolatry/ Jahileh “Ignorance” and have no excuse on judgment day.
Your argument is in tension with the way the Qur’an argues.
The Qur’an argues, “we reveal it in Arabic so the Arabs can understand” (cause they cannot understand Hebrew and Greek)
Therefore, along the same parallel of argument, speak to me and argue in English, since we understand each other in English. Which is what Shabir and Wood did, and Wood won.
Bear in mind, Dr. Ally did his PhD under Walid Saleh and both of them agree that the Quran does in fact teach the corruption of previous religious revealed texts.
For David Wood to say (if Ken Temple is presenting his view accurately) that Muslims believe that the previous scriptures have been TOTALLY tampered with, is just a straw man and no Muslim that I know off, including Ally, holds to that position. Which shows that Wood was not engaging with the argument.
The Hadith of Ibn Abbas found in Al-Bukhari is clear and if Wood’s response was that we are taking Ibn Abbas’ words above the Quran then that is a poor and feeble response as Ibn Abbas is only giving commentary to the Quran, namely Surah 2:79 which does speaks of textual corruption and the contexts does not change that meaning.
Even when the Quran is criticizing previous religious communities of tampering their scriptures with their tongues, it can still refer to textual corruption since by changing the vowels the meaning of a word can change and the vowels were not added until much later.
The point about John the Baptists being greater than Jesus and John claiming there’s another to come after him, cannot apply to Jesus, since both of them were contemporaries of one another and Jesus had already been born of a woman. However, it is correct that the Synoptics do try to link this prophesy to Jesus but do so inadequately.
Since Shabir studied under Walid Saleh, why could he not bring more proofs and / or better arguments for that case?
Also, it doesn’t seem like you watched/listened to the entire debate either.
The synoptic gospels (and John) both say the one Yahya یحیی (John the Baptist) is talking about is Jesus.
Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17.
Shabir got fried on that one.
Even when the Quran is criticizing previous religious communities of tampering their scriptures with their tongues, it can still refer to textual corruption since by changing the vowels the meaning of a word can change and the vowels were not added until much later.
This point would not apply to Greek, since the vowels have always been there. (not like Arabic or Hebrew, which is vowel pointing. ) In Greek, vowels are letters (like English).
Imam Bukhari was earlier than Ibn Hazm so Gordan Nickels thesis about Ibn Hazm inventing the idea of textual corruption among the Jewish-Christian scriptures is factual wrong.
Narrated Ubaidullah:
Ibn `Abbas said,
“Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Qur’an) which has been revealed to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, un-distorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”
Not only Ibn Abbas (ra) but the following hadith also shows that the Companions of the Prophet (saw) believed that the bible had been textually tampered with. What else could, ‘Save this nation before they differ about the book as Jews and Christians did before’ mean?
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before.”
So early Muslims as far back as the Companions of the Prophet (saw) did believe in a textual corruption of the bible and as the report above shows they feared a similar thing for the Quran unless Uthman (ra) took action. Thus the claim this this belief is a late development among Muslims is simply not true.
that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible, because they actually were getting familiar with what Christians really believed and what the text of the Bible said, and . . . oops . . .
But what it seems to be saying is that it was about the differences of the dialects / recitations of the Arabic of Al Sham (Syria, Levant) and Iraq vs. the way they would pronounce words in Azerbaijan and Armenia – which, by the way, does not make sense to me – Azerbaijan speaks a form of Turkic language – Azeri – not even close to Arabic; ( I have Iranian friends who are Azeri Turks and they speak a form of Turkish ) (the northwestern corner of Iran is also called Azerbaijan state.) and Armenian language difference also. I wonder what exactly he means? The differences the Hadith means by “as the Jews and Christians did before” does not necessarily point to textual difference, but pronunciation and recitation differences.
“During the year of 25 Hijr in Islamic Calendar, the Mushaf Uthmani of Quran was created in attempt to avoid linguistic confusion of Qur’an which translated to local dialect of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Hudhaifa warned Uthman that the newly translated Qur’an would lose its original Tafseer if it didn’t standardized in original Mushaf or version first before the local could translate and give commentary of Quran interpretation.”
Sejarah The Holy Quranic Text By Mustafa Al-Azami quoting the History of Mushaf Uthmani
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Armenia and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to `Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.” So `Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to `Uthman. `Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, `Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa`id bin Al-As and `AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. `Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.” They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 4987
In-book reference : Book 66, Hadith 9
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 6, Book 61, Hadith 510
Ken Temple: that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible
Considering that Muhammad(saw) was rejected by numerous Jews and Christians in his own lifetime, I don’t think the Companions needed to wait 14 years after his death to realize that the Bible contained things that contradicted his claims. Walid Saleh put it best: Muhammad was not naive enough to think that he could convert the Jews of Madina, but he was not willing to let them undermine his authority, and went after the Bible to render its use ineffectual. In order to do this, the mere accusation of textual corruption would not have been enough. A miasmic atmosphere of corruptibility was created around the Bible and its followers such that neither they nor the Bible could be believed when it was used to cast doubt on Muhammad.
Ken Temple: The differences the Hadith means by “as the Jews and Christians did before” does not necessarily point to textual difference, but pronunciation and recitation differences.
There is not a single commentator who identifies “Tahrif” with “pronunciation and recitation differences”. Also, it is highly unlikely that Uthman(ra) would take the trouble of commissioning a standard copy and burning the rest if all that was at stake were mere “pronunciation and recitation differences”. I know many Muslims use the “difference in dialect” argument but that’s mostly apologetics.
“Ken Temple: that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible”
That is according to whom and what? Do you have manuscripts, fragments or any other ancient documents from the period that can serve as conclusive evidence for this event ever having taken place? I don’t claim deep knowledge on the issue – mainly because there seems to be so little objective study on the dating of the earliest hadith manuscripts – but it seems as though the earliest Bukhari comes form the 12th century and is believed to have evolved since his death. That makes for an unreliable historical document.
Furthermore, you said this earlier….
“What else could, ‘Save this nation before they differ about the book as Jews and Christians did before’ mean?”
What could be a more explicit and obvious admission that Uthman tampered (i.e. corrupted) the quran for political purposes? If his aim was to unite the early muslims and establish a unique religious identity for them, then it would be in his interests to delete any references to earlier revelation that would shed any doubts on the quran’s endorsement of them.
The consequences of Uthman’s actions – including the destruction of original source material – renders the quran and its supporting material to be almost completely devoid of credibility as historical documents. You simply cannot know if what Uthman put in the quran is what your god intended to be there – what you now have is a book whose content was chosen for political reasons, and not what represents the actual “revelation”.
Now, if Uthamn destroyed hundreds of thousands of supposed revealed fragments and documents, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he destroyed hampered any people whose oral traditions differed from the one he wanted. This makes the oral tradition of the hadith suspect. Coupled with the apparent fact that there are no – or few – early hadith fragments or documents, we have to say that any conclusions about earlier texts drawn from such unreliable documentation should be taken with a grain of salt. This is especially true when the main document – the quran – states explicitly that muslims should revere the earlier texts.
As for Uthamn’s claim about Jews and christians differing about their books, this is also a vague charge. What exactly is he saying? There’s nothing in that statement to suggest that he is saying christians or jews are engaging in in-group infighting but rather that the jews differ from the christians about the meanings of their two texts. Differing about texts does not mean that they are corrupt – don’t you differ from, let’s say Al bagdhadi, on the interpretations of the texts. He claims that the texts call for violence – I’m told that most muslims don’t agree. Does that mean that the quran is corrupted?
Again, though, Wood – although a great debater – should have pushed the general historical unreliability of the muslim sources.
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Armenia and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, . . .
It sounds like he is talking about differences in reading/recitation/pronunciation of the people Sham (Levant, Iraq) with the new areas of Azerbaijan (A Turkic dialect – Azeri Turkish) and Armenia.
D: What could be a more explicit and obvious admission that Uthman tampered (i.e. corrupted) the quran for political purposes? If his aim was to unite the early muslims and establish a unique religious identity for them, then it would be in his interests to delete any references to earlier revelation that would shed any doubts on the quran’s endorsement of them.
The idea that Uthman(ra) tampered with the Quran for political purposes is not new. Some of the early Shiites made such an accusation, that Uthman removed all references to Ali being the rightful Caliph from the Quran. However, NO ONE has entertained the idea that Uthman’s tampering of the Quran involved deleting positive views of earlier revelations. This is such a stupid theory! If Uthman really did tamper with the Quran along the lines you suggest, he would have simply deleted the verses that David Wood uses today to make a case for the Quran endorsing the bible! The fact that these verses continue to exist shows how stupid and wrong your theory is.
D: The consequences of Uthman’s actions – including the destruction of original source material – renders the quran and its supporting material to be almost completely devoid of credibility as historical documents. You simply cannot know if what Uthman put in the quran is what your god intended to be there – what you now have is a book whose content was chosen for political reasons, and not what represents the actual “revelation”.
Actually, the original source material was in the possession of Hafsa(ra), the wife of Muhammad(saw) and the daughter of his Companion, Umar(ra); Uthman(ra) used this to prepare a standard copy and while he burnt the variants that were in circulation elsewhere, he returned Hafsa’s copy to her intact. Hence, it is a bogus claim that Uthman destroyed the original source material.
If Uthman did manipulate the Quran for political reasons, we would expect him to manipulate it in such a way as to promote himself and his supporters and condemn those who opposed his rule; basically, promoting his politics over all others. Of course, no such verses exist in the Quran which at the end of the day contains very little in the way of politics and law. This debunks the theory of political manipulation.
D: Now, if Uthamn destroyed hundreds of thousands of supposed revealed fragments and documents, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he destroyed hampered any people whose oral traditions differed from the one he wanted. This makes the oral tradition of the hadith suspect. Coupled with the apparent fact that there are no – or few – early hadith fragments or documents, we have to say that any conclusions about earlier texts drawn from such unreliable documentation should be taken with a grain of salt. This is especially true when the main document – the quran – states explicitly that muslims should revere the earlier texts.
Uthman didn’t destroy ‘thousands of revealed fragments and documents’ simply because there weren’t any revealed fragments or documents to begin with! The Quran is a revealed recitation. No one in the history of Islam has believed that Allah revealed fragments or documents to Muhammad(saw). Also, it boggles my mind as to how one can conclude that because Uthman destroyed variant copies of the Quran therefore the tradition of hadith is suspect! I’m not aware of any academic scholar that has made this absurd connection.
D: As for Uthamn’s claim about Jews and christians differing about their books, this is also a vague charge. What exactly is he saying? There’s nothing in that statement to suggest that he is saying christians or jews are engaging in in-group infighting but rather that the jews differ from the christians about the meanings of their two texts. Differing about texts does not mean that they are corrupt – don’t you differ from, let’s say Al bagdhadi, on the interpretations of the texts. He claims that the texts call for violence – I’m told that most muslims don’t agree. Does that mean that the quran is corrupted?
Uthman didn’t say Jews and Christians differed about their books, the Companion Hudhaifah Al Yaman did. As I said earlier, if all that was at stake were pronunciation or recitation differences or even differences in interpretation, why would Uthman take the trouble of preparing a standard text and destroying variants? There’s a difference between differing about a text and differences that arise due to differing texts. The latter was what motivated Uthman to do what he did. The argument stands. Early Muslims did believe the bible was textually corrupted.
“Since Shabir studied under Walid Saleh, why could he not bring more proofs and / or better arguments for that case?”
From what you have presented it does not appear that Wood did that well.
“Also, it doesn’t seem like you watched/listened to the entire debate either.”
I’ve only dip in and out of the debate and read various comments including your owns.
“The synoptic gospels (and John) both say the one Yahya یحیی (John the Baptist) is talking about is Jesus.
Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17.
Shabir got fried on that one.””
Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so. If John the Baptist was referring to Jesus then why did he not stop and become a follower of Jesus along with John’s disciples. Matthew 3:11-12 is regarded by Biblical scholars to be an Matthewen-addition to get over the embarrassment that John baptized Jesus rather than Jesus Baptizing John.
“This point would not apply to Greek, since the vowels have always been there. (not like Arabic or Hebrew, which is vowel pointing. ) In Greek, vowels are letters (like English).
παρακλητος
parakletos”
Jesus spoke in Aramaic and not in Greek and the Greek gospels are not refereed to in the Quran. The Christians in the Arabian peninsula were Arabic, Syriac and Aramaic speaking Christians that were in contact with Palestinian Christians who spoke Aramaic. The vowels were added later to the written languages unless if you know something else that we are not aware off.
Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so.
Yes it does; as with all NT books, which are God’s inspired revelation; (2 Tim. 3:16)
and the Qur’an affirms / confirms the book of the Christians (Surah 3:84; 5:47; 5:68; 10:94)
and also “no one can change the words of Allah”. (6:34; 10:65; 18:27; 6:114-116)
A historical reading of 2 Timothy 3:16 suggests it refers to the ‘sacred scriptures’ Timothy knew as a child so the Old Testament is being referred to – not the NT.
. . . but it seems as though the earliest Bukhari comes form the 12th century and is believed to have evolved since his death. That makes for an unreliable historical document.
That’s a good point, Al Bukhari was collected centuries later after Muhammad. I don’t know about 12 th Century ( 1100s AD ?) – I thought it was 800s AD. Are you saying the earliest extant manuscript of Sahih Al Bukhari is from the 1100s AD? wow.
I was assuming the Uthman context from a Muslim point of reference, during Uthman’s Caliphate.
Paul W. –
you keep harping and repeating that; but it is not true.
– 2 Tim. 3:15 does refer to the OT, but 3:16 expands it to “all Scripture” and Paul the apostle told Timothy earlier that the gospels were Scripture on same level as Torah – 1 Timothy 5:18. (which the quotes happen to be from Luke and Matthew – synoptic gospels.)
That’s just fanciful Ken. 3:16 is only referring to the OT. Most of the NT such as the 4 gospels were written AFTER Paul so he could not know about them. Your ‘expansion’ is historically anachronistic.
2 Timothy was Paul’s last letter, so all of Paul’s letter’s existed (13 ) ; and he quoted from Luke and Matthew in 1 Tim. 5:18; and we know Mark, James existed. ( 4= 13 = 17 + 1 Peter = Acts = 19)
That’s most of the NT.
Hebrews and John’s writings (5) and 2 Peter and Jude = 27
Hebrews and 2 Peter around same time as 2 Timothy. (67 AD)
“Paul uses the expression “sacred writings” here in verse 15, but “all Scripture” in verse 16, for the simple reason that he wishes to draw a distinction between the Old Testament (verse 15) and whatever has a right to be called divinely inspired scripture (verse 16). The latter comprises more than the former.”
(William Hendrickson, Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles, 1957, combined with Commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians in 1979, sixth printing, 1987; page 300)
“verse 16, 17. Paul now expands the idea which he has just expressed. He does this in three ways:
a. Not only are “the sacred writings” (verse 15) of inestimable value; so is also “all Scripture”.
b. Not only does this sacred literature “make wise for salvation” (verse 15), but it is definitely God-breathed and as such capable of thoroughly qualifying a person “for every good work”.
c. Not only will it benefit Timothy (verse 15), but it will do the same for every “man of God”.
(Hendrickson, ibid, page 301)
On the Muslim charge that Surah 2:79 says that the previous Scriptures are corrupted.
They avoid the context of 2:75-79, verses 75 and 78 being very important and crucial to understanding verse 79.
1. Surah 2:75 – “a party/sect/group from among them” ( the Jews) ” فریق منهم , who used to hear the words of Allah and distort / change (the Torah) after they had understood it.
This goes with Surah 3:78 – منهم لفریقا – “from among them there is a party/group” – a party among them who distort the Scriptures with their tongues
Surah 7:159 – there was a faithful party / group of the Jews.
Surah 3:113-115 – a faithful party of the Jews who stayed up late at night reciting the Scriptures.
One party cannot totally corrupt all of the Scriptures because there are so many other copies globally of the Scriptures.
So, it cannot mean that all of the original Torah was corrupted or lost, so 2:79 does not teach that the Torah was globally corrupted, only that a party of Jews “who were illiterate and do not know the Scriptures and only go by what they hear” (verse 78) that wrote some things down and said “this is from Allah” – that does not change all the copies of all the Torah all over the world of that time.
Reason # 2 that Surah 2:79 cannot mean that all of the text of the Torah was corrupted.
2. Keep reading to 2:85 – condemns people who don’t accept ALL of the Word of God. (in context, meaning The Torah or Tanakh) The context of 2:75-79 points to some parts that people were making up and going apart and saying “this is from Allah”, but it could not effect all the other Scriptures all over the world.
I would add that 2:78 shows that this group is:
a. Uneducated / illiterate
b. Don’t know the Scriptures
c. Only going by what they hear
so this group of 2:79 are uneducated and illiterate and don’t know the Scriptures and only going by what they hear.
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
the simple fact remains: the only scripture in existence was the OT. Paul can’t refer to something that did not exist in his lifetime.
No, even Bart Ehrman recognizes some of Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD – Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and I think he recognizes Philemon.
They were definitely in existence and referred to Luke and Matthew as Scripture in 1 Tim. 5:18 – before 2 Tim; therefore there was lots of NT books in existence that were God-breathed Scripture along with OT. Mark and James also.
The books that were to make up the NT were not considered as a canon of “Scripture” to be added to the OT during Paul’s lifetime. That happened only much later.
You said;
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
I say;
But you believed those who do not understand Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and wrote your gospels in Greek. What a double standards.
Brother Nazam has educated you but you refused to learn. What you said confirmed brother Gaffur in that yes Prophet Mohammed did not understand Greek or Hebrew but got his scripture direct from God.
He heard it from stories from Jews and Christians? Ken where is your proof? No Jew or Christian ever from the time of our prophet till today came out and said he has SEEN PROPHET MOHAMMED HEARING/LEARNING/COPYING etc. anything from Jews and Christians.
You may be saying so here and you have sinned by giving a false testimony and it is a big sin. You have to provide a prove in the capital letters in my above paragraph.
The Arabs and Jews and Christians that the Quran said our prophet should speak to them spoke Arabic, Aramaic or Syriac as brother Gaffur said, so the Quran is not talking about NT. How can you believe the stories of Jesus in Greek, the language he did not speak and reject the stories in Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic? the language he spoke and their sister Semitic languages? The Quran does not believe in NT which is Greek and did not say NT or gospel of John etc. but GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.
1
The Arabs of our prophets time did not speak Greek and the NT was not translated to Arabic to them, so the Gospel the Quran was referring was was in Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew and or Arabic but not the NT which was in Greek.
No Paul W.
The apostle Paul’s letters are “canonical” (meaning “standard”, “law”, “rule”, “criterion”) as soon as they were written, because they were God breathed as soon as the were written – Paul says his word and preaching is “God’s Word”
“For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:13
the original meaning of “canon” is standard, criterion, law, rule.
It was later that the word “canon” came to mean “list”.
You said;
No, even Bart Ehrman recognizes some of Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD – Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and I think he recognizes Philemon.
They were definitely in existence and referred to Luke and Matthew as Scripture in 1 Tim. 5:18 – before 2 Tim; therefore there was lots of NT books in existence that were God-breathed Scripture along with OT. Mark and James also.
I say;
Brother Nazam does not speak or write much but when he speaks or write, it makes perfect sense than some of us.
I am following his reason. Just because Bart Ehrman recognizes Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD etc. does not make it true. Thanks Nazam and may Allah reward you. We need your intellect please.
Nazam said,”Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so.”
Prophet Mohammed talked about Jesus in the Quran. Ken you do not believe that. How do you want us to believe what Paul or John etc. said.
You will say they are the earliest. Earliest does not make a document true. Some later documents can contain truth in it and some earlier document contain lies in it.
IF DR. JAMES WHITE SAYS SOMETHING ANALYZE IT BEFORE USING IT AS ARGUMENT. SOMETIMES HE IS CONFUSED BUT YOU MAY NOT REALIZE.
An earlier document does not make it necessarily the true story and the later story does not make it necessarily lie.
Listen to Unbelievable- Bart Ehrman and Richard Bauckham. They all believed the gospels stories keeps changing from time to time like the gospel of Thomas.
If you argue the Quran affirms the gospels then you have to believe the gospel of Thomas as a gospels too which was not selected by the Church Fathers. You claim the Quran copied from it and so it is a gospel of Jesus too.
The earliest the correct and the latest the wrong is stupid. Now back to the topic. The Quran did not say NT or gospel of John etc. but the gospel so it was not referring to NT or any of the gospels in Greek but the gospel of Jesus known by the Arabs, Aramaic, Hebrew and Syriac speakers at that time.
All the churches that Paul started and preached at and wrote letters to considered him an apostle and had authority to preach God’s Word and wrote authoritative, inspired letters.
And Paul the apostle was in total unity with the other apostles – Peter, James, John – see Galatians chapters 1-2.
The church received his letters as authoritative and God-inspired / God-breathed from the beginning.
That is why there was no controversy over his letters in the early church. The four gospels and Paul’s letters were the first core of what became “the canon” (list).
A bit of a white wash of the truth there Ken. Many early Christians were opposed to Paul’s gospel. He was very unpopular with James too as he preached a different message.
Also Paul taught the abandonment of the Torah for Jews (see Galatians) which made him an apostate – and much opposed by the Jerusalem apostles
The Qur’an did not use the Gospel of Thomas (which Dr. White finished reading on his pod-cast Dividing Line show on Monday, May 1), but it did use “the Infancy gospel of Thomas” and “the Arabic infancy gospel” (which was based on an earlier Syriac version). These are 3 different documents. Do some research on them.
James is right there in Acts 15 and he and Peter and John all agree together with Paul and Barnabas. Read Acts 15 again and see the unity. Luke is very careful to write several times, “it seemed good to all of us and to the Holy Spirit”, etc. – there was total unity, quoting of Scripture.
The Apostle Paul wrote the letter of Galatians, around 48-49 AD, right before the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:
7 “But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised 8 (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do.”
Galatians 2:7-10
The issue in Acts 21 was about rumors that Paul was preaching against all of the Law, which was not true; he did not preach that Jews should forsake Moses, etc. He was saying that Gentiles did not have to also be circumcised or become Jews or eat kosher, etc. – big difference.
Acts is a whitewash, a fact well commentated on by your own scholars. The conflict between Paul and James is smoother over. Paul taught Jews not to follow Judaism. James was a Torah observant Jew like his brother.
“your own scholars” – no; I reject those kufr liberals scholars and that liberal theory. they are not “my scholars”
those that build on the theory of F. C. Bauer – Ehrman, Pagels, Dunn, McGrath – that is your problem. You are using anti-supernaturalists to seek to undermine the Bible, but it does not work, since Islam is at its core makes supernatural claims.
David Wood’s quote of James D. G. Dunn, in his book, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels was very devastating to Shabir Ally’s argumentation and also Paul Bilal Williams, who used James D. G. Dunn a lot at his blogs which he has changed 3 times over the past few years.
The quote comes a little after the 25 minute mark. The book Wood quotes from is from 2011.
“Here it becomes obvious that Paul was able to differentiate within the law . He maintains that some laws, here the law of circumcision no longer counted, but in the same breathe he reasserts the importance of keeping the law of God.
Does this not remind us of Jesus? . . .
Paul drew his attitude to the law from Jesus, no other explanation makes such sense of the evidence available to us. It was Jesus’ teaching and example which showed him that in Christ neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but faith operating effectively through love. [Galatians 5:6] It was no doubt this teaching and that example that Paul had in mind when he speaks of “the law of Christ”.
Dunn concludes:
“Should we then speak of a gulf between Jesus and Paul? NO!
Should we deduce that Paul departed from or corrupted the good news which Jesus brought? No!
Should we conclude that Paul transformed Jesus’ message into something that Jesus Himself would not recognize? No! . . . ”
Jesus’ discriminating attitude to the law and the love command . . . ” (David Wood ran out of time at that point)
(James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Eerdmans, 2011, pages 114-115)
in another debate they (Wood and Shabir Ally) had.
Ken what statement of Jesus said that the law of circumcision should be discontinued? Dunn quotes Paul to make his point, however nothing from Jesus. Very odd.
Besides I thought Dunn was Kufr? Why quote an anti-supernaturalist Kufr? Sheikh Temple you are going against your previous Takfir?
Ken Temple “That is why there was no controversy over his letters in the early church. The four gospels and Paul’s letters were the first core of what became “the canon” (list).”
Not true. The first Christian canon was Marcion’s. Only Luke and 10 letters of Paul. He rejected Matthew and John. He also threw out the complete OT.
You said;
The Qur’an did not use the Gospel of Thomas (which Dr. White finished reading on his pod-cast Dividing Line show on Monday, May 1), but it did use “the Infancy gospel of Thomas” and “the Arabic infancy gospel” (which was based on an earlier Syriac version). These are 3 different documents. Do some research on them.
I say;
“the infancy gospel of Thomas”? If it is not a gospel, why is there gospel in the name? Christians will change things to suit them. immortal God is not immortal and died, begotten not made, Son is co-equal to Father, eternal God became into existence at a certain point in time etc. and now “the infancy Gospel of Thomas” is not gospel, The gospel of Thomas itself is not gospel except what the Christians(Trinitarians) believe.
Dr. James White will say “That is not what we believe”, “We do not believe that” but will accuse the Mormons as idolaters. “The Mormons do not believe they are idolaters as well” You the Trinitarians, the Mormons and anyone who adds another person as God to the One God are all idolaters.
They will force their stupid believe on others to the extent of killing them if they do not believe.
I do not need to do any research on these documents because what I am saying was that, If you believe the Quran is referring to NT when it said “We believe in that which was revealed to you” then all these gospel of Thomas should be gospels of Jesus then but not the NT alone.
The Quran did not condemned the scriptures but corrected them and said the have been changed by people who use their hand to write and say it is from God.
The Quran did not affirm NT but the gospel of Jesus which some can be found in the Gospel of Thomas, NT, infancy gospel of Thomas and other stories circulating at that time.
Marcion was not a Christian – he was a heretic. I am fully away of him and church history. Tertullian, Polycarp, and Irenaeus wrote extensively against him and rebuked him.
He was an idiot and completely rejected the Old Testament.
I thought Tertullian was a heretic as well? Besides many people have different definitions of what a Christian is. Marcion is a perfect example of this reality.
The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. 19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. 21 They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. 22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. 24 Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. 25 But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgement that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled[e] and from fornication.’ 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them.
Paul fulfilled this vow even though he did not agree with it. He lied to James and perjured himself before God.
Dunn is very subtle and hard to understand. I found statements that go against the virgin birth, which I showed to Paul W. a long time ago at his old blog (s). Yet, he also says good things like the above.
Jesus mentions circumcision in John 7:22-23.
Colossians 2:11 mentions “the circumcision of Christ” = a spiritual cleansing/cutting away of the old nature that is done by Christ when a person is converted.
Just as Shabir Ally said in this debate with Wood, “I have to look at all of the Qur’an and put all the verses together for a conclusion” – in the same way, Colossians and Galatians and Romans, etc. are all also the Word of God and the Word of Christ – Christ is speaking through the apostles, the NT writers Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Jude, James, and the writer of Hebrews, probably Barnabas.
Acts 18:18
18 Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila. In Cenchrea he had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow.
What he did in Acts 21 is connected to this.
So, Paul is not doing something he disagrees with and so Paul is NOT lying.
Here is the root of Paul’s deception and the lie he told Torah-observant James:
Galatians 3:23-25
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.
Compare these statements with Paul’s vow that he himself “observes and guards the law” in Acts 21.
some books were questioned in some places, and some did not know about some books in some places. Remember, they are all individual scrolls in the first century and probably most of the second century.
The method of drying out sheets of papyri and tying them together flat as sheets was not even in existance until after 200 AD. Evidence shows the Romans using that method; and later the Christians started doing that in order to combine books and letters together, which previously had been individual scrolls rolled up and sent to different areas. Tying sheets of papyri together eventually turned into what is known as the “codex” and then later in history, the making of a binding and book binding.
So the Corinthians had the 2 Corinthians letters as individual scrolls, but maybe only Mark as a gospel for a while.
the Romans had Romans, and maybe Mark and Matthew, etc.
96 AD – they all existed.
180-220 – Tertullian and Irenaeus quoted from and mentioned most of the 27 NT books as God’s word.
250 – Origen
367 – Athanasius
393 – Council of Hippo
397 – council of Carthage
We see in Irenaeus and Tertullian (180-220 AD) most all of the NT books considered canonical / God-breathed and authoritative – all four gospels, Paul’s letters, Revelation, Hebrews, etc.
keep in mind that before Tertullian and Irenaeus, we don’t have anyone else who wrote that much material or their books have lost to history, for example Papias’ 5 volumes are all lost; all we have are fragments.
the little letters of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr are not big enough to comment much on all the books. they mention some NT books, but their writings are small until Irenaeus and Tertullian.
The only questions were about 2 Peter, 2-3 John, James is not mentioned by either of them, and neither is Philemon. They are not mentioned; it does not mean that they did not exist.
They accepted Revelation (Irenaeus and Tertullian were western writers), but Revelation was questioned in the east.
Origen listed all of the NT books in 250 AD. (commentary on Joshua)
Athanasius’ famous Festal letter of 367 AD is usually the one people name as first extant list, but Origen did a century earlier.
The provincial councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) under Augustine’s leadership confirm the 27 books of the NT.
But they all existed by 96 AD, it just took a while to discern and collect all of them together under one “book cover”.
so it was in the 3rd century after Christ that the canon of New Testament (all 27 books) as we have it today was finally recognised by the Christian church as authoritative Scripture!
Wow!
And you think Paul knew of this canon all the way back in the 1st century based on your reading of 2 Tim 3:16?
If I am with a Muslim, I would not eat pork or drink a glass of wine with my steak – that does not mean I am lying, it means I am respecting them. Like taking off my shoes at the door or greeting with a kiss on the cheek – to follow those customs is not lying, rather it is showing respect for the culture I am seeking to relate to and spend time with and share the gospel message with.
But if a person says that you cannot be a Christian and have a glass of wine, and eat pork; then they are wrong. They are not sins. Getting drunk is a sin, but having a beer or glass of wine is not sin.
If the Jews want to continue to not eat pork, that is ok; but if they say to the Gentiles that in order to be saved, believing in Jesus is not enough, and you have to not eat pork and keep kosher with other foods, etc. IN ORDER TO BE SAVED, then that is wrong.
Paul’s principle in 1 Cor. 9 is showing respect to the Jews in those cultural aspects; but he does’t require the Gentiles to become Jews culturally.
The Galatians (3:23-25) passage you quoted is teaching that the Law drives us to trust in Christ, when we think that we earn God’s favor by trying to keep the law, we try to keep the law and finally get frustrated because we cannot keep it perfectly, the law acts as a tudor that forces us and drives us to “give up” and surrender to Christ, for only He through the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us can give us the power to obey God and have pure motives. “No longer under the discipline of the law” does not mean we can break the law, it means we are no longer under it as a method/means of seeking to gain God’s favor.
Patrice: I thought Tertullian was a heretic as well? Besides many people have different definitions of what a Christian is. Marcion is a perfect example of this reality.
Protestants don’t consider Tertullian a heretic, in fact the Roman Catholic Church does not consider him a formal heretic, rather he is considered a schismatic, one that broke away from the catholic church over discipline issues, not doctrinal issues.
Origen is considered a heretic in some areas; but he was very good on some things.
But all agree that Marcion was a major heretic.
Tertullian was very good against Marcion, and even RCC agrees on that issue.
A Christian will always sugar coats his believe and call those who to not believe like him as heretic and in the olden days before the religious freedom was not slapped on them by force, they will kill.
Here is the root of Paul’s deception and the lie he told Torah-observant James:
Galatians 3:23-25
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian [ie Paul says he is no longer required to obey Torah]
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law [Paul makes clear he no longer obeys Torah or lives under it] ) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.
Compare these statements with Paul’s vow that he himself “observes and guards the law” in Acts 21. Here Paul testifies to his Torah-observant status as a Jew. This contradicts his testimony in 1 Corinthians and Galatians.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian [ie Paul says he is no longer required to obey Torah]
I wonder if you are serious in that you don’t know what this means or that Evangelical baptist Church never taught you the proper meaning of justification, faith, salvation, grace and the purposes of the law.
That is not what that means. It means the law no longer acts as our tudor to drive us to Christ, since we were already driven to Christ and He has become our source of power now – ” . . . Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20
The law still disciplines us for sanctification, growth, holiness; but the law no longer drives us for justification/salvation – since we are justified by faith in Christ and secure. And that security causes us to love to life for God and glorify Him even more and obey Him even more.
[Paul makes clear he no longer obeys Torah or lives under it] )
Gosh! You did not learn what this means at the Evangelical church you went to for a few years?
“though I myself am not under the law” = he means he is not under the law as a system or way to seek to earn God’s favor or get His love or earn His approval. It also means he is not under the condemnation of the law.
He does not mean he no longer obeys it. You know Christians still believe we should obey the moral law, not as a way to earn God’s favor/love/salvation, but in gratitude and proof of a changed heart. We want to obey God now, because our hearts have been changed first. Good works come after grace and faith – Ephesians 2:8-10 – verses 8-9 – only by grace through faith are we saved. verse 10 – good works are the results of true faith in Christ.
And you know (or should know) that no Christian teaches what you are trying to make it say.
And you think Paul knew of this canon all the way back in the 1st century based on your reading of 2 Tim 3:16?
He knew of his own letters (13) and at least 3 (Matthew, Mark, Luke) of the 4 Gospels, and probably the book of Acts. he probably knew of 1 Peter, as it was written earlier, around 64 AD.
1 Timothy 5:18 – puts gospels along with Deuteronomy (Torah) as Scripture.
The others were not written yet.
But he lays down the principle that whatever is God-breathed, is Scripture, even if it comes later, after the time of 2 Timothy in 67 AD, as 2 Peter in 67 AD (around same time), and Hebrews in 68 AD and the Gospel of John, and the letters of 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation from 80-96 AD and Jude in 80 AD.
So even if some books comes later than 2 Timothy 3:16, the principle is still the same, whatever writing is God-breathed, is authoritative holy Scripture.
1 Corinthians 7:12 means he is not quoting from the Lord Jesus or the gospel tradition, because Jesus did not mention the issue of when an unbeliever wants to divorce a believer. See context of verse 12-15. Jesus did not deal with marriage issues with unbelievers.
In verse 10 – to the married, I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband” – Paul is saying he is quoting the teaching of Jesus, who taught against divorce in Matthew 5 and 19.
But clearly understood his own teachings and writings as God’s Word.
1 Thessalonians 2:13
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16
Galatians 1:6-9
Ephesians 3:3-4 ff
Philippians 1:7, 27
Colossians 4:16 – “and when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.”
1 Timothy 4:13 – “give attention to the public reading of Scripture”
You claim: ‘But Paul clearly understood his own teachings and writings as God’s Word.’
Lets examine the evidence you cite to prove your claim:
1 Thessalonians 2:13
‘We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.’
This refers perhaps to preaching and does not state that everything Paul ever says or writes is the Revelation of God. Also, this is not evidence that he thought he was writing Holy Scripture on a par with the Torah.
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16 a very long text. I see no verse where he thought he was writing Holy Scripture on a par with the Torah.
Galatians 1:6-9
‘I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel[a] from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!’
This does NOT say that Galatians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
Ephesians 3:3-4 ff
‘and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 4 a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ.’
This does NOT say that Ephesians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
Philippians 1:7, 27
7: ‘It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart,[a] for all of you share in God’s grace[b] with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.’
27 ‘Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel’
This does NOT say that Philippians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
Galatians 1:8-9 – “so I say to you now” = what I am writing, I am saying to you now – this writing is authoritative and revelation from God – later in verses 10-12 – “I received it as a revelation from God”. He views his preaching and gospel as authoritative and the word of God ( 1 Thess. 2:13) and his letters as “combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” – 1 Cor. 2:13 – speaking to them by writing. He views his writings as follow-ups to his preaching – authoritative as an apostle. You are just being obtuse to not want to see the truth. Ephesians 3:3-4 – “as I wrote” = about the revelation of the mystery, which he continues to explain in the writing.
here Paul clearly states that the teaching he gives to the Corinthian church is NOT from God. It may be wonderful advice but it is not God’s Word.
12 To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.[b] 16 Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.
but Paul teaches in Galatians that those who follow the Spirit do not follow the Law
Galatians 5:18: ‘if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.’
Again, that is not what that means. It means “not under the condemnation of the law; and not under it as a way to try and earn God’s favor”; it means the Spirit gives you power to obey God’s law; it means you are no longer alone trying to obey God’s law and always failing and always feeling like you are not earning His favor or grace or love, because you cannot earn God’s favor/grace/love. He loves you already and give you the power to obey Him, if you repent and trust Christ – ie, if you are born again.
It never means, “no longer obey God’s moral law”
You didn’t learn that at the Evangelical Baptist Church you went to for a few years ?
Not being subject to the law means no longer having to obey it. That is very clear from the whole letter: Galatians 3:23 describes the law as a ‘disciplinarian’ to be followed till ‘faith’ was revealed. Paul goes on to say he is no longer under the law.
In saying this he has apostatised from Judaism and set himself at odds with the Jerusalem apostles who were keen Torah observant Jews.
Big schism in the earliest church over this issue. Covered up by Luke in Acts. This we widely recognised in NT scholarship even by Christian scholars like Jimmy Dunn.
no; it means not treating law as a way to gain God’s favor/love/acceptance/grace. Once changed by grace, we are freed to live for God and obey His moral law. Romans 6:1-6 – “what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? May it never be !!
Do you not know that all of you who have been immersed into Christ have been immersed into His death? . . . our old self was crucified with Him, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
Blogging Theology 
Have you listened to the whole thing yet?
I am listening now.
Everyone should listen to the whole thing and look up the verses and think about it.
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It is frustrating cause I try to rewind (on certain points) and it goes back to beginning and cannot forward it. Bummer !!
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What are your thoughts on the debate Ken?
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I am a little more than half-way through; in and out and off and on as I have to do other things constantly with family, other interruptions – phone calls, etc.
I will let you know when I finish the whole thing.
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“Everyone should listen to the whole thing and look up the verses and think about it.”
I agree Ken.
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What did you think of the debate Omer?
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Hi Paul, I did not get a chance to see all of it…but whatever I saw made me impressed with Dr. Shabir Ally’s responses.
When I see all of it, I will post some comments.
Thanks much for posting the video. I greatly appreciate it.
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I haven’t watched the debate yet, but I am disappointed why br. Shabbir are willing to low himself giving platform to such a despicable figure 😧
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Lots of different Muslims have debated David Wood. here Paul Williams was moderator. (vs. Abdullah Al Andalousi
see list of lots of various Muslims who have debated David Wood: (Sami Zataari, Adnan Rashid, Basaam Zawadi, Ali Ataei, several others.
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/p/debates.html
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I finally finished it; but I am too tired to type up anything now. After midnight here. Maybe tomorrow evening, Lord willing, I will write something.
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Haven’t finished watching, but why didn’t shabir go first since the proposition is what the quran teaches about the bible?
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its a mystery – like the trinity
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Well, actually having finished watching the debate the biggest mystery is why shabir even bothers doing debates – wood wiped the floor with him. Shabir is starting to make Osama abdhalla look invincible.
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Intetrsting. So what in your opinion was Wood’s best argument?
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Well, that just shows that you are just as deranged as Wood is. 😉
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An interesting hadith:
Narrated by Ubaidullah:
Ibn `Abbas said, “Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Qur’an) which has been revealed to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, undistorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”
Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari 7363
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 9, Book 92, Hadith 461
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LOL, the trinitarians seem to always ignore this hadith since it categorically refutes the idea that Islam “confirms” the Bible.
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What is the earliest manuscript or fragment for that hadith? My understanding is that Bukhari evolved over time, with additions being made after his death – this means that being in possession of the earliest manuscript is essential to to assess authenticity of the contents. Is it true that the earliest manuscript comes from at least 4-5 centuries after the events they purport to describe? If that is the case then we have to be wary to claim reliable historicity for these works.
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I have to say that David Wood has really improved as a debater. Back in 2008-2010 he lost a majority of his debates but now he’s quite good. Something must have happened in early 2011 for him to change like this. I’m impressed.
Regarding the current debate, the hadith should have been avoided. Shabir even pointed that out at one point. I think David made a strong case with his view the Quran only attacks scribes, not the texts themselves. The Q and A were good but some were a bit off topic.
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Kmak
“Intetrsting. So what in your opinion was Wood’s best argument?”
I think that all of wood’s points were devastating – you have to do a serpentine logical dance to “reinterpret” vague texts in order to throw doubt on very clear ones and he demonstrated very well that the clearest verses of the quran state that the gospels and torah are absolutely not corrupted.
Wood’s very strongest argument was one that he failed to capitalize on and push thoroughly – namely that the muslim sources state explicitly that there are huge swathes of verses and entire chapters missing from the quran. In and of itself for reasonable people, that casts huge doubt on the credibility of the book regardless of what it says about the bible – it is incomplete and probably corrupted.
One weakness of Wood’s presentation was that he never raised other passages in the quran that reference christianity and judaism that are just plain wrong – namely, the claim that jews proclaim Ezra is the son of god and the vague implication that the christian trinity consists of allah, jesus and mary. Even worse, nowhere does the quran actually state who the persons of the trinity are – it never identifies father, son, holy spirit.
Shaibr never got out of the starting block – he really should have gone first since the proposition was what the quran says. Wood should not have had to explain the propositional muslim position, but all shabir did was to try and rewrite the quran to fit the muslim view.
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“… that the clearest verses of the quran state that the gospels and torah are absolutely not corrupted”.
That’s impossible. Al Qur’an does not speak about “gospels”.
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D, if you think the clearest verses say the bible hasn’t been corrupted, how do you respond to the fact that the scholarly consensus recognizes the Quran does charge the bible with textual tampering as pointed out by Dr.Walid Saleh in his review of Gordon Nickel’s book which I’m pretty sure Wood used in his debate?
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Fail
“Well, that just shows that you are just as deranged as Wood is. 😉”
How is Wood deranged?
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D,
Don’t you think that a guy who says he is “disturbed” by some things in the Bible yet spends most of his time demonizing Islam is deranged? 🙂
Fail!
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Burhanuddin1
“That’s impossible. Al Qur’an does not speak about “gospels”.”
So the whole debate is moot since your book doesn’t speak about the “bible”.
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Nonsense
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Burhanuddin1
“Nonsense”
Yes that is what you are writing.
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I was referring to you, capice? Probably not …
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Burhanuddin1
“I was referring to you, capice? Probably not …”
Why do you keep trying to sound like the mafia?
Better still why don’t you enlighten me on the historical reliability of the hadith in question? What is the earliest manuscript of it? Do you even know?
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dude why don’t you do your own research instead of pimping off others time and labour?
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I just wanted to share this good point made by Br. Zakir Hussein.
When the Quran speaks of the People of the Book changing the words of their book with their tongues it can still refer to textual corruption since changing a vowel can change the meaning of a word and the vowels were not added to the OT until the 10th Century.
This is what he wrote:
“i had a missionary who tried to refute the claim that the Quran in surah 5:13 is speaking about textual corruption
He said this only means twisting with our mouths same as surah 3:78
I said no problem but twisting with your mouth also leads to textual corruption when u change the vowels in the written texts to represent your verbal twisting
Eg Ishmael being wild or fruitful
Arab or raven”
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Good point!
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Besides the very clear presentation by David Wood that the Qur’an:
1. Affirms/confirms مصدق the inspiration of the previous Scriptures – Surah 3:84, 2:136; 3:3-4
2. Affirms/confirms مصدق the preservation of the previous Scriptures – Surah 5:47; 10:94 (between the hands – بین یدیه = what they have at the time of Muhammad)
3. Affirms/confirms the authority of the previous Scriptures – 5:43 – why do they come to you when they have the Torah?
5:47 – let the people of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein –
5:68 – O people of the Scripture, اهل الکتاب you have no standing unless you observe/uphold/ hold fast to / do / obey the Torah and the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.”
SAHIH INTERNATIONAL
Say, “O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.” And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. So do not grieve over the disbelieving people.
10:94 – Gospel and Torah authoritative for Muhammad also. Resort to the previous Scriptures; Ask the people of the book.
and since none can change the words of Allah – Surah 6:114-5 (or 116 depending on different English translation/numbering system) and 18:27; (see also 6:34, 10:65)
therefore, the previous Scriptures were not corrupted.
also, David Wood also shows why the Qur’an understands itself on why it was revealed:
Surah 46:12 and 42:7 and 6:155-157 – revealed in Arabic because the Arabs did not have a book from God and were ignorant of God’s truth and revelation, and so that they have no excuse on judgement day.
besides these points,
David Wood Also devastated Shabir’s arguments by several other points:
Context of Surah 2:75-79
Shabir tries to say 2:79 means the Torah was completely corrupted.
1. Surah 2:75 – “a party/sect/group from among them” ( the Jews) ” فریق منهم , who used to hear the words of Allah and distort / change (the Torah) after they had understood it.
This goes with Surah 3:78 – منهم لفریقا – “from among them there is a party/group” – a party among them who distort the Scriptures with their tongues
Surah 7:159 – a faithful party / group of the Jews.
Surah 3:113-115 – a faithful party of the Jews who stayed up late at night reciting the Scriptures.
One party cannot totally corrupt all of the Scriptures because there are so many other copies globally of the Scriptures.
So, it cannot mean that all of the original Torah was corrupted or lost.
2. Keep reading to 2:85 – condemns people who don’t accept ALL of the Word of God. (in context, meaning The Torah or Tanakh)
I would add that 2:78 shows that this group is:
a. Uneducated / illiterate
b. Only going by what they hear
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
3. Shabir tried to say that Jesus said John the Baptist is greater than Him, and that there was another one coming after John the Baptist who will be greater than him, and Shabir claimed that is Muhammad, since Jesus said “no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist”.
John 1:26-31 – John the Baptist said “this is the one I am speaking about who is higher than me and I am not worthy to untie his sandals”, etc. (Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; the one who stands among you whom I will baptize in water”, etc. )
Even Matthew 3:11 – John the Baptist clearly says that the one who is greater than him whom he is not worthy to remove his sandals, this is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. (also in Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17)
So, Shabir’s argument only from Synoptics is defeated, nuked, destroyed, shish kebab-ed.
4. Shabir’s argument about the Paraclete being Muhammad was very weak, since there are no textual variants of the original Greek of those passages in John 14 and 16; and Greek writes vowels; and 14:16-17 says “the Spirit of truth” and “will be with you forever”; and “He will be in you”, etc. Also, John 16:7 Jesus says “I will send Him”, “the Helper” (paracletos), “the Spirit of Truth” (verse 13) – that argument would make Jesus into Allah, since only Allah can send prophets, an argument which Muslims would not want to do.
5. The quote from Abdullah Saeed, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, was devastating to Shabir Ally’s argument. Boom!
6. The Torah is also called Furqan فرقان (“criterion”) – Surah 2:53 and 21:48. (answering 3:3-4 which adds the Furqan to Torah and Gospel. (maybe Qur’an or maybe other OT books like Zobur or prophets.)
The only strong point that Shabir had was the Hadith of Al Bukhari of Ibn Abbas, (which Paul Williams quoted above), which contradicts Sunan Abu Dawood 4449 and Jami’ Al-Tirmidhi 2653, which said that “Muhammad said “The Torah and the Gospel are with the Jews and the Christians”. Ibn Abbas implies that they should not ask the people of the Scripture since the Qur’an comes later, etc. But Shabir admitted that other narrations/sources on Ibn Abbas are contradictory.
David Wood had a great rebuttal to that: “Don’t make Ibn Abbas’ word over-rule Allah’s word and Muhammad’s words.”
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David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
Dr Walid Saleh specialises in the Qur’an, its history, redaction and manuscripts; the history of the reception of the Qur’an and its exegesis, at the University of Toronto, Canada.
He stated in a recent academic paper:
“the scholarly consensus is that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted.”
see full article here
How do you explain that Ken?
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Nice cut and paste job Temple. Care to engage the claim that the scholarly consensus is on the Quran charges the bible with textual tampering?
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LOL, that’s all people like Ken can do. They are incapable of any objective research and will just blindly copy like-minded sources.
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The Quran acknowledges that the gospel of Jesus is to be found in the existing gospels but is not coterminous with it. Christians are called by God in his final Testament to mankind to judge what they believe by the gospel *of* Jesus, and this teaching is confirmed by the Quran. The Quran also corrects the mis-interpretations by Christians who wrongly believe Jesus is God. Jesus bears witness in the Quran that he is just a man.
Clearly the four gospels are not the Injil. They make claims (eg about the crucifixion) that God has made clear are quite unhistorical. The Quran suggests that the ‘Gospel’ (Injil) is something given to Jesus by God (surah 5:46). So it is evident that in the Qur’an the divine Gospel was one revealed to Jesus and not books written about Jesus.
A concluding quote from Montgomery Watt (who was Professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh, and one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the West):
“While it is stated that Jesus received from God a scripture called the Gospel (or Evangel – Injil), there is nothing to suggest that this was any more like our actual gospels in the New Testament than the tawrat received by Moses was like the actual Pentateuch. Indeed Muslims usually deny that our actual gospels are the book received by Jesus, since that consisted entirely of revelations from God and not of historical statements about Jesus.”
[William Montgomery Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters. Perceptions And Misperceptions, Routledge, 1991, p. 24
I also refer you to the interesting discussion about the gospels/Injil in The Study Quran, surah 3: 3-4.
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The only verse I did “cut and paste” was Surah 5:68.
I wrote all of it out by hand and then typed it all up. That’s why it took me so long. I listened to the whole thing twice and took notes, looked up all the verses, thought about context, and argumentation, etc.
Even so, so what? I could have easily typed out Surah 5:68.
You have no argument.
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why it took me so long – also I was very busy with other work and family responsibilities.
Even with that article, David Wood devastated ( slowly kebab-ed them over a grill ) Shabir’s arguments.
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David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
Dr Walid Saleh specialises in the Qur’an, its history, redaction and manuscripts; the history of the reception of the Qur’an and its exegesis, at the University of Toronto, Canada.
He stated in a recent academic paper:
“the scholarly consensus is that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted.”
see full article here
How do you explain that Ken?
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I did not copy anything except Surah 5:68 for convenience.
You guys don’t even seem to read what I wrote. I wrote and typed and argued it all out from David’s presentation and even added my own comments that even made David’s points even stronger. But you didn’t see that because you didn’t even read what I wrote.
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I also typed out the Arabic words myself using my own software (Farsi) which has all the same letters, just not the vowels in between.
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Paul Williams wrote:
David Wood is not a scholar in the field of Quranic exegesis and as far as I know cannot even read Arabic. I would question his intellectual credentials to comment on this subject.
So what? Anyone who has a brain can listen to both David Wood and Shabir Ally above, look up the verses, look at the context and arguments, and come to their conclusions.
So how is the Qur’an plain and clear and easy to understand, if when ever a Muslim’s argument is devastated, he has to resort the very common response of “but you don’t understand the deep meaning of the Arabic here” or “you are not an Arabic scholar”, etc.
You did not originally put up Walid Saleh’s article. Originally, you put the debate video up and so our comments are on how David Wood and Shabir Ally did.
David Wood had the better argument. Period.
There are lots of scholars who agree that the Qur’an does not teach that the previous Scriptures have been corrupted. You even quoted one of them on your previous blog, Paul – Abdel Haleem. (no longer there cause you took down that old blog.)
the Qur’an does not teach that the text of the Injeel has been corrupted.
“1) The Quran does not teach that the Bible has been textually corrupted – it does suggest that the Bible has been misinterpreted, key verses concealed, distorted etc.”
from an Islamic scholar named Abdel Haleem.
Also, Abdullah Saeed; and others
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Ken
you did not answer my question:
A top Western Quran scholar recently wrote:
“the scholarly consensus is that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted.”
yet you claim “the Qur’an does not teach that the text of the Injeel has been corrupted.”
These scholars can read Quran in Arabic and are trained to interpret the text accurately. Yet they think Wood is just wrong.
How do you explain that Ken?
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I am reading it. Some parts are hard to understand without having the works the author refers to. (Gordon Nichel’s -Brill text; and the 2 Qur’an Tafsirs that he talks about. referring to page numbers, without the ability to look up and understand what exactly he is saying is difficult.
Just claiming “scholarly consensus” does not make it so. I don’t know that. And if majority are modern scholars, then that can also call into question the weight of credibility by “majority”. Sometimes more ancient, but smaller in number, is better than a “majority” of something that is modern, for it is easy for scholars in the last 200 years to print and repeat.
Scholarly consensus is that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and died on the cross and was buried in Joseph of Arimethea’s tomb and that the tomb was empty on the 3rd day.
But you guys refuse to believe that scholar consensus. (because of Surah 4:157 – 600 years after the historical fact already established for centuries.
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If a scholarly consensus exists amongst the experts that an ancient text clearly says something, I would not be very bright or wise if i just went with the opinion of a non-scholar, who has no relevant academic credentials, who has a missionary ax to grind, who can not even read the original language.
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Isn’t it true also that Abdel Haleem and Abdullah Saeed and others also
“can read Quran in Arabic and are trained to interpret the text accurately” ?
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Yes, but if I recall rightly Professor Haleem does not think the “gospel” referred to by the Quran is the New Testament or the four gospels.
So he is a witnesses against Wood’s view: in fact the Quran does not endorse the NT according to Haleem.
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Sure. Their views are in the minority and they havent written peer reviewed papers defending their positions. Until then, the rational thing to do is go by the established position which is that the Quran says the bible has been textually tampered.
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In order to really understand what Waleed Saleh is saying it seems to me that one would have to have Muqatil and Al Tabari’s commentaries, and all the other info – Gordon Nichel’s books also.
Is the book that Waleed Saleh is critiquing, the same book (a popularized versions of his Brill book) as:
“The Gentle Answer to the Muslim Accusation of Biblical Falsification” ?
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As I recall, David Wood also cited other Islamic scholars who agreed with Abdullah Saeed, like Fakhr Al Din Al Razi (died in 1209 AD). There were others, but I would have to go back and find that also.
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‘Shabir is the best Muslim debater, but on this issue, Wood clearly won.’
He may have won the debate, but not necessarily the argument.
I’m reading an interesting book by a top Christian scholar in the field entitled,
The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
by Sidney H. Griffith a professor at the Catholic University of America. He agrees with Dr Walid Saleh that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted. I’ll give some quotes tomorrow when I have time.
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Ken, what is so ambiguous about the statement that a scholarly consensus exists regarding textual corruption? Mind you, Walid Saleh is one of the foremost contemporary academic scholars of the Quran, and his review appears in a peer reviewed journal. You can’t pull a fast one when your claims are subject to peer review. Do you think Wood has any chances of getting his arguments published in a top Islamic studies or religious studies journal?
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the statement about “the majority of scholar consensus” is clear; but if you read the whole Pdf that Paul put up, it is difficult to know what Walid is talking about, without having Nichel’s work before me, and without having Al Tabari and Muqatil’s commentaries.
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Even so (even with all the claims of “majority of scholarly consensus”), the debate as is, taking Shabir Ally and David Wood’s as it is, in listening to them in English and looking up the texts and looking at the Arabic words and text as they both mention words and phrases, Wood devastated Shabir’s argument.
Shabir is the best Muslim debater, but on this issue, Wood clearly won.
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Shabir Ally is a scholar also, and knows Arabic. He should have been able to make a better case, if there is so much scholarly consensus.
As it is, Shabir Ally was very weak and Wood devastated his arguments.
Shabir even admitted that before, he was inclined toward that view (that the Qur’an never says the text has been changed), but changed his mind. But he did not make a good case for changing his mind.
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No one has interacted with anything I first wrote. (today)
All you did was change the subject of the post from the debate between Shabir Ally and David Wood to an article written by Waleed Saleh.
That’s ok, and Paul put up a separate post on that article.
However, deal with the details of what I wrote in my first post today. (May 2, 2016 at 8:03pm)
https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/04/30/what-does-the-quran-teach-about-the-bible-david-wood-vs-shabir-ally/#comment-13856
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Ken, do you think Wood’s arguments will be accepted by any top peer-reviewed Islamic studies or religious studies journal?
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You know what, Ken. I haven’t seen the debate but I’ll agree with you that Ally probably lost. He has a PhD in Islamic Studies but he hasn’t written a single paper since getting his doctorate which to me indicates a waste of the degree. One doesn’t need a PhD if all he’s gonna do is debate low level polemicists like Wood.
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You need to watch and listen to the debate then. Commenting after you watch and listen gives you greater credibility to comments. 😉
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Paul Williams wrote:
He may have won the debate, but not necessarily the argument.
I’m reading an interesting book by a top Christian scholar in the field entitled,
The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
by Sidney H. Griffith a professor at the Catholic University of America. He agrees with Dr Walid Saleh that the Qurān does indeed make the charge that Jewish and Christian scriptures have been textually corrupted. I’ll give some quotes tomorrow when I have time.
Shabir Ally also mentioned Griffith’s book as what helped him overcome his previous leaning toward the view that the Qur’an never says the text of the previous Scriptures was corrupted.
Why couldn’t Shabir mount a better argument, given that Shabir is very intelligent, a scholar, and a great debater?
I also always appreciate Shabir’s tone and gracious manners. He and Abdullah Kunde are the best at being respectful.
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Paul,
Did you watch and listen to the debate?
Shabir Ally mentioned that book by Griffith also. Your comment seems to indicate you didn’t know Shabir also mentioned it.
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“who has a missionary ax to grind”
what about your “anti-Christian” and “Anti-Bible ax to grind?
“who can not even read the original language”
Why do you criticize me when I put Arabic up of words like Isa Al Masih عیسی المسیح (original language of Qur’an) to make an emphasis or point, and you say, “speak English to me”, etc. (which is just you acting silly in most cases, cause you know what I mean and you even have “Allah” الله
and “bism’allah al rahman Al rahim” بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
at top of your blog, without translation and without transliteration.
Muhammad could not read Hebrew or Greek also; so he is disqualified also.
Allah revealed it in Arabic, so the argument of the Qur’an goes, so that the Arabs would have God’s revelation in their own language so they can learn and get out of paganism/idolatry/ Jahileh “Ignorance” and have no excuse on judgment day.
Your argument is in tension with the way the Qur’an argues.
The Qur’an argues, “we reveal it in Arabic so the Arabs can understand” (cause they cannot understand Hebrew and Greek)
Therefore, along the same parallel of argument, speak to me and argue in English, since we understand each other in English. Which is what Shabir and Wood did, and Wood won.
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Bear in mind, Dr. Ally did his PhD under Walid Saleh and both of them agree that the Quran does in fact teach the corruption of previous religious revealed texts.
For David Wood to say (if Ken Temple is presenting his view accurately) that Muslims believe that the previous scriptures have been TOTALLY tampered with, is just a straw man and no Muslim that I know off, including Ally, holds to that position. Which shows that Wood was not engaging with the argument.
The Hadith of Ibn Abbas found in Al-Bukhari is clear and if Wood’s response was that we are taking Ibn Abbas’ words above the Quran then that is a poor and feeble response as Ibn Abbas is only giving commentary to the Quran, namely Surah 2:79 which does speaks of textual corruption and the contexts does not change that meaning.
Even when the Quran is criticizing previous religious communities of tampering their scriptures with their tongues, it can still refer to textual corruption since by changing the vowels the meaning of a word can change and the vowels were not added until much later.
The point about John the Baptists being greater than Jesus and John claiming there’s another to come after him, cannot apply to Jesus, since both of them were contemporaries of one another and Jesus had already been born of a woman. However, it is correct that the Synoptics do try to link this prophesy to Jesus but do so inadequately.
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Since Shabir studied under Walid Saleh, why could he not bring more proofs and / or better arguments for that case?
Also, it doesn’t seem like you watched/listened to the entire debate either.
The synoptic gospels (and John) both say the one Yahya یحیی (John the Baptist) is talking about is Jesus.
Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17.
Shabir got fried on that one.
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Even when the Quran is criticizing previous religious communities of tampering their scriptures with their tongues, it can still refer to textual corruption since by changing the vowels the meaning of a word can change and the vowels were not added until much later.
This point would not apply to Greek, since the vowels have always been there. (not like Arabic or Hebrew, which is vowel pointing. ) In Greek, vowels are letters (like English).
παρακλητος
parakletos
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Imam Bukhari was earlier than Ibn Hazm so Gordan Nickels thesis about Ibn Hazm inventing the idea of textual corruption among the Jewish-Christian scriptures is factual wrong.
Narrated Ubaidullah:
Ibn `Abbas said,
“Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Qur’an) which has been revealed to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, un-distorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”
Al-Bukhari
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Not only Ibn Abbas (ra) but the following hadith also shows that the Companions of the Prophet (saw) believed that the bible had been textually tampered with. What else could, ‘Save this nation before they differ about the book as Jews and Christians did before’ mean?
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before.”
So early Muslims as far back as the Companions of the Prophet (saw) did believe in a textual corruption of the bible and as the report above shows they feared a similar thing for the Quran unless Uthman (ra) took action. Thus the claim this this belief is a late development among Muslims is simply not true.
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that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible, because they actually were getting familiar with what Christians really believed and what the text of the Bible said, and . . . oops . . .
But what it seems to be saying is that it was about the differences of the dialects / recitations of the Arabic of Al Sham (Syria, Levant) and Iraq vs. the way they would pronounce words in Azerbaijan and Armenia – which, by the way, does not make sense to me – Azerbaijan speaks a form of Turkic language – Azeri – not even close to Arabic; ( I have Iranian friends who are Azeri Turks and they speak a form of Turkish ) (the northwestern corner of Iran is also called Azerbaijan state.) and Armenian language difference also. I wonder what exactly he means? The differences the Hadith means by “as the Jews and Christians did before” does not necessarily point to textual difference, but pronunciation and recitation differences.
“During the year of 25 Hijr in Islamic Calendar, the Mushaf Uthmani of Quran was created in attempt to avoid linguistic confusion of Qur’an which translated to local dialect of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Hudhaifa warned Uthman that the newly translated Qur’an would lose its original Tafseer if it didn’t standardized in original Mushaf or version first before the local could translate and give commentary of Quran interpretation.”
Sejarah The Holy Quranic Text By Mustafa Al-Azami quoting the History of Mushaf Uthmani
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Armenia and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to `Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.” So `Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to `Uthman. `Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, `Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa`id bin Al-As and `AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. `Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.” They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 4987
In-book reference : Book 66, Hadith 9
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 6, Book 61, Hadith 510
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Ken Temple: that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible
Considering that Muhammad(saw) was rejected by numerous Jews and Christians in his own lifetime, I don’t think the Companions needed to wait 14 years after his death to realize that the Bible contained things that contradicted his claims. Walid Saleh put it best: Muhammad was not naive enough to think that he could convert the Jews of Madina, but he was not willing to let them undermine his authority, and went after the Bible to render its use ineffectual. In order to do this, the mere accusation of textual corruption would not have been enough. A miasmic atmosphere of corruptibility was created around the Bible and its followers such that neither they nor the Bible could be believed when it was used to cast doubt on Muhammad.
Ken Temple: The differences the Hadith means by “as the Jews and Christians did before” does not necessarily point to textual difference, but pronunciation and recitation differences.
There is not a single commentator who identifies “Tahrif” with “pronunciation and recitation differences”. Also, it is highly unlikely that Uthman(ra) would take the trouble of commissioning a standard copy and burning the rest if all that was at stake were mere “pronunciation and recitation differences”. I know many Muslims use the “difference in dialect” argument but that’s mostly apologetics.
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Kmak
“Ken Temple: that was around 646 AD, (14 years after death of Muhammad), during Uthman’s Khaliphate – by that time, they were noticing the differences between the Bible vs. Qur’an’s confirming of the Bible”
That is according to whom and what? Do you have manuscripts, fragments or any other ancient documents from the period that can serve as conclusive evidence for this event ever having taken place? I don’t claim deep knowledge on the issue – mainly because there seems to be so little objective study on the dating of the earliest hadith manuscripts – but it seems as though the earliest Bukhari comes form the 12th century and is believed to have evolved since his death. That makes for an unreliable historical document.
Furthermore, you said this earlier….
“What else could, ‘Save this nation before they differ about the book as Jews and Christians did before’ mean?”
What could be a more explicit and obvious admission that Uthman tampered (i.e. corrupted) the quran for political purposes? If his aim was to unite the early muslims and establish a unique religious identity for them, then it would be in his interests to delete any references to earlier revelation that would shed any doubts on the quran’s endorsement of them.
The consequences of Uthman’s actions – including the destruction of original source material – renders the quran and its supporting material to be almost completely devoid of credibility as historical documents. You simply cannot know if what Uthman put in the quran is what your god intended to be there – what you now have is a book whose content was chosen for political reasons, and not what represents the actual “revelation”.
Now, if Uthamn destroyed hundreds of thousands of supposed revealed fragments and documents, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he destroyed hampered any people whose oral traditions differed from the one he wanted. This makes the oral tradition of the hadith suspect. Coupled with the apparent fact that there are no – or few – early hadith fragments or documents, we have to say that any conclusions about earlier texts drawn from such unreliable documentation should be taken with a grain of salt. This is especially true when the main document – the quran – states explicitly that muslims should revere the earlier texts.
As for Uthamn’s claim about Jews and christians differing about their books, this is also a vague charge. What exactly is he saying? There’s nothing in that statement to suggest that he is saying christians or jews are engaging in in-group infighting but rather that the jews differ from the christians about the meanings of their two texts. Differing about texts does not mean that they are corrupt – don’t you differ from, let’s say Al bagdhadi, on the interpretations of the texts. He claims that the texts call for violence – I’m told that most muslims don’t agree. Does that mean that the quran is corrupted?
Again, though, Wood – although a great debater – should have pushed the general historical unreliability of the muslim sources.
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Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Armenia and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, . . .
It sounds like he is talking about differences in reading/recitation/pronunciation of the people Sham (Levant, Iraq) with the new areas of Azerbaijan (A Turkic dialect – Azeri Turkish) and Armenia.
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D: What could be a more explicit and obvious admission that Uthman tampered (i.e. corrupted) the quran for political purposes? If his aim was to unite the early muslims and establish a unique religious identity for them, then it would be in his interests to delete any references to earlier revelation that would shed any doubts on the quran’s endorsement of them.
The idea that Uthman(ra) tampered with the Quran for political purposes is not new. Some of the early Shiites made such an accusation, that Uthman removed all references to Ali being the rightful Caliph from the Quran. However, NO ONE has entertained the idea that Uthman’s tampering of the Quran involved deleting positive views of earlier revelations. This is such a stupid theory! If Uthman really did tamper with the Quran along the lines you suggest, he would have simply deleted the verses that David Wood uses today to make a case for the Quran endorsing the bible! The fact that these verses continue to exist shows how stupid and wrong your theory is.
D: The consequences of Uthman’s actions – including the destruction of original source material – renders the quran and its supporting material to be almost completely devoid of credibility as historical documents. You simply cannot know if what Uthman put in the quran is what your god intended to be there – what you now have is a book whose content was chosen for political reasons, and not what represents the actual “revelation”.
Actually, the original source material was in the possession of Hafsa(ra), the wife of Muhammad(saw) and the daughter of his Companion, Umar(ra); Uthman(ra) used this to prepare a standard copy and while he burnt the variants that were in circulation elsewhere, he returned Hafsa’s copy to her intact. Hence, it is a bogus claim that Uthman destroyed the original source material.
If Uthman did manipulate the Quran for political reasons, we would expect him to manipulate it in such a way as to promote himself and his supporters and condemn those who opposed his rule; basically, promoting his politics over all others. Of course, no such verses exist in the Quran which at the end of the day contains very little in the way of politics and law. This debunks the theory of political manipulation.
D: Now, if Uthamn destroyed hundreds of thousands of supposed revealed fragments and documents, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he destroyed hampered any people whose oral traditions differed from the one he wanted. This makes the oral tradition of the hadith suspect. Coupled with the apparent fact that there are no – or few – early hadith fragments or documents, we have to say that any conclusions about earlier texts drawn from such unreliable documentation should be taken with a grain of salt. This is especially true when the main document – the quran – states explicitly that muslims should revere the earlier texts.
Uthman didn’t destroy ‘thousands of revealed fragments and documents’ simply because there weren’t any revealed fragments or documents to begin with! The Quran is a revealed recitation. No one in the history of Islam has believed that Allah revealed fragments or documents to Muhammad(saw). Also, it boggles my mind as to how one can conclude that because Uthman destroyed variant copies of the Quran therefore the tradition of hadith is suspect! I’m not aware of any academic scholar that has made this absurd connection.
D: As for Uthamn’s claim about Jews and christians differing about their books, this is also a vague charge. What exactly is he saying? There’s nothing in that statement to suggest that he is saying christians or jews are engaging in in-group infighting but rather that the jews differ from the christians about the meanings of their two texts. Differing about texts does not mean that they are corrupt – don’t you differ from, let’s say Al bagdhadi, on the interpretations of the texts. He claims that the texts call for violence – I’m told that most muslims don’t agree. Does that mean that the quran is corrupted?
Uthman didn’t say Jews and Christians differed about their books, the Companion Hudhaifah Al Yaman did. As I said earlier, if all that was at stake were pronunciation or recitation differences or even differences in interpretation, why would Uthman take the trouble of preparing a standard text and destroying variants? There’s a difference between differing about a text and differences that arise due to differing texts. The latter was what motivated Uthman to do what he did. The argument stands. Early Muslims did believe the bible was textually corrupted.
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“Since Shabir studied under Walid Saleh, why could he not bring more proofs and / or better arguments for that case?”
From what you have presented it does not appear that Wood did that well.
“Also, it doesn’t seem like you watched/listened to the entire debate either.”
I’ve only dip in and out of the debate and read various comments including your owns.
“The synoptic gospels (and John) both say the one Yahya یحیی (John the Baptist) is talking about is Jesus.
Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16-17.
Shabir got fried on that one.””
Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so. If John the Baptist was referring to Jesus then why did he not stop and become a follower of Jesus along with John’s disciples. Matthew 3:11-12 is regarded by Biblical scholars to be an Matthewen-addition to get over the embarrassment that John baptized Jesus rather than Jesus Baptizing John.
“This point would not apply to Greek, since the vowels have always been there. (not like Arabic or Hebrew, which is vowel pointing. ) In Greek, vowels are letters (like English).
παρακλητος
parakletos”
Jesus spoke in Aramaic and not in Greek and the Greek gospels are not refereed to in the Quran. The Christians in the Arabian peninsula were Arabic, Syriac and Aramaic speaking Christians that were in contact with Palestinian Christians who spoke Aramaic. The vowels were added later to the written languages unless if you know something else that we are not aware off.
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Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so.
Yes it does; as with all NT books, which are God’s inspired revelation; (2 Tim. 3:16)
and the Qur’an affirms / confirms the book of the Christians (Surah 3:84; 5:47; 5:68; 10:94)
and also “no one can change the words of Allah”. (6:34; 10:65; 18:27; 6:114-116)
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A historical reading of 2 Timothy 3:16 suggests it refers to the ‘sacred scriptures’ Timothy knew as a child so the Old Testament is being referred to – not the NT.
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D wrote:
. . . but it seems as though the earliest Bukhari comes form the 12th century and is believed to have evolved since his death. That makes for an unreliable historical document.
That’s a good point, Al Bukhari was collected centuries later after Muhammad. I don’t know about 12 th Century ( 1100s AD ?) – I thought it was 800s AD. Are you saying the earliest extant manuscript of Sahih Al Bukhari is from the 1100s AD? wow.
I was assuming the Uthman context from a Muslim point of reference, during Uthman’s Caliphate.
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12th century LOL
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Paul W. –
you keep harping and repeating that; but it is not true.
– 2 Tim. 3:15 does refer to the OT, but 3:16 expands it to “all Scripture” and Paul the apostle told Timothy earlier that the gospels were Scripture on same level as Torah – 1 Timothy 5:18. (which the quotes happen to be from Luke and Matthew – synoptic gospels.)
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It is true. There was no NT Scripture when Paul was writing.
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That’s just fanciful Ken. 3:16 is only referring to the OT. Most of the NT such as the 4 gospels were written AFTER Paul so he could not know about them. Your ‘expansion’ is historically anachronistic.
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And 2 Timothy is not by Paul. If the unknown author was inspired by God, God inspired him to lie.
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Paul Williams,
did you realize Shabir mentioned that same Sidney Griffith book?
(and yet could not make a compelling argument)
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Yes. I am reading it now.
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2 Timothy was Paul’s last letter, so all of Paul’s letter’s existed (13 ) ; and he quoted from Luke and Matthew in 1 Tim. 5:18; and we know Mark, James existed. ( 4= 13 = 17 + 1 Peter = Acts = 19)
That’s most of the NT.
Hebrews and John’s writings (5) and 2 Peter and Jude = 27
Hebrews and 2 Peter around same time as 2 Timothy. (67 AD)
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Ken it is anachronistic to think the New Testament existed as a scripture in Paul’s time. No historian thinks that.
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Nope
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“Paul uses the expression “sacred writings” here in verse 15, but “all Scripture” in verse 16, for the simple reason that he wishes to draw a distinction between the Old Testament (verse 15) and whatever has a right to be called divinely inspired scripture (verse 16). The latter comprises more than the former.”
(William Hendrickson, Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles, 1957, combined with Commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians in 1979, sixth printing, 1987; page 300)
“verse 16, 17. Paul now expands the idea which he has just expressed. He does this in three ways:
a. Not only are “the sacred writings” (verse 15) of inestimable value; so is also “all Scripture”.
b. Not only does this sacred literature “make wise for salvation” (verse 15), but it is definitely God-breathed and as such capable of thoroughly qualifying a person “for every good work”.
c. Not only will it benefit Timothy (verse 15), but it will do the same for every “man of God”.
(Hendrickson, ibid, page 301)
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the simple fact remains: the only scripture in existence was the OT. Paul can’t refer to something that did not exist in his lifetime.
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They existed as individual scrolls written to different areas in the first century.
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No scrolls, sorry.
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On the Muslim charge that Surah 2:79 says that the previous Scriptures are corrupted.
They avoid the context of 2:75-79, verses 75 and 78 being very important and crucial to understanding verse 79.
1. Surah 2:75 – “a party/sect/group from among them” ( the Jews) ” فریق منهم , who used to hear the words of Allah and distort / change (the Torah) after they had understood it.
This goes with Surah 3:78 – منهم لفریقا – “from among them there is a party/group” – a party among them who distort the Scriptures with their tongues
Surah 7:159 – there was a faithful party / group of the Jews.
Surah 3:113-115 – a faithful party of the Jews who stayed up late at night reciting the Scriptures.
One party cannot totally corrupt all of the Scriptures because there are so many other copies globally of the Scriptures.
So, it cannot mean that all of the original Torah was corrupted or lost, so 2:79 does not teach that the Torah was globally corrupted, only that a party of Jews “who were illiterate and do not know the Scriptures and only go by what they hear” (verse 78) that wrote some things down and said “this is from Allah” – that does not change all the copies of all the Torah all over the world of that time.
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Reason # 2 that Surah 2:79 cannot mean that all of the text of the Torah was corrupted.
2. Keep reading to 2:85 – condemns people who don’t accept ALL of the Word of God. (in context, meaning The Torah or Tanakh) The context of 2:75-79 points to some parts that people were making up and going apart and saying “this is from Allah”, but it could not effect all the other Scriptures all over the world.
I would add that 2:78 shows that this group is:
a. Uneducated / illiterate
b. Don’t know the Scriptures
c. Only going by what they hear
so this group of 2:79 are uneducated and illiterate and don’t know the Scriptures and only going by what they hear.
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
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the simple fact remains: the only scripture in existence was the OT. Paul can’t refer to something that did not exist in his lifetime.
No, even Bart Ehrman recognizes some of Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD – Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and I think he recognizes Philemon.
They were definitely in existence and referred to Luke and Matthew as Scripture in 1 Tim. 5:18 – before 2 Tim; therefore there was lots of NT books in existence that were God-breathed Scripture along with OT. Mark and James also.
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Dude you are missing the point.
The books that were to make up the NT were not considered as a canon of “Scripture” to be added to the OT during Paul’s lifetime. That happened only much later.
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Ken Temple
You said;
This is seems to be what Muhammad did – he is just hearing things, doesn’t have the Scriptures in Arabic, and cannot read Hebrew or Greek, so he doesn’t know everything about the previous Scriptures and is just assuming that he understands them and approves of them, and assumes the Christians and Jews are teaching wrong things.
I say;
But you believed those who do not understand Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and wrote your gospels in Greek. What a double standards.
Brother Nazam has educated you but you refused to learn. What you said confirmed brother Gaffur in that yes Prophet Mohammed did not understand Greek or Hebrew but got his scripture direct from God.
He heard it from stories from Jews and Christians? Ken where is your proof? No Jew or Christian ever from the time of our prophet till today came out and said he has SEEN PROPHET MOHAMMED HEARING/LEARNING/COPYING etc. anything from Jews and Christians.
You may be saying so here and you have sinned by giving a false testimony and it is a big sin. You have to provide a prove in the capital letters in my above paragraph.
The Arabs and Jews and Christians that the Quran said our prophet should speak to them spoke Arabic, Aramaic or Syriac as brother Gaffur said, so the Quran is not talking about NT. How can you believe the stories of Jesus in Greek, the language he did not speak and reject the stories in Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic? the language he spoke and their sister Semitic languages? The Quran does not believe in NT which is Greek and did not say NT or gospel of John etc. but GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.
1
The Arabs of our prophets time did not speak Greek and the NT was not translated to Arabic to them, so the Gospel the Quran was referring was was in Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew and or Arabic but not the NT which was in Greek.
Thanks,
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No Paul W.
The apostle Paul’s letters are “canonical” (meaning “standard”, “law”, “rule”, “criterion”) as soon as they were written, because they were God breathed as soon as the were written – Paul says his word and preaching is “God’s Word”
“For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:13
the original meaning of “canon” is standard, criterion, law, rule.
It was later that the word “canon” came to mean “list”.
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Ken Temple
You said;
No, even Bart Ehrman recognizes some of Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD – Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and I think he recognizes Philemon.
They were definitely in existence and referred to Luke and Matthew as Scripture in 1 Tim. 5:18 – before 2 Tim; therefore there was lots of NT books in existence that were God-breathed Scripture along with OT. Mark and James also.
I say;
Brother Nazam does not speak or write much but when he speaks or write, it makes perfect sense than some of us.
I am following his reason. Just because Bart Ehrman recognizes Paul’s letters as authentic and written in the 50s-60s AD etc. does not make it true. Thanks Nazam and may Allah reward you. We need your intellect please.
Nazam said,”Just because the Synoptics say it was Jesus does not make it so.”
Prophet Mohammed talked about Jesus in the Quran. Ken you do not believe that. How do you want us to believe what Paul or John etc. said.
You will say they are the earliest. Earliest does not make a document true. Some later documents can contain truth in it and some earlier document contain lies in it.
IF DR. JAMES WHITE SAYS SOMETHING ANALYZE IT BEFORE USING IT AS ARGUMENT. SOMETIMES HE IS CONFUSED BUT YOU MAY NOT REALIZE.
An earlier document does not make it necessarily the true story and the later story does not make it necessarily lie.
Listen to Unbelievable- Bart Ehrman and Richard Bauckham. They all believed the gospels stories keeps changing from time to time like the gospel of Thomas.
If you argue the Quran affirms the gospels then you have to believe the gospel of Thomas as a gospels too which was not selected by the Church Fathers. You claim the Quran copied from it and so it is a gospel of Jesus too.
The earliest the correct and the latest the wrong is stupid. Now back to the topic. The Quran did not say NT or gospel of John etc. but the gospel so it was not referring to NT or any of the gospels in Greek but the gospel of Jesus known by the Arabs, Aramaic, Hebrew and Syriac speakers at that time.
Thanks.
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All the churches that Paul started and preached at and wrote letters to considered him an apostle and had authority to preach God’s Word and wrote authoritative, inspired letters.
And Paul the apostle was in total unity with the other apostles – Peter, James, John – see Galatians chapters 1-2.
The church received his letters as authoritative and God-inspired / God-breathed from the beginning.
That is why there was no controversy over his letters in the early church. The four gospels and Paul’s letters were the first core of what became “the canon” (list).
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A bit of a white wash of the truth there Ken. Many early Christians were opposed to Paul’s gospel. He was very unpopular with James too as he preached a different message.
Also Paul taught the abandonment of the Torah for Jews (see Galatians) which made him an apostate – and much opposed by the Jerusalem apostles
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The Qur’an did not use the Gospel of Thomas (which Dr. White finished reading on his pod-cast Dividing Line show on Monday, May 1), but it did use “the Infancy gospel of Thomas” and “the Arabic infancy gospel” (which was based on an earlier Syriac version). These are 3 different documents. Do some research on them.
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James is right there in Acts 15 and he and Peter and John all agree together with Paul and Barnabas. Read Acts 15 again and see the unity. Luke is very careful to write several times, “it seemed good to all of us and to the Holy Spirit”, etc. – there was total unity, quoting of Scripture.
The Apostle Paul wrote the letter of Galatians, around 48-49 AD, right before the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:
7 “But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised 8 (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do.”
Galatians 2:7-10
The issue in Acts 21 was about rumors that Paul was preaching against all of the Law, which was not true; he did not preach that Jews should forsake Moses, etc. He was saying that Gentiles did not have to also be circumcised or become Jews or eat kosher, etc. – big difference.
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Acts is a whitewash, a fact well commentated on by your own scholars. The conflict between Paul and James is smoother over. Paul taught Jews not to follow Judaism. James was a Torah observant Jew like his brother.
Big schism!
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Acts 21 had Paul bear false testimony that he too observes and follows the Law. If this is historical then he lied to James.
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“your own scholars” – no; I reject those kufr liberals scholars and that liberal theory. they are not “my scholars”
those that build on the theory of F. C. Bauer – Ehrman, Pagels, Dunn, McGrath – that is your problem. You are using anti-supernaturalists to seek to undermine the Bible, but it does not work, since Islam is at its core makes supernatural claims.
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I was referring to Christian scholars, ie your scholars who you seem happy to throw under the bus when it suits you.
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If you study Acts 15 and Galatians – there is no schism.
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Of course there is between James and Paul. In Acts why did Paul lie to James?
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James Tabor is another one of those Kufr scholars.
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Ken are you a closet Muslim?
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Ken if your going to takfir someone could you do it a bit more gusto? like the Christians did in the good olde days?
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Yeh you mean a nice bit of hanging drawing and quartering?
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Ken is a confessing Kafir
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But Dunn admits a lot here:
David Wood’s quote of James D. G. Dunn, in his book, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels was very devastating to Shabir Ally’s argumentation and also Paul Bilal Williams, who used James D. G. Dunn a lot at his blogs which he has changed 3 times over the past few years.
The quote comes a little after the 25 minute mark. The book Wood quotes from is from 2011.
“Here it becomes obvious that Paul was able to differentiate within the law . He maintains that some laws, here the law of circumcision no longer counted, but in the same breathe he reasserts the importance of keeping the law of God.
Does this not remind us of Jesus? . . .
Paul drew his attitude to the law from Jesus, no other explanation makes such sense of the evidence available to us. It was Jesus’ teaching and example which showed him that in Christ neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but faith operating effectively through love. [Galatians 5:6] It was no doubt this teaching and that example that Paul had in mind when he speaks of “the law of Christ”.
Dunn concludes:
“Should we then speak of a gulf between Jesus and Paul? NO!
Should we deduce that Paul departed from or corrupted the good news which Jesus brought? No!
Should we conclude that Paul transformed Jesus’ message into something that Jesus Himself would not recognize? No! . . . ”
Jesus’ discriminating attitude to the law and the love command . . . ” (David Wood ran out of time at that point)
(James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Eerdmans, 2011, pages 114-115)
in another debate they (Wood and Shabir Ally) had.
https://apologeticsandagape.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/james-d-g-dunn-should-we-deduce-that-paul-departed-from-or-corrupted-the-good-news-which-jesus-brought-no/
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Paul did not obey the Law, he was an apostate from Judaism. James was a Torah observant Jew.
They followed different religions.
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Ken what statement of Jesus said that the law of circumcision should be discontinued? Dunn quotes Paul to make his point, however nothing from Jesus. Very odd.
Besides I thought Dunn was Kufr? Why quote an anti-supernaturalist Kufr? Sheikh Temple you are going against your previous Takfir?
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Yes I noticed this lamentable inconsistency on Ken’s part.
A fundy who quotes Dunn and takfirs a like a Muslim??!
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Ken Temple “That is why there was no controversy over his letters in the early church. The four gospels and Paul’s letters were the first core of what became “the canon” (list).”
Not true. The first Christian canon was Marcion’s. Only Luke and 10 letters of Paul. He rejected Matthew and John. He also threw out the complete OT.
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Ken does not know his Christian history.
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Ken Temple
You said;
The Qur’an did not use the Gospel of Thomas (which Dr. White finished reading on his pod-cast Dividing Line show on Monday, May 1), but it did use “the Infancy gospel of Thomas” and “the Arabic infancy gospel” (which was based on an earlier Syriac version). These are 3 different documents. Do some research on them.
I say;
“the infancy gospel of Thomas”? If it is not a gospel, why is there gospel in the name? Christians will change things to suit them. immortal God is not immortal and died, begotten not made, Son is co-equal to Father, eternal God became into existence at a certain point in time etc. and now “the infancy Gospel of Thomas” is not gospel, The gospel of Thomas itself is not gospel except what the Christians(Trinitarians) believe.
Dr. James White will say “That is not what we believe”, “We do not believe that” but will accuse the Mormons as idolaters. “The Mormons do not believe they are idolaters as well” You the Trinitarians, the Mormons and anyone who adds another person as God to the One God are all idolaters.
They will force their stupid believe on others to the extent of killing them if they do not believe.
I do not need to do any research on these documents because what I am saying was that, If you believe the Quran is referring to NT when it said “We believe in that which was revealed to you” then all these gospel of Thomas should be gospels of Jesus then but not the NT alone.
The Quran did not condemned the scriptures but corrected them and said the have been changed by people who use their hand to write and say it is from God.
The Quran did not affirm NT but the gospel of Jesus which some can be found in the Gospel of Thomas, NT, infancy gospel of Thomas and other stories circulating at that time.
Thanks.
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Marcion was not a Christian – he was a heretic. I am fully away of him and church history. Tertullian, Polycarp, and Irenaeus wrote extensively against him and rebuked him.
He was an idiot and completely rejected the Old Testament.
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Ken when was the the canon of New Testament (all 27 books) as we have it today finally recognised by the Christian church?
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I thought Tertullian was a heretic as well? Besides many people have different definitions of what a Christian is. Marcion is a perfect example of this reality.
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F. C. Bauer, Ehrman, Pagels, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk – these were and are clearly unbelievers in Christ.
Dunn is not as radical as they are.
His statement is true, so it is good to use it against the way Paul W. has been using his writings.
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where exactly are you claiming that Paul lied to James?
What exact verse?
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Acts 21:
The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. 19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. 21 They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. 22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. 24 Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. 25 But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgement that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled[e] and from fornication.’ 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them.
Paul fulfilled this vow even though he did not agree with it. He lied to James and perjured himself before God.
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Dunn is very subtle and hard to understand. I found statements that go against the virgin birth, which I showed to Paul W. a long time ago at his old blog (s). Yet, he also says good things like the above.
Jesus mentions circumcision in John 7:22-23.
Colossians 2:11 mentions “the circumcision of Christ” = a spiritual cleansing/cutting away of the old nature that is done by Christ when a person is converted.
Just as Shabir Ally said in this debate with Wood, “I have to look at all of the Qur’an and put all the verses together for a conclusion” – in the same way, Colossians and Galatians and Romans, etc. are all also the Word of God and the Word of Christ – Christ is speaking through the apostles, the NT writers Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Jude, James, and the writer of Hebrews, probably Barnabas.
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Ken when was the the canon of New Testament (all 27 books) as we have it today finally recognised by the Christian church as authoritative Scripture?
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Earlier, Paul was keeping a Jewish vow.
Acts 18:18
18 Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila. In Cenchrea he had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow.
What he did in Acts 21 is connected to this.
So, Paul is not doing something he disagrees with and so Paul is NOT lying.
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Here is the root of Paul’s deception and the lie he told Torah-observant James:
Galatians 3:23-25
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.
Compare these statements with Paul’s vow that he himself “observes and guards the law” in Acts 21.
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some books were questioned in some places, and some did not know about some books in some places. Remember, they are all individual scrolls in the first century and probably most of the second century.
The method of drying out sheets of papyri and tying them together flat as sheets was not even in existance until after 200 AD. Evidence shows the Romans using that method; and later the Christians started doing that in order to combine books and letters together, which previously had been individual scrolls rolled up and sent to different areas. Tying sheets of papyri together eventually turned into what is known as the “codex” and then later in history, the making of a binding and book binding.
So the Corinthians had the 2 Corinthians letters as individual scrolls, but maybe only Mark as a gospel for a while.
the Romans had Romans, and maybe Mark and Matthew, etc.
96 AD – they all existed.
180-220 – Tertullian and Irenaeus quoted from and mentioned most of the 27 NT books as God’s word.
250 – Origen
367 – Athanasius
393 – Council of Hippo
397 – council of Carthage
We see in Irenaeus and Tertullian (180-220 AD) most all of the NT books considered canonical / God-breathed and authoritative – all four gospels, Paul’s letters, Revelation, Hebrews, etc.
keep in mind that before Tertullian and Irenaeus, we don’t have anyone else who wrote that much material or their books have lost to history, for example Papias’ 5 volumes are all lost; all we have are fragments.
the little letters of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr are not big enough to comment much on all the books. they mention some NT books, but their writings are small until Irenaeus and Tertullian.
The only questions were about 2 Peter, 2-3 John, James is not mentioned by either of them, and neither is Philemon. They are not mentioned; it does not mean that they did not exist.
They accepted Revelation (Irenaeus and Tertullian were western writers), but Revelation was questioned in the east.
Origen listed all of the NT books in 250 AD. (commentary on Joshua)
Athanasius’ famous Festal letter of 367 AD is usually the one people name as first extant list, but Origen did a century earlier.
The provincial councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) under Augustine’s leadership confirm the 27 books of the NT.
But they all existed by 96 AD, it just took a while to discern and collect all of them together under one “book cover”.
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so it was in the 3rd century after Christ that the canon of New Testament (all 27 books) as we have it today was finally recognised by the Christian church as authoritative Scripture!
Wow!
And you think Paul knew of this canon all the way back in the 1st century based on your reading of 2 Tim 3:16?
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If I am with a Muslim, I would not eat pork or drink a glass of wine with my steak – that does not mean I am lying, it means I am respecting them. Like taking off my shoes at the door or greeting with a kiss on the cheek – to follow those customs is not lying, rather it is showing respect for the culture I am seeking to relate to and spend time with and share the gospel message with.
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But if a person says that you cannot be a Christian and have a glass of wine, and eat pork; then they are wrong. They are not sins. Getting drunk is a sin, but having a beer or glass of wine is not sin.
If the Jews want to continue to not eat pork, that is ok; but if they say to the Gentiles that in order to be saved, believing in Jesus is not enough, and you have to not eat pork and keep kosher with other foods, etc. IN ORDER TO BE SAVED, then that is wrong.
Paul’s principle in 1 Cor. 9 is showing respect to the Jews in those cultural aspects; but he does’t require the Gentiles to become Jews culturally.
The Galatians (3:23-25) passage you quoted is teaching that the Law drives us to trust in Christ, when we think that we earn God’s favor by trying to keep the law, we try to keep the law and finally get frustrated because we cannot keep it perfectly, the law acts as a tudor that forces us and drives us to “give up” and surrender to Christ, for only He through the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us can give us the power to obey God and have pure motives. “No longer under the discipline of the law” does not mean we can break the law, it means we are no longer under it as a method/means of seeking to gain God’s favor.
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Patrice:
I thought Tertullian was a heretic as well? Besides many people have different definitions of what a Christian is. Marcion is a perfect example of this reality.
Protestants don’t consider Tertullian a heretic, in fact the Roman Catholic Church does not consider him a formal heretic, rather he is considered a schismatic, one that broke away from the catholic church over discipline issues, not doctrinal issues.
Origen is considered a heretic in some areas; but he was very good on some things.
But all agree that Marcion was a major heretic.
Tertullian was very good against Marcion, and even RCC agrees on that issue.
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Ken Temple
Another dishonesty by Christians.
Origin “IS CONSIDERED A HERETIC IN SOME AREAS”
“BUT ALL AGREE Marcion was a MAJOR HERETIC”
A Christian will always sugar coats his believe and call those who to not believe like him as heretic and in the olden days before the religious freedom was not slapped on them by force, they will kill.
Thanks.
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Ken you have NOT addressed this:
Here is the root of Paul’s deception and the lie he told Torah-observant James:
Galatians 3:23-25
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian [ie Paul says he is no longer required to obey Torah]
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law [Paul makes clear he no longer obeys Torah or lives under it] ) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.
Compare these statements with Paul’s vow that he himself “observes and guards the law” in Acts 21. Here Paul testifies to his Torah-observant status as a Jew. This contradicts his testimony in 1 Corinthians and Galatians.
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But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian [ie Paul says he is no longer required to obey Torah]
I wonder if you are serious in that you don’t know what this means or that Evangelical baptist Church never taught you the proper meaning of justification, faith, salvation, grace and the purposes of the law.
That is not what that means. It means the law no longer acts as our tudor to drive us to Christ, since we were already driven to Christ and He has become our source of power now – ” . . . Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20
The law still disciplines us for sanctification, growth, holiness; but the law no longer drives us for justification/salvation – since we are justified by faith in Christ and secure. And that security causes us to love to life for God and glorify Him even more and obey Him even more.
[Paul makes clear he no longer obeys Torah or lives under it] )
Gosh! You did not learn what this means at the Evangelical church you went to for a few years?
“though I myself am not under the law” = he means he is not under the law as a system or way to seek to earn God’s favor or get His love or earn His approval. It also means he is not under the condemnation of the law.
He does not mean he no longer obeys it. You know Christians still believe we should obey the moral law, not as a way to earn God’s favor/love/salvation, but in gratitude and proof of a changed heart. We want to obey God now, because our hearts have been changed first. Good works come after grace and faith – Ephesians 2:8-10 – verses 8-9 – only by grace through faith are we saved. verse 10 – good works are the results of true faith in Christ.
And you know (or should know) that no Christian teaches what you are trying to make it say.
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Ken thinks: ‘He does not mean he no longer obeys it.’
but Paul said “though I myself am not under the law”
odd.
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And you think Paul knew of this canon all the way back in the 1st century based on your reading of 2 Tim 3:16?
He knew of his own letters (13) and at least 3 (Matthew, Mark, Luke) of the 4 Gospels, and probably the book of Acts. he probably knew of 1 Peter, as it was written earlier, around 64 AD.
1 Timothy 5:18 – puts gospels along with Deuteronomy (Torah) as Scripture.
The others were not written yet.
But he lays down the principle that whatever is God-breathed, is Scripture, even if it comes later, after the time of 2 Timothy in 67 AD, as 2 Peter in 67 AD (around same time), and Hebrews in 68 AD and the Gospel of John, and the letters of 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation from 80-96 AD and Jude in 80 AD.
So even if some books comes later than 2 Timothy 3:16, the principle is still the same, whatever writing is God-breathed, is authoritative holy Scripture.
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I see no evidence in Paul’s letters that he thought he was writing holy Scripture on a par with the Torah.
On occasion he even denies that his teaching comes directly from God as in 1 Cor 7:12.
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1 Timothy 5:18 equates Gospels (Luke 10:7 and Matthew 10:10 with Torah)
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‘For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”’
this does not equate with the Torah which was Gods revelation to mankind.
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yes it does, as he calls the quote from the Torah, “Scripture” and the quote from Luke and Matthew as ‘Scripture”
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but how do you know the quote is from the gospels?
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look at the verses – Luke 10:7 and Matthew 10:10 – same content
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so? What does that prove?
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Later, Paul the apostle clarifies – I Corinthians 9:21 – “keep reading” is a good practice. 😉
(though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law)
and
Romans 7:12
“So then, the law is holy, righteous, and good”
1 Timothy 1:8-11
“The law is good is one uses it properly”
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but Paul teaches in Galatians that those who follow the Spirit do not follow the Law
Galatians 5:18: ‘if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.’
Yet Paul said he “observes and guards the law” in Acts 21!
He lied!
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1 Corinthians 7:12 means he is not quoting from the Lord Jesus or the gospel tradition, because Jesus did not mention the issue of when an unbeliever wants to divorce a believer. See context of verse 12-15. Jesus did not deal with marriage issues with unbelievers.
In verse 10 – to the married, I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband” – Paul is saying he is quoting the teaching of Jesus, who taught against divorce in Matthew 5 and 19.
But clearly understood his own teachings and writings as God’s Word.
1 Thessalonians 2:13
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16
Galatians 1:6-9
Ephesians 3:3-4 ff
Philippians 1:7, 27
Colossians 4:16 – “and when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.”
1 Timothy 4:13 – “give attention to the public reading of Scripture”
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You claim: ‘But Paul clearly understood his own teachings and writings as God’s Word.’
Lets examine the evidence you cite to prove your claim:
1 Thessalonians 2:13
‘We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.’
This refers perhaps to preaching and does not state that everything Paul ever says or writes is the Revelation of God. Also, this is not evidence that he thought he was writing Holy Scripture on a par with the Torah.
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16 a very long text. I see no verse where he thought he was writing Holy Scripture on a par with the Torah.
Galatians 1:6-9
‘I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel[a] from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!’
This does NOT say that Galatians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
Ephesians 3:3-4 ff
‘and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 4 a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ.’
This does NOT say that Ephesians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
Philippians 1:7, 27
7: ‘It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart,[a] for all of you share in God’s grace[b] with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.’
27 ‘Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel’
This does NOT say that Philippians is the Word of God! Come on Ken!
and so on with the other references you list…
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Galatians 1:8-9 – “so I say to you now” = what I am writing, I am saying to you now – this writing is authoritative and revelation from God – later in verses 10-12 – “I received it as a revelation from God”. He views his preaching and gospel as authoritative and the word of God ( 1 Thess. 2:13) and his letters as “combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” – 1 Cor. 2:13 – speaking to them by writing. He views his writings as follow-ups to his preaching – authoritative as an apostle. You are just being obtuse to not want to see the truth. Ephesians 3:3-4 – “as I wrote” = about the revelation of the mystery, which he continues to explain in the writing.
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1 Corinthians 7:12-16
here Paul clearly states that the teaching he gives to the Corinthian church is NOT from God. It may be wonderful advice but it is not God’s Word.
12 To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.[b] 16 Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.
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Ken Temple is one persistent internet warrior.
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Well, only in some cases. 😉
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but Paul teaches in Galatians that those who follow the Spirit do not follow the Law
Galatians 5:18: ‘if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.’
Again, that is not what that means. It means “not under the condemnation of the law; and not under it as a way to try and earn God’s favor”; it means the Spirit gives you power to obey God’s law; it means you are no longer alone trying to obey God’s law and always failing and always feeling like you are not earning His favor or grace or love, because you cannot earn God’s favor/grace/love. He loves you already and give you the power to obey Him, if you repent and trust Christ – ie, if you are born again.
It never means, “no longer obey God’s moral law”
You didn’t learn that at the Evangelical Baptist Church you went to for a few years ?
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Not being subject to the law means no longer having to obey it. That is very clear from the whole letter: Galatians 3:23 describes the law as a ‘disciplinarian’ to be followed till ‘faith’ was revealed. Paul goes on to say he is no longer under the law.
In saying this he has apostatised from Judaism and set himself at odds with the Jerusalem apostles who were keen Torah observant Jews.
Big schism in the earliest church over this issue. Covered up by Luke in Acts. This we widely recognised in NT scholarship even by Christian scholars like Jimmy Dunn.
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no; it means not treating law as a way to gain God’s favor/love/acceptance/grace. Once changed by grace, we are freed to live for God and obey His moral law. Romans 6:1-6 – “what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? May it never be !!
Do you not know that all of you who have been immersed into Christ have been immersed into His death? . . . our old self was crucified with Him, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
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