The manuscript evidence of John 9:38 and John 20:28 (my lord and my God), say no! These core, essential proof texts are missing. The video explains it all…
Click here for YouTube Mirror (if the above Facebook player does not load).
and God knows best.
Categories: Bible, Biblical scholarship
Blogging Theology 
Wooooooow!
What did I just watch !?
That’s exactly what I told Richard about that “I really don’t trust that all copies of manuscripts are examined by unbiased method” and that has always been my concern.
I believe if we examine the ( earliest manuscripts) for each line and word in the gospels, we will find many surprises.
Our problem is that we rely on christins/atheists’ works while they seem are not honest presenting these issues.
Also, I think many facts are not told because they think these issues don’t matter or minor while they do matter!
May Allah bless you for sharing!
I’m still in shock!
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I’m just curious to know why an atheist is by default dishonest when presenting this issue? Does the atheist want to defend or protect Christianity?
Isn’t the best approach to critically look at the arguments irrespective of one’s background?
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Those atheists by the most were christians .
Even Bart Egrman has some conclusions based on Christian idea.
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I think that’s not a good approach. Even if most atheists were once upon a time Christians and have carried forward a few older viewpoints, that does not mean that those view points are wrong. And just because a christian is making an argument, that does not mean that the arguments are wrong. They could still be right. The correct approach is to always look at the arguments critically and to use counter arguments. Ones background and beliefs do not in any manner invalidate ones arguments and viewpoints.
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Yes, WOW Big Time.
Thanks Ijaz. Good work. Mashallah. Does Bart Ehrman talk about these verses in his Quoting Jesus book?
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No he does not. Which is highly significant.
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@Omer, Jazakallaaah Khayran for your kind words and thank you for the support,
@Pual, It isn’t significant whether Dr. Ehrman talks about it or not. I encountered the same level of surprise when in my recent debate on the NT being God’s Word or not, I didn’t cite Dr. Ehrman once, but it’s practically all that my opponent did. There are TCs other than Dr. Ehrman and the Muslim words needs to learn that.
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Barak Allh feek brother Ijaz.
Keep up the good work.
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Really? This isn’t news at all. All it shows is the hypocrisy and inconsistency of Muslims getting all excited over textual criticism while completely ignoring the same within Islamic manuscripts. These textual variants have been known and discussed for decades and centuries. The variant in John 9 has a ranking of B level confidence by textual scholars so all ijaz is promoting here is deceptive hot air again.
“As is evident from even a cursory glance at the above summary of the manuscript data the numerical count vastly favours the inclusion of vv. 38-39a. Thirty-two of the thirty-four uncials which attest Jn 9 include the reading. Furthermore, there is no known miniscule of the current 2,812 documented which omits the text.”
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And given the weight of internal evidence we can see why scholars have confidence that verse 38 is original. It is not “missing” as per ijaz’s lies, it is just a variant within the thousands of manuscripts we have. In fact, because we have so much evidence to assess, scholars can actually look at these issues which gives Christians more confidence, not less.
When you compare that to uthmans burning of all variant korans scholars no longer have any evidence to look at, which is a huge weakness for Islam. We know of major variants from the Hadith but scholars can’t assess them because your caliph destroyed the evidence!!
It is tiresome that Muslims are so ignorant of textual issues and fail to see that Christians have confidence because of, not in spite of, our textual history. You Muslims can’t say the same. You have to simply rely on faith, not evidence, that your holy book is accurate. It’s a shame really.
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For once I completely agree with Paulus.
It is odd that top textual critics do not refer to these alleged missing verses in their academic work. For example ‘The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament’ by Bart D. Ehrman contains an exhaustive survey of NT manuscripts and does not mention a problem with John 9:38 and John 20:28.
The New Revised Standard Version (a translation from the Greek manuscripts most preferred by scholars) does not mention any textual problems at these points.
You might have a stronger case if the experts in the field (rather than nonspecialists) also recognised that ‘essential proof texts are missing’. They apparently do not.
This gives one cause for concern.
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It’s completely new for us!
I believe that many things have not been displayed because you think that these things are not important while they make a big difference.
Please don’t talk about inconsistency if you have no idea about the nature of Quran.
==============
” so much evidence to assess, scholars can actually look at these issues which gives Christians more confidence, not less”
Playing dumb again!
Right ! It’s like when James keep saying that the free transmission is the best way to prserve a text.
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It’s interesting that on the one end these are:
“textual variants have been known and discussed for decades and centuries,” but then Br. Paul comments below you saying that top scholars in academic publications don’t mention these very things. Which one of you is right? Either they have been or they have not.
As for the rating level of B, are you referring to the UBS’ rating? If so, that’s one committee’s rating (which I do not believe has been replicated outside of that publication since). The point though seems to have gone over your head, both P75 and Aleph* are said to have omitted it, as per NA28, which is a scholarly work.
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It’s odd that the recognised top scholars in the field know nothing about this
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@Paulus,
I’m not sure if you’ve paid attention or not, only one older publication has given it a B rating, while the latest, the NA28, lists it as being omitted from p75 and Aleph*. An omission does in fact mean something that is missing, so this is quite an error on your part. Do you perhaps a definition which states otherwise?
There is no comparison with Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him here), you’re chiding him for the same thing Jerome had to do, produce scripture in a language the people had the ability to read. Considering you say the more manuscripts the more confidence your scholars have, in the UBS 4, didn’t the confident ratings of C and D outnumber those of A and B, largely making the variant units they chose as mostly uncertain or did you not read the work properly? That works against you, not for you. I actually wrote about it here a while back:
https://callingchristians.com/2014/05/05/newest-critical-bible-to-be-released-ubs-5th-ed-greek-new-testament/
The ratings are as follows (E.J. Edwards, “On Using the Textual Apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament”, in The Bible Translator, 28, p.122):
A – Ratings: 8.7%
B – Ratings: 32.3%
C – Ratings: 48.6%
D – Ratings: 10.4%
This would mean, that out of the thousands of variant readings, when the Greek New Testament scholars decided upon one specific reading they were 59% greatly uncertain about their choices.
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@paulawilliams,
Top critics do refer to these issues, unless you do not accept the NA28 to be a top academic work? How does that reasoning function? Furthermore, I do not believe Dr. Ehrman’s work was a critical edition with a critical apparatus, so why expect tea from a wine house? We’re dealing with two different genres of TC literature completely and the conflation is odd at best.
Neither the NRSV or NET mention these points because they’re not critical editions, but translations based on them, they have TC, TN and SN notes, not TC critical apparatuses.
Specialists in the field do recognize these omissions, as per NA28 which does, as per the CNTR, and as per Dr. Philip Comfort’s work (which I previously mentioned to you), who is a recognized and major scholar. Credentials seen here:
https://www.tyndale.com/authors/philip-comfort/135
Recognized as a major scholar by Larry Hurtado here:
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/the-dating-of-nt-manuscripts-an-important-recent-analysis/
Not to forego the recommendation of his works by Dr. William Varner, Timothy Mitchell (PhD Bham Uni and Associate Editor for Scripture and Interpretation at Eleutheria Graduate Student Journal), is used by the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for courses on NTTC, as well as by Dr. Stephen Carlson (https://irci.acu.edu.au/people/dr-stephen-c-carlson/).
The list goes on and on…
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The work by Ehrman I referred to is an academic work which discusses ALL the relevant manuscripts where there is textual corruption. The verse you cite does not merit discussion in his book.
If there had been a significant issue he would have mentioned it.
The NRSV has footnotes that discuss significant textual issues. There are no footnotes to the verses you cite.
I gave consulted several other academic works in my library that focus on the verses you cite and none sees an issue as you do.
There are no top mainstream textual scholars that I can find who think there are any problems knowing what is in these verses.
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@paulawilliams,
But…and there is a but, is it a critical edition with a critical apparatus? No, it isn’t. In the same way ECM does not compare to NA28 or UBS5, why do you expect Dr. Ehrman’s work to write on each and every TC issue? The fact that I provided a critical edition, and scholars who hold to and mention some (if not both variants) already responds to your claims about top academics not knowing about these issues. Even the comment you liked by Paulus says that many scholars have written about this. So again, I ask, are Paulus and myself lying, are the scholars and the institutions who recommend and use the work (by Comfort), also seemingly wrong?
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No but you are not an expert in textual criticism.
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Neither are you. Which we both agree on, but my research is based on a work by a top scholar, by the top critical edition, by top institutions and recommended by top scholars in the US and UK. Your denial of that amount of evidence is astounding.
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Brother Paul,
What if this information got confirmed scholarly? What would your position be ?
You may ask Dr Ehrman on his blog about these verses.
Personally, relying on christians/atheists’ works has some problems and side effects with no doubt.
Do you think seriously that all earliest manuscripts ( line by line and word by word) got examined by unbiased method. I doubt that!
Dead Sea scrolls, for example, had to wait 40 years till they got realesed although I doubt that everything got realesed or examined by unbiased method.
Being things got examined by ( western scholars) doesn’t necessarily give you the confidence to accept it blindly.
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Yes Ijaz, a few MSS omit that verse but the weight of evidence for its authenticity is so strong that, as Paul said, it doesn’t really warrant any scholarly discussion as scandalous (thus your claim that it is missing is false). Textual variants as a whole, have been studied for centuries so to refer to a weak one as missing is woeful and deceptive. You are making huge claims from very little evidence. You ignored the overwhelming amount of external evidence against your claim and didn’t even attempt to address the internal evidence.
Furthermore, the most significant MS omission (Sinaticus) comes from the Alexandrian family which has a very strong attestation for verse 38 in all other MSS, so it’s omission is probably more a scribal error than anything sinister, otherwise, how else do we account for its inclusion everywhere else?
“As is evident from even a cursory glance at the above summary of the manuscript data the numerical count vastly favours the inclusion of vv. 38-39a. Thirty-two of the thirty-four uncials which attest Jn 9 include the reading. Furthermore, there is no known miniscule of the current 2,812 documented which omits the text.”
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Not “a few earliest”, the earliest. The weight of the evidence comes from the later, not the earlier tradition, making it a conjectural emendation. It warrants scholarly discussion enough that at least one NTTC primer used in seminaries uses it as a case for examining John (as highlighted by my other comments). My claim that it is missing is factual, it is missing, from two of the earliest witnesses. Your claim that it isn’t missing, is it itself a lie, a false witness and something you should be ashamed of peddling at the very least.
I enjoy seeing that from a 7 minute video, half of which was spent on John 9:38 you learned that I didn’t study the “evidence” for it well. Did the Spirit inform you of that? The fact is, given that Aleph is seen as the earliest (codex), then there is this insertion by one of 8 other editors, which later found its way into the proceeding Alexandrian tradition is proof enough of an emendation becoming canonical simply through its introduction in an earlier major witness.
It’s omission is not a scribal error, the hand and nib are both different, with the orthography of the alpha being most notably different. These are minor technical details that you don’t seem well versed in to discuss. (Nor did the paper you copy from take into consideration when parroting the dating of p66).
How do we account for an insertion becoming popular? This isn’t rocket science, there could be 1001 reasons, scribal harmonizations, a scribe not willing to not copy a verse from an authoritative and important codex, etc, etc. I think there’s this book called Misquoting Jesus that was written entirely on this subject I could be wrong though.
There’s no use in copy pasting that utterly useless quote from that April 2012 thesis that you think provides answers to the problems I’ve presented.
What that poorly written paper did not have the opportunity to do, was to examine the papyrological data for p66 itself, instead depending on the datings of others who had yet to revisit and challenge it, as Nongbri did in 2014, placing it nearer to the 4th century, thus out of contention with p75, making my case a lot stronger given the overarching papyrological and orthographical evidence (as per his research and my following up of it).
Next time, copy paste from someone more relevant, whose done primary research and whose conclusions (if you read the 2012 paper correctly) weren’t based on a pre-accepted (non-critical) parroting of an evangelical comfort-dating (that by the way was also challenged by Orsini and Clarysse).
Your copy pasting from one out-dated paper, does not solve the problem and the issue quite simply, has seemingly gone over your head. Try again.
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Ijaz, Paul Williams,
The issue that Ijaz has raised is quite interesting and possibly highly significant. I think it would be good to address the issue with multiple scholars for confirmation and comment.
Either way, it is worth the following up.
Thanks to brother Ijaz for his hard work and for bringing the subject to our attention!!!
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Yes it is highly significant that top textual scholars appear to be oblivious to Ijaz’s discoveries. Perhaps they are just incompetent (but I doubt it).
I would like to hear from them before we go any further. I can see a number of interpretive flaws in Ijaz’s video commentary. Ijaz is not a scholar and we should get their input. I have found no confirmation of his conclusions in my own library.
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@paulawilliams,
You keep repeating that “top textual scholars” appear oblivious to what I’ve said, yet I gave you a list above and who and what institutions use the work I did which arrived at that conclusion.
How is it possible to hear from them, when after giving you a conclusive list, you continue to repeat the same absurd claim that no one else knows about it?
Given that your library didn’t have the work aforementioned to begin with and you weren’t familiar with the textual scholars who reference, perhaps you do need to study textual criticism some more and widen your library. I’ll even buy the book for you.
The truth does not rest on what your library contains or does not contain, it relies on evidence and that’s what I’ve duly provided.
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The fact remains that your views, as a non scholar, are not widely accepted by textual critics.
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Ijaz,
You seem intent on finding an argument where none exists.
And for the record, the paper I cited was from an academic journal and the author actually argues (poorly) in that piece for the conclusion you propose! Ha! So I don’t know why you would diss it? I guess you are just intent on being fallacious.
Anyway, get well and take care
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@Paulus,
Thankfully you agree that the author agrees with my conclusions, hence my rebuking of you for misusing a single quote to suit your needs, out of context from the author’s intent. In that case, wouldn’t you be the one being fallacious? That would seem to be the case.
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“The fact is, given that Aleph is seen as the earliest (codex), then there is this insertion by one of 8 other editors, which later found its way into the proceeding Alexandrian tradition is proof enough of an emendation becoming canonical simply through its introduction in an earlier major witness”
Yes, but such an argument only works when the other families of MSS omit the verse as well. If a verse has wide attestation across all families, then a deliberate scribal emendation is impossible. You seem oblivious to the obvious errors in your position, which is why all most all textual scholars have no issue with the text
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@Paulus,
That argument is poor on the grounds that the case of John 9:38 is no different than that of Mark 16:9-20, earlier manuscripts (Aleph) didn’t have it, but Alexandrinus did (albeit a shorter version if I recall correctly). Yet this selection of passages coalesced into the singular tradition of TR and it is in the KJV, which by rules of logic, renders your argument void via proof by contradiction. Try again.
You’re trying to argue for the proof of stemmatics in this case when this is the worst example you can use.
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“Thankfully you agree that the author agrees with my conclusions, hence my rebuking of you for misusing a single quote to suit your needs”
Sadly, Ijaz, your lies only ever expose your insistent demands to try and sound scholarly and win arguments. Here you pretend that you rebuked me for misusing a quote, but have a look at how you first described this same source,
“Next time, copy paste from someone more relevant, whose done primary research and whose conclusions (if you read the 2012 paper correctly) weren’t based on a pre-accepted (non-critical) parroting of an evangelical comfort-dating”
I guess if this author agrees with you, that makes you irrelevant and never having done primary research, since this is how you first described the scholar before you realised he wasn’t an evangelical.
It’s pathetic that you feel the need to do such things. Focus on getting well rather than misleading people and having to lie and deceive to save face once you are exposed. Don’t jump to conclusions simply because people don’t agree with you.
Take care
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I’m not pretending to rebuke you, I am rebuking you for misusing a quote and I am rebuking the author for poor scholarship in misusing palaeographic datings (p66 being the example used in this case).
One does not preclude the other and your pretentious attitude in using terms to score character points against me is quite immature, “lies”, “expose”, “demands”, “try and sound scholarly”. You complain and complain about me, but not once have you brought a TC argument to refute what my tiny video has presented.
I described the author based on his misuse of p66 in the quote you gave, one rebuking does not preclude the other. It’s as if you’re saying it’s impossible to be an author and a reader at the same time, just because I’ve read something, does not prevent me from writing something else. Your logic thus has far has been non-sequitur.
It’s “pathetic” that you spend so much time trying to attack me, and claim I’m misleading people, when I’ve cited evangelical scholarship on this TC issue and demonstrated the issues with the text with an entire video. I’ve done my part. Just like the mythical Christian Paul, you’ve gone off track and ended up without your head on your shoulders. The next time you comment, I hope it is with grace, intelligence, consistency and scholarship. In the end though, you’ve served to be useful, the number of comments you’ve wasted have at least given attention to the article leading to more views.
Thank you for that.
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Neither old or new testament is authentic
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Neither old nor new testament is authentic 🙂
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Better question.
Can Mohammed be trusted as a true prophet?
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obsessive compulsive disorder you suffer from?
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No it’s off topic.
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The question is, why are muslims reliant on atheist, agnostic, and extreme liberal scholarship to disprove the claims of the bible.
Why didn’t allah reveal all of this detailed information in his “holy” book? Why didn’t mohammed reveal these detailed textual criticisms in the hadith? Why did allah have to wait centuries for the european enlightenment and the birth of textual criticism of the bible to support his supposed “correction” of christian scriptures?
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Quran already told us that your scriptures got corrupted 1400 yeras ago.
However, you don’t care what Quran says till you have seen material evidences show that your monks had been playings with scriptures.
Christians have been resisting these facts for long time till they eventually decided to play dumb instead such as we are happy that we have discrepancies so we can exam these differences or the free transmission style is ( the best method) to preserve a text.
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The quran makes vague assertions that could be interpreted in any number of ways. Allah could so easily have pointed out whatever verses in the bible were textually problematic – he is god after all.
Instead we have to wait for atheism and people who want to prove that god does not exist for these detailed criticisms – all because allah is vague in his communication.
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Plus, variants only enhance our confidence. Islam cannot say the same after their caliph destroyed all the evidence
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@Paulus,
Given than the UBS 4’s rating of variant unit confidence which you referenced earlier gave 59% of those units great uncertainty, you are contradicting yourself. It enhances your confidence to have 59% uncertainty in your choice of variant units? What logic does that follow?
Lastly, the Khilafa only destroyed papyri that could not be edited, parchment was saved, ergo Arabica Mingana 1572a.
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” variants enhance our confidence”
I know that many Christians have decided to play dumb after the evidences have crushed the reliability of your scripture.
You are not exceptional .
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Ijaz, as you should well know, there is not a single significant variant that in anyway challenges current dogma, the focus of this post.
Your percentage red herring would refer to insignifanct issues of spelling, grammar, sentence structure, ect…
…you know, similar to the thousands of Koranic variants related to orthography which you accept willingly.
Please be consistent
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Burhanuddin1
No, I don’t.
But evasion noted.
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Pathetic really pathetic
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@Ijaz,
Thanks for all the hard work. I hope your research is inshallah widely disseminated and more and more scholars acknowledge it.
Nice to hear you mention that your research is base on “work by a top scholar, by the top critical edition, by
top institutions, and recommended by top scholars in the US and UK.”
If some of the scholars don’t talk about this work in your video about these two verses, then it makes this research potentially even more important to share with others.
Paul, thanks for including Ijaz in your blog as contributor.
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It is odd that no top textual scholars like Bart Ehrman appear to be aware of these claims. Until we have their assessment of these claims we should be very cautious. Ijaz is not a scholar and has not studied this technical subject at university.
I advice caution.
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I’m sorry, but what does John 20:28 actually say? You seem to be just assuming the missing papyrus (you should have shown it to be physically damaged/missing by the way) says something different, but provide no evidence it said anything different. Ignoring the other problems in the video.
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