Br Hashim & Br Paul discuss Bibles with a ex-Christian!!
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Br Hashim & Br Paul discuss Bibles with a ex-Christian!!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Daw'ah, Islam, Speakers Corner
Blogging Theology 
Mr Williams,
Just a quick question before I post my comments regarding the video above; were you raised COE?
First, there was no canonization of the New Testament as your describing it Mr Williams. To give an actual historical reference, I refer you to the council of Carthage in 419 cannon 24 which defines the cannon of scripture.
Notice Mr Williams, that after citing the canonical books of the New Testament, the North African Churches do not use decree or dogma, but state these writings have been RECEIVED FROM OUR FATHERS TO BE READ IN THE CHUCH”
419 Council of Carthage: Cannon 24
The New Testament.
The Gospels, iv. books.
The Acts of the Apostles, j. book.
The Epistles of Paul, xiv.
The Epistles of Peter, the Apostle, ij.
The Epistles of John the Apostle, iij.
The Epistles of James the Apostle, j.
The Epistle of Jude the Apostle, j.
The Revelation of John, j. book.
“Let this be sent to our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface, and to the other bishops of those parts, that they may confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church”.http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3816.htm
Now, over 1000 years later the church of England in its 1562 Articles of Religion, lists the same 27 books, naming the same authors, and uses a similar language to define the cannon.
COE 1562 Articles of Religion”All the Books of the New Testament, as they are COMMONLY RECEIVED we do receive, and account them Canonical.”
Athanasius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, sets out prior to listing the same 27 books, naming the same authors, defines the cannon in the same way when he states
“it seemed good to me also, having been urged thereto by true brethren, and having learned from the beginning, to set before you the books included in the Canon, AND HANDED DOWN, and accredited as divine;…further on Athanasius remarks on the criteria that sets the distinction between the cannon and what is known as the Apocropha..Hear his words “But for the sake of greater exactness I add this also, writing under obligation, as it were. There are other books besides these, indeed NOT RECEIVED as canonical.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html
http://www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html
Jerome uses this same standard in ruling out the Apocropha from the Jewish Cannon, for those books were not received by the Jewish Churches.
This was the same standard as evinced in the writings of Ireneus and Tertullian, that ruled out the Gnostic editions – for the criteria was two-fold, it had to be both Apostolic (tracing back to the Apostle/or their scribe) and Catholic (Not Rome, but commonly received by the Apostolic Churches)
Let’s not kid ourselves, the Apostolic Churches and Bishops were not stupid – they discussed to make sure that they weren’t allowing in forged documents. What makes up the New Testament Cannon is independent churches coming up with the same text as opposed to witnesses that don’t agree. Remember, Christianity didn’t have the 3rd Kalief to chop your head off and burn the other texts if you didn’t agree. See Bukhari
Mr Williams, what you didn’t point out in your discussion is when Eusebius is discussing the books his sites as spoken against such 2nd Peter, James, Jude etc…is that “They were Familiar to Most” So Mr Williams, we have independent witnesses throughout the ancient world that received these texts, from churches that can establish a legal chain of custody back to the Apostles. That would be conclusive in any normal court of law.
Tertullian Challenged Marcion rejection of Johns Revelation by using the same historical criteria stating” We have also St. John’s foster churches. For although Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, the order of the bishops (thereof), when traced up to their origin, will yet rest on John as their author.
So Mr Williams, any discussion on the Cannon of the New Testament begins first by understanding the historical Apostolic Polity and the criteria for the text. In your above mentioned discussion on the New Testament you have ignored the documents which states what constitutes the cannon.
So I have provided them above for you, and for further discussion, I have provided my links to my video discussion on this subject.
Link to my videos on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqjsB-lvDBWXDB-DYVLt-Zg/videos?view_as=subscriber
God Bless
Jonathan S
I’ll be waiting for your reply
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Let’s not kid ourselves, we are not stupid. Christians to this day don’t agree what’s “the Bible”.
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Burhanuddi1
I suggest you go to the eye doctor and get a new prescription – obviously you are unable to read what I wrote above. When I cite the council of carthage which lists all 27 books, naming the same authors, and Athanasius lists the same 27 books of the new testament naming the same authors which represents the Greek East and Latin West and – Jerome includes the same 27 books of the New Testament in his Vulgate – and a 1000 years later the church of England recognizes the same 27 books.
While, the aramiac churches may not have accepted Revelation, 2nd Peter, Jude,2 & 3 John, they do accept the 4 Gospels, the 14 letters of Paul, Acts, 1 Peter, James and 1 John. What this demonstrates is that the Apostolic churches weren’t forced to accept books of the New Testament. Whereas the 3rd Kalief Uthman made them accept 1 version of the Koran, and burned all the others – See Bukhari. Rember, please go get those new glasses.
Lol.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Bye bye brainwash preaching.
“Different religious groups include different books in their Biblical canons, in varying orders, and sometimes divide or combine books. Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon.” Wikipedia
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Burhanuddin1
instead of dealing with the official declarations of the Apostolic churches of the 4th century on the definition of the New Testament Cannon as evinced by the North African Churches, Athanasius representing the Greek East and Jerome representing the Latin West; the extent of your scholarship comes down to Wikipedia. Lol.
You seem to confuse Books that’s are read in the churches for example of life and instruction of manners with the Canonical books of the New Testament.
Definition of the New Testament Canon:
Church of England 1562 Articles of Religion “All the Books of the New Testament, as they are COMMONLY RECEIVED we do receive, and account them Canonical.”
The Church of England does quote Jerome in making a clear distinction regarding other books that are not canonical
And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:
The Third Book of Esdras
The Fourth Book of Esdras
The Book of Tobias
The Book of Judith
The rest of the Book of Esther
The Book of Wisdom
Jesus the Son of Sirach Baruch the Prophet
The Song of the Three Children
The Story of Susanna
Of Bel and the Dragon
The Prayer of Manasses
The First Book of Maccabees
The Second Book of Maccabees
http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/39articles.html
Jerome also states in his writings: “This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted [i.e. defensive] introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd [of Hermes?] are not in the canon”
Jerome makes it absolutely clear that since these texts were not commonly received by the Jewish churches, they are placed among the Apocryphal writings and are not in the Canon.
Same standard for both the new testament and the old testament. only the commonly received books by the Apostolic Churches are accounted canonical, just as only the commonly received texts of the Jewish churches are accounted Canonical.
Athanasius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria echo’s the same position as Jerome in the 4th century when he makes it abundantly clear about this other books:
“But for the sake of greater exactness I add this also, writing under obligation, as it were. There are other books besides these, indeed not received as canonical but having been appointed by our fathers to be read to those just approaching and wishing to be instructed in the word of godliness: Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being merely read; nor is there any place a mention of secret writings. But such are the invention of heretics, who indeed write them whenever they wish, bestowing upon them their approval, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as if they were ancient writings, they find a means by which to lead astray the simple-minded.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html
Athanasius Lists out the 27 canonical books of the New Testament:
“Again, it is not tedious to speak of the books of the New Testament. These are: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After these, The Acts of the Apostles, and the seven epistles called Catholic: of James, one; of Peter, two, of John, three; after these, one of Jude. In addition, there are fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, written in this order: the first, to the Romans; then, two to the Corinthians; after these, to the Galatians; next, to the Ephesians, then, to the Philippians; then, to the Colossians; after these, two of the Thessalonians; and that to the Hebrews; and again, two to Timothy; one to Titus; and lastly, that to Philemon. And besides, the Revelation of John.
The North African Churches list these same books as count them as canonical:
419 Council of Carthage: Cannon 24
The New Testament.
The Gospels, iv. books.
The Acts of the Apostles, j. book.
The Epistles of Paul, xiv.
The Epistles of Peter, the Apostle, ij.
The Epistles of John the Apostle, iij.
The Epistles of James the Apostle, j.
The Epistle of Jude the Apostle, j.
The Revelation of John, j. book.
Burhanuddin1; The Greek Apostolic Churches, the North African Churches and the Latin Churches of Europe has sounded off and independently witnesses to the commonly received text which are accounted canonical.
I have tremendous respect for the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches which also witnesses to these same 27 canonical texts represented in the statements of Jerome, Athanasius, and the council of Carthage – and I do understand they their use of these other books that they classify within their New/Old testament groupings. Ethiopia is just one church, but remember only the commonly received texts are accounted canonical which represent the 27 books of the New Testament, not these other works. There is a clear distinction.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Come now Jonathan, you’re really not gonna start with the Uthman no are you?
Uthman’s decision was based on burning the all the other texts due to the 7 ahrufs.
Please don’t bring the Jay potato smith argument. It’s just so bad!
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Atlas – by the way, I do enjoy discussing these things with you
But remember, its important to go to the official historical records on why Uthman destroyed the other Korans – In dealing with Islamic history, I go to your sources – See Bukhari as I have listed it out:
Sahih Bukhari. In Volume 6, Book 61, Number 510 the story about Muslim soldiers arguing about different versions of the Qur’an reads as follows: “Hudhaifa was afraid of the different recitations of the Qur’an, so he asked ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Qur’an as Jews and the Christians did before.” also “Uthman then ordered four men to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. After this had been done, the Hafsah codex was returned to her. “Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsah.” Also: 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. This means that drastic changes occurred. After all, Why were the other copies and fragements ordered to be burnt – the answer is clearly found in the original statement – “Hudhaifa was afraid of the different recitations of the Quran”Now Uthman as the Third Kalieh had state power to create an official version of the Koran and destroyed all your variants and differences.
Atlas, I’m quoting Bukhari, not Jay Smith. Lol. And don’t get me wrong, Uthman used great Muslim scholars in creating the second edition of the Koran just 30 years after the death of your prophet.
Our Canon is based on the COMMONLY RECEIVED TEXTS of the Apostolic Churches – which can establish a legal chain of custody back to the Apostles – that is independently witnessed throughout the historic churches of the apostles – not compulsion – there is a big difference. 5 independent witnesses giving the same basic testimony would be conclusive in any normal court of law – witnesses forced under compulsion that renders the same testimony would be thrown out in any normal court of law.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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desperate
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You just proved my point!
You said:
[Sahih Bukhari. In Volume 6, Book 61, Number 510 the story about Muslim soldiers arguing about different versions of the Qur’an reads as follows: “Hudhaifa was afraid of the different recitations of the Qur’an, so he asked ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Qur’an as Jews and the Christians did before.” also “Uthman then ordered four men to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. After this had been done, the Hafsah codex was returned to her. “Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsah.” Also: 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. This means that drastic changes occurred. After all, Why were the other copies and fragements ordered to be burnt – the answer is clearly found in the original statement – “Hudhaifa was afraid of the different recitations of the Quran”Now Uthman as the Third Kalieh had state power to create an official version of the Koran and destroyed all your variants and differences]
You think I’m not aware of the hadith sources?
You say ” the story about Muslim soldiers arguing about different versions of the Qur’an reads as follows”.
Dead wrong! These aren’t different VERSIONS. They are different recitations based on the 7 ahruf!
As the Prophet (saw) said: “this Quran has been revealed in seven Ahruf. You can read it in any of them you find easy from among them”
Also you don’t quote the full hadith! And I don’t think that’s an accident either!
Here is the part:
‘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.”
This part wasn’t even at the end of the hadith but right in the middle. How can you “accidentally” leave that out?
It says clearly that the disagreement was based on the DIALECT: “In case you DISAGREE with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the DIALECT of Quraish”
So the disagreements were on the dialects there.
The reason for burning the remaining texts was that it would cause division and NOT that they were different Qur’ans. The Prophet (saw) said to recite whichever ahruf was desired, whichever was easy.
But if you have people arguing and causing division among themselves with regards to the recitations based on the 7 ahrufs then that makes things harder/complicated and hence doesn’t serve the purpose anymore, does it (i.e. making it easy as the Prophet said)?
Nice try though but you should know that you’re bringing up dead arguments.
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well done for exposing the hate preachers for their lies!
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Atlas,
I am glad I can welcome you back to my history class, because when you state: [Dead wrong! These aren’t different VERSIONS. They are different recitations based on the 7 ahruf!]…and you also said [It says clearly that the disagreement was based on the DIALECT:]
then your statements naturally begs the following question – if the disagreement was about the DIALECT, and I totally get that Uthman would only want the recitation to be from those from the Quraish tribe so the reciter can speak it in the Dialect that Muhammed spoke when reading from the Koran and the people would memorize it in that dialect and recite it as such, but this doesn’t explain why did Uthman need to burn all the Korans.
Here is what I mean; The Koran was written in Arabic which is a Semitic language just like Hebrew. Unlike English and Greek where we add vowels in the text, this is not the case in Arabic and Hebrew. The vowels (dots) are either on top of the text or the bottom – so the Text isn’t changed. It’s not until the spread of Islam and the conversion of a large number of non-Arabs that there was a need for making the texts of the Quran readable for them.
We do know from history that the common Arabic font during the advent of Islam was a kind of kufi script which had no dots nor any signs. Al-Qalqashandi; the famous Egyptian linguist of the 15th century A.D says “The first person who invented Arabic grammar was Abul-Aswad al-Doeli by the order of Amirul-Mo’meneen Ali Ibn Abi Talib who is said to be the first person who put the dots on the words of the Quran. Abul-Aswad was one of the students of Imam Ali (a.s) who died in 69 (A.H). Other opinions suggest that this science was developed by Yahya Bin Ya’mar or by Nasr Fin ‘Asem who were both the students of Abul-Aswad.
Even to this day there are newspapers that are sent to the west in Arabic without the dots so the different groups can read it in their own Dialect. Now when we speak, we do add the vowels, and based on our Dialect or where we are from it’s going to sound different – but the text we are reading from doesn’t change, whether my Dialect sounds like I’m from Brooklyn, Alabama or from Britain, the text will always be constant.
So the text of the Quran (the written text) didn’t have the dots/vowels (to dictate how it should sound) since this science wasn’t developed until after Uthman’s time and wasn’t added to the Quran, therefore there was no reason for older versions to be burned. Having reciters read it in the dialect of the Quarish tribe, comes from the reader with that dialect, not the written text, so burning all the old Qurans doesn’t solve that issue.
But re-read what Bukhari says: “Hudhaifa was afraid of the different recitations of the Qur’an, so he asked ‘Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Qur’an as Jews and the Christians did before.”
Now, I see you did not comment over the last part of Bukhari’s statement where Hudhaifa wanted to save this nation before they differ about the Quran as the Jews and the Christians did before – The Christians and Jews argued over differences in the text s(variants) not what dialect they were spoken from. Therefore the logical conclusion is the written text was different – otherwise the comparison to save this nation before they differ about the Quran (which is the written text) to the Jews and Christians make so sense what so ever –
So Uthman’s decision to burn the Quran’s and all the fragments makes perfect sense if their were textual differences between the various Korans, and then to create perfect copies to be sent out.
Dude, you just lost. Your argument sounds like this; everyone was reading the Quran with a different Dialect – so even though the text was not different between the various Korans – Let’s burn all the old Korans (even though nothing was wrong with them and Make a new one, even though the real issue is that the reciter needs to speak with a Dialect from the Quraish tribe, which is not dictated from the text, but from the person who is reading from the text.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Debate over.
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indeed!
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Thx for your history lesson but please keep it to yourself as I am well aware of it.
“Having reciters read it in the dialect of the Quarish tribe, comes from the reader with that dialect, not the written text, so burning all the old Qurans doesn’t solve that issue.”
If it comes just from the reader and not from the WRITTEN TEXT then Uthman wouldn’t have said: “WRITE it in the Quraishi dialect”. If you say write it in dialect X then that means there is a difference between the WRITTEN text using dialect X with that of the other written texts using other dialects.
As for the Jews and Christians part: there was a fear that the people would think that the differences of the recitation due to the ahrufs would lead people to believe that some of the readings are not just inferior due to dialect but due to alleged variants.
The 7 ahrufs don’t just mean difference in pronunciation!
Do your research!
So yes Jonathan, you’re dead wrong.
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Atlas –
Now you are making a critical grammatical mistake – in order to write in a dialect you need written vowels or a vowel system which wasn’t developed at that time. The vowels in the written language specifies how the word should sound – no vowels mean you can’t dictate how it needs to sound (creating the sound for the dialect) from the written text. So “Writing the Koran in the Quraish Dialect would have been impossible at that time – I have great respect for Bukhari – but that statement that the “Quran needs to be written in the Quraish Dialect – could not have been done unless they time travelled to the future and brought that vowel system to their time period. Now it makes sense they used reciters from the Quarish Tribe to read from the written text so the people with memorize it with that dialect.
So Checkmate on that one Atlas. lol
Secondly Abdullah Ibn Masud objected to Uthman’s actions who was authorized to teach the Koran; Uthman didn’t even consult Abdullah Ibn Masud when he created his official version. Abdullah was not only upset that he wasn’t consulted, but also that his collection needed to turned over to be burned.
So why would Abdullah Ibn Masud written collection needed to be turned over to Uthman? What would have been wrong with it?
Why wasn’t Abdullah chosen to work on copying the new official Koran?
Remember Muhammad listed Abdullah as 1 of 4 men authorized to teach the Quran, and he personally recited the Quran to Muhammad at his prophets request.
Ibn Masud also warned the people of Iraq to hide their Qurans in their homes from Uthman.
Why was Ibn Masub warning people to hide their Qurans from Uthman if everything was so peachy keen? lol.
Atlas, I really had to laugh at this statement below, because now you are making things up. lol.
[As for the Jews and Christians part: there was a fear that the people would think that the differences of the recitation due to the ahrufs would lead people to believe that some of the readings are not just inferior due to dialect but due to alleged variants]
The reference to Christians is quite clear – 4 Gospels were published on the life of Jesus, and the comparison makes perfect sense if there were different collections of the Koran, Uthman wouldn’t want to deal with that drama, so creating an official collection and burning all the other collections and variants, hopefully would prevent that from ever happening.
Atlas, why are you so opposed to admitting that there were variants in the collections of the Korans leading up to Uthmans decision to create an official version?
Also in regards to variants today, do you honestly believe that after 1400 years of transmission that there doesn’t exist variants in Korans throughout the Islamic world today?
I can admit as a Christian, that very early on variants existed in our biblical texts, Ireneus speaks about variants in the second century and down through the ages we have always dealt with variants between the Latin, Greek and Aramaic textual traditions. After all those years the reality is there is going to be scribal mistakes, omissions, etc.
So why can’t you admit it in regards to the Koran?
.
God Bless
Jonathan
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1) Ahruf: learn what ahruf are about cus you only checkmated yourself you potato and the sad part is you don’t even realize it!
2) There are multiple reasons that Ibn Masud didn’t die on the decisions he made to canonize the Qu’ran (he left out surah 1 and surah 113 and 114). But even if that’s not the case the Prophet himself said that those left out are surahs! Meaning they are part of the Qur’an. There are authentic hadith on this.
3) One of the 4 was also part of Uthman’s committee. He agreed with Uthman!
4) Those 4 aren’t the only one that are learned on the Qur’an. The Prophet also made others learned like ibn Abbas when the Prophet made a dua to make him learned of the Qur’an and hence he has an authority as well. The Prophet said that for a certain amount of years (not remember the exact amount)
the leaders/caliphs would make right decisions (paraphrasing) and Uthman was within this time interval and hence has the authority to make that decision.
5) I don’t have problems accepting scribes making spelling mistakes while copying.
6) I didn’t argue anything about ibn Masud before in my comments! So why do you act like you caught me on something? I know about ibn Masud and the typical arguments made using the hadiths regarding his sayings about the Qur’an. My comments were about the hadith you brought up about Uthman. Uthman clearly said that if the scribes had disagreements than they should resolve it with the Quraishi dialect.
7) You bring the argument of jews and christians up again. But you know what the answer to that is.
It’s the same as before and you didn’t refute it. You’re just making claims that can’t be proven.
And my argument is right cus when Hudhaifa came from the battlefield and said what he said in that hadith, Uthman acted on that by making the scribes write the Qur’an and all the disagreements were based on ahruf! So according to your potato logic Uthman thought ‘hey jews and christians differ about their scriptures not by dialect but because they are actual variants! So I’m gonna say to my scribes to rewrite the Qur’an in perfect copies and all the disagreements are based on ahruf (and not actual variants)’. Yeaaaaaaa, makes a lot of sense buddy.
So what valid point did you make???
NONE!
And for the last time: learn what ahruf are you potato!
Clearly you have ZERO idea about ahruf!
Perhaps you can watch Bassam Zawadi school Nabeel Qureshi in this 2 part debate:
Stop losing so badly, you already embarrassed yourself towards your own brothers and sisters in faith be making childish cartoons. Now you also want to become a laughing stock for the Muslims?
Pathetic.
Debate over and this time it’s for real!
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Atlas – Don’t get mad because you lost the argument.
What you don’t understand is that the written text remains the same no matter how the person receiting from the text sounds. Uthman burned texts, not reciters of the text. I totally get what the Ahrufs are – (See Below)
“I heard Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam reading Surat Al-Furqan in a different way from the one I used to read it, and the Prophet himself had read out this surah to me. Consequently, as soon as I heard him, I wanted to get hold of him. However, I gave him respite until he had finished the prayer. Then I got hold of his cloak and dragged him to the Prophet. I said to him: “I have heard this person [Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam] reading Surah Al Furqan in a different way from the one you had read it out to me.” The Prophet said: “Leave him alone [O ‘Umar].” Then he said to Hisham: “Read [it].” [Umar said:] “He read it out in the same way as he had done before me.” [At this,] the Prophet said: “It was revealed thus.” Then the Prophet asked me to read it out. So I read it out. [At this], he said: “It was revealed thus; this Quran has been revealed in seven Ahruf. You can read it in any of them you find easy from among them.”
b Malik Ibn Anas, Muwatta, vol. 1 (Egypt: Dar Ahya al-Turath, n.d.), 201, (no. 473).
Dude, we are discussing why the written texts of the Korans had to be burned, not the style that its being recited in. the style of the reciter doesn’t change the written text. try reciting from any text with different voices, you will notice after each kind of voice, the written text remains the same. I know its a difficult concept, but the written text remains the same, no matter which style it is recited in. You can even recite it backwards – and the text will remain the same
Of course Uthman would want it in receited in the Quarish Dialect – I have no issue with that decision from Uthman – but this is no reason to burn all the texts. Arabic only used consonants at that time (no vowels) – the reciter would add the vowels when he spoke, that’s why Uthman used reciters from the Quarish tribe. Please try to wrap your head around a written text and the sounds you make when speaking from the written text – I know you can do it.
The question we are discussing is why the written Korans had to be turned over to burned by Uthman – There was no physical way to write vowels into the written text to match the dialect of the Quarish Tribe as documented below at that time – the science did not exist at that time –
The Arabs did not require the vowel signs and diacritical marks for correct pronunciation of the Quran since it was their mother tongue. For Muslims of non-Arab origin, however, it was difficult to recite the Quran correctly without the vowels. These marks were introduced into the Quranic script during the time of the fifth ‘Umayyad’ Caliph, Malik-ar-Marwan (66-86 Hijri/685-705 C.E.) and during the governorship of Al-Hajaj in Iraq.
https://quranalonebesthadith.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/diacritical-marks-were-added-for-non-arabs/
Obviously there were differences in the WRITTEN COLLECTIONS of the Koran so Uthman Burned the written collections – because you do not BURN SOUNDS. Also you don’t need to re-write 9 new PERFECT COPIES of the Koran if the old ones were already PERFECT written Koran’s.
Atlas, I hope your not suffering from the Dunning–Kruger effect
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Jonathan.
I find Muslims who feel uncomfortable with this topic will normally just say, “you don’t understand ahruf”. They never explain why you are wrong, or what is in fact correct. They just say it as if it dissolves the textual errors and problems of early Koranic transmission.
They are masjidians- slaves to the deen. Unable to think beyond what they are allowed to believe.
Good luck dealing with such lunacy
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Thank you for your comments Paulus,
I agree – They should just be honest about their history and owe up to the fact that Uthman did text criticism and produced a critical text of the Koran. It’s really not a big deal.
As Christians, we have no problems with doing text criticism on our scriptures.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Hey Cerbie, how you doing boy? Still the same moron, I see!
LOL, we can see the extent of your brainwashing, and your incapability to follow your own advice. Did anyone notice how Jonathan said “it’s not a big deal”? Well, that’s the thing. To a moron like Cerbie, it IS a big deal because it somehow refutes Islam! But Cerbie’s pal Jonathan disagrees! Oh the irony!
But coming back to what Jonathan has said so far…We have already seen his lack of expertise on the subject. I mean, let’s face it. Someone who relies on a pseudo-scholar like Jay Smith and vaguely talks of an unnamed “scholar” whose work will soon be published on…(drum roll)…YouTube (not a peer-reviewed journal), it’s difficult to take anything he says seriously.
Jonathan claims Uthman (ra) was doing “text criticism”. Sure, that’s the simple way of looking at it. When you have possibly hundreds of people’s personal manuscripts, which may or may not have the complete text of each and every surah that was revealed, you are going to have variants. But that was NOT the impetus for Uthman’s project. The impetus was the fact that some new Muslims had begun arguing among themselves of which pronunciation was the correct one. They were ignorant of the fact that all were acceptable. The Sahabah knew this already. That is why there were no disagreements among the Sahabah. Only new Muslims, from outside Arabia, ran into disagreements. So, Uthman (ra) did the logical thing. He standardized the text into one form, using the Quraishi dialect and stopped the use of the other forms. There were no questions about missing verses or surahs or forgeries, as we have with the Bible. It was simply a standardization of one dialectical form over others. If that is still “text criticism” according to Jonathan, then so be it. He’s right, it’s not a “big deal” at all. But good luck telling that to the lunatic dog of hell…our little Gentile friend Cerbie! 😉
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quranandbibleblog
you stated: [The impetus was the fact that some new Muslims had begun arguing among themselves of which pronunciation was the correct one]
Are you saying if I pick up a Koran and mis-pronounce the words as I recite it aloud, then we should burn the Koran instead of correcting my mis-pronounciation. You should really think through your argument here;
The question we are discussing is why the written collections of the Koran had to be turned over to burned by Uthman, especially Abdullah Ibn Masud written collection. There was no physical way to write vowels into the written text to match the dialect of the Quarish Tribe at that time – the science did not exist at that time as documented by your sources below.
The Arabs did not require the vowel signs and diacritical marks for correct pronunciation of the Quran since it was their mother tongue. For Muslims of non-Arab origin, however, it was difficult to recite the Quran correctly without the vowels. These marks were introduced into the Quranic script during the time of the fifth ‘Umayyad’ Caliph, Malik-ar-Marwan (66-86 Hijri/685-705 C.E.) and during the governorship of Al-Hajaj in Iraq.
https://quranalonebesthadith.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/diacritical-marks-were-added-for-non-arabs/
God Bless
Jonathan
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“Are you saying if I pick up a Koran and mis-pronounce the words as I recite it aloud, then we should burn the Koran instead of correcting my mis-pronounciation. You should really think through your argument here;”
Um, no. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but as I said (and which you seem to have missed) is that newer Muslims, whose mother tongue was not Arabic, did not understand that there was nothing wrong with the different dialects. They were turning it into a potentially divisive issue. So, what Uthman (ra) did, with the support of the other Sahabah, was to standardize the text. It’s really not that difficult to understand, but it seems Christians are desperately trying to level the playing field, because of the mess they have with their own Bible. Perhaps you should take your own advice and “really think through your argument here”.
“The question we are discussing is why the written collections of the Koran had to be turned over to burned by Uthman, especially Abdullah Ibn Masud written collection. There was no physical way to write vowels into the written text to match the dialect of the Quarish Tribe at that time – the science did not exist at that time as documented by your sources below.
The Arabs did not require the vowel signs and diacritical marks for correct pronunciation of the Quran since it was their mother tongue. For Muslims of non-Arab origin, however, it was difficult to recite the Quran correctly without the vowels. These marks were introduced into the Quranic script during the time of the fifth ‘Umayyad’ Caliph, Malik-ar-Marwan (66-86 Hijri/685-705 C.E.) and during the governorship of Al-Hajaj in Iraq.
https://quranalonebesthadith.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/diacritical-marks-were-added-for-non-arabs/”
I already explained this. The reason was so that future people, misguided by the same ignorance that you are exhibiting, would divide themselves into groups because of the variant manuscripts, simply because those manuscripts were not official and only belonged to individual people. Not everyone was present when a verse was revealed, so certain manuscripts were missing verses. There was also no order to the verses. Some people just wrote them down wherever and whenever they could. Think of it like this. You’re in a class, taking notes. Sometimes, you miss a class, so you have no notes. Would your notes be authoritative to the point that someone could borrow your notes and study for an exam? Of course not.
You seem to be stuck on vowels. What’s your point? Here is a good explanation of the process of adding vowels:
“Arabic orthography at the time of Uthmân was not yet developed in the way we have known for centuries, particularly in two important areas. There was no distinction between letters of the alphabet of similar shape and there were no vowel marks. This may now give the impression that such a system must have given rise to great confusion in reading. This was not actually the case because the morphological patterns of words in Arabic enable readers to read even very unfamiliar material without the short vowels being marked. More important, however, as far as the Qur’an was concerned, was the fact that learning and reading relied above all on oral transmission. In the Islamic tradition, writing remained a secondary aid; nevertheless, to ensure correct reading of the written texts of the Qur’an, particularly for those coming after the first generation of Muslims, steps were taken gradually to improve the orthography. This started with the two above mentioned areas by introducing dots to indicate different vowels and nûnâtion and these were put in different coloured ink from that of the text. There were also dots to distinguish between consonants of similar shape” (http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/green.html#Vowel)
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Quranandbibleblog:
You stated: [The reason was so that future people, misguided by the same ignorance that you are exhibiting, would divide themselves into groups because of the variant manuscripts, simply because those manuscripts were not official and only belonged to individual people. Not everyone was present when a verse was revealed, so certain manuscripts were missing verses]
I think we are in agreement here, that there were variant versions of the Qurans 20-30 years after the death of your prophet, and Uthman collected them, did text criticism on them and created an official Koran, and burned all the old ones.
Can I quote you on that?
God Bless
Jonathan
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Hi Jonathan.
Five years ago, you’d never find a Muslim who would admit that the transmission process was problematic. They believed the transmission was perfect.
Thanks to our efforts to continuously discuss these topics, now many Muslims are admitting the textual errors of the early korans, and even modern korans.
Hopefully in a few years time, muslims will finally take the plunge and create a textual critical version of the Koran. That would be great for conversation.
I like your take btw. It’s kinda ironic how Muslims often take pride in the fact that the Koran is primarily an oral tradition, but don’t seem to have an answer to why old uthy would take the steps to burn all non oral transmission. Clearly doesn’t make sense for their polemics…
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I was hoping some Christian would answer the contentions I have brought forth, instead of just bringing up the burning of the Qur’an by Uthman. To answer this point:
DESPITE THAT HAPPENING, we still have 97.1 percent of the Qur’an by manuscript tradition in the first century of our Islamic Calendar. The same can not be said of the Bible. It takes them up to the 4th CENTURY to get a complete New Testament. Not to mention they don’t radiocarbon date their papyri or manuscripts, while Muslims do. Makes you question when they were made/fabricated…..
Maybe we should get the Christians here to do some homework. Can anyone tell me the earliest fragment or manuscript of the New Testament we have? And the earliest manuscript of the Qur’an that we have?
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“I think we are in agreement here, that there were variant versions of the Qurans 20-30 years after the death of your prophet, and Uthman collected them, did text criticism on them and created an official Koran, and burned all the old ones.”
Not quite, and nice try at being willfully deceitful, but it won’t work. Let me repeat what I said before and you can quote me on that:
“Sure, that’s the simple way of looking at it. When you have possibly hundreds of people’s personal manuscripts, which may or may not have the complete text of each and every surah that was revealed, you are going to have variants. But that was NOT the impetus for Uthman’s project. The impetus was the fact that some new Muslims had begun arguing among themselves of which pronunciation was the correct one. They were ignorant of the fact that all were acceptable. The Sahabah knew this already. That is why there were no disagreements among the Sahabah. Only new Muslims, from outside Arabia, ran into disagreements. So, Uthman (ra) did the logical thing. He standardized the text into one form, using the Quraishi dialect and stopped the use of the other forms. There were no questions about missing verses or surahs or forgeries, as we have with the Bible. It was simply a standardization of one dialectical form over others. If that is still “text criticism” according to Jonathan, then so be it. He’s right, it’s not a “big deal” at all.”
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Quaranandbibleblog:
you had previously stated: [Not everyone was present when a verse was revealed, SO CERTAIN MANUSCRIPTS WERE MISSING VERSES. There was also no order to the verses.
but now you are saying [There were no questions about missing verses or surahs or forgeries
So which is it Quaranandbibleblog?]
And then you stated [He standardized the text into one form, using the Quraishi dialect and stopped the use of the other forms] –
How would you write a text in the Quraishi dialect if vowels weren’t used in the written Arabic language at that time? Arabic only used consonants – the only way to write in the Quaraishi dialect was through the use of written vowels – but that didn’t exist yet until the 5th Kalief – What other written forms of Arabic existed at that time other than the kufi style script which used no vowels. Now when we speak we add the vowels, but it’s not in the written text, so how could have Uthman wrote it in the Quaraishi dialect?
What other written text forms were they using other than Arabic which didn’t have a vowel system at that time. Do you not get that Quranandbibleblog? How do you write in the Quraishi dialect if you have no vowels in your written language system?
God Bless
Jonathan
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“Hi Jonathan.
Five years ago, you’d never find a Muslim who would admit that the transmission process was problematic. They believed the transmission was perfect.
Thanks to our efforts to continuously discuss these topics, now many Muslims are admitting the textual errors of the early korans, and even modern korans.
Hopefully in a few years time, muslims will finally take the plunge and create a textual critical version of the Koran. That would be great for conversation.
I like your take btw. It’s kinda ironic how Muslims often take pride in the fact that the Koran is primarily an oral tradition, but don’t seem to have an answer to why old uthy would take the steps to burn all non oral transmission. Clearly doesn’t make sense for their polemics…”
LOL, it’s so adorable how Jonathan’s little cheerleader occasionally gives us a glimpse into his fantasy world.
The transmission was perfect, stupid. It’s because we have the Sahabah memorizing the Quran from the get-go. The Quran’s transmission was not only through manuscripts. It was memorized as well. Your Bible doesn’t have that, does it?
Oh, and good luck with ever seeing a “textual critical version of the Quran. There will never be such a thing, because there was never a need for it. If there was, don’t you think western scholars would have come up with it by now?
The Christians are desperate. As I said, this is all about leveling the playing field. They know they are at a serious disadvantage with their mess of a Bible. So, they are working to bring the Quran down to the Bible’s level. I can’t say I blame them. The poor guys are getting tired of losing so much. LOL!!
Oh by the way, look at the arrogance of little Cerbie: “Thanks to our efforts…” ROTFL!! Really, Cerbie? A little high on yourself, eh? Your best western scholars failed to discredit the Quran! What makes you think you will succeed where they failed?
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Archiveislam,
I don’t think you will get an answer. These Christians will continue to move the goalpost. They know the answer but they will not answer to save themselves the embarrassment. Or they will try the usual trickery with regards to P52. You know what I’m referring to. 😉
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Jonathan.
I’m enjoying watching the Muslims avoid your question on how uthman codified a written dialect that didn’t yet exist! Haha
I hope you get one soon
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Thanks for your comments Paulus, I’m glad someone gets what I’m saying.
I’ll answer some of there other questions later this evening. They really don’t understand the apostolic polity as envinced in the writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian describing how the apostolic churches were organized and safeguarded our text.
God bless Paulus
Jonathan S
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Jonathan:
(!) You don’t have the Church Father Writings, they suffer the same problems like the NT. And some are straight-out fabrications.
(2) Their quotations can not be used to reconstruct the NT
(3)They held many heretical ideas which goes against what mainstream Christianity believes.
…..Jonathan and Paulus, the main problem you have is that from the very beginning you relied on priests to tell what was in the Bible. Christians were not literate enough to read, they didn’t recite the Bible like the Qur’an, so they had to rely on a priests to tell them what was in their Bible, you were in essence worshiping them.
As for Muslims, we not only could read and write, we were also reciting our Qur’an 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Basically, it boils down to this accessibility of religious scriptures… Muslims had it, the Christians do not.
—————————————-
They have taken as lords beside Allah their rabbis and their monks and the Messiah son of Mary, when they were bidden to worship only One Allah. There is no Allah save Him. Be He Glorified from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him)! (Qur’an 9:31)
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Archivesislam:
We have the commonly received New Testament Texts (which is made of the textual traditions of The Greek, Aramiac and Latin Apostolic Churches) – we have the lectionaries of all those churches, and we have the church fathers from all those churches. So we can compare all three to rule out any errors. Christianity didn’t have an Uthman who could chop your head off and force everyone to hand over their copies of the Koran and burn them.
To be an Apostolic Church you must have a list of bishops going back to an Apostole – We have thousands of independant apostolic churches in Greek, Latin and Aramiac that came up with the same 4 gospels naming the same authors, same 14 letters of Paul, Acts, James, 1 Peter and 1 John. And while 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude and Revelation were discussed, they were familiar to most of these independent Apostolic churches.
Please document some independant sources for the Koran that do not go through Uthman.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Before I make a full reply, I would like to confirm…..are you one of those Textus Receptus guys?Like you believe that verses such as 1 John 5:7 are in the Bible?
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Archivesislam
you stated [I would like to confirm…..are you one of those Textus Receptus guys?Like you believe that verses such as 1 John 5:7 are in the Bible?]
Archivesislam, are you one of those guys who begin with 1:John 5:7 and then reject all the commonly received texts of the Apostolic Churches for texts of unknown provenance? Using distractions is not honest argumentation.
Please document independant Korans that did not come through Uthmans recension.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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‘Using distractions is not honest argumentation’ – lol remember this post is entitled ‘Credibility of the Bible’.
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Thank you for your comments Mr Williams
I see you can dish it out, but you can’t take it. lol.
By the way Mr Williams, you never answered if you were raised in the Church of England?
God Bless
Jonathan S
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…..So you are one of those Textus Receptus guys?
‘Using distractions is not honest argumentation.” : Distractions!!!,. I thought this post was about the Bible. lol.
“Please document independant Korans that did not come through Uthmans recension.” : Sure, BIRMINGHAM MANUSCRIPT, carbon-dating shows it between (with a probability of more than 95%) 568 and 645. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33436021
So the LATEST this manuscript could have come is 645. The Qur’an was compiled in 650 (See same BBC article above). FIVE YEARS before the burning done by Uthman.
Hopefully that answers your question 🙂
So I have answered your objection, perhaps you can return the favor: Please tell me do you have any radio-carbon dated Biblical papyri/Manuscripts in the 1st , 2nd, 3rd or 4th centuries?
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Thank you Archivesislam for telling me the date the animal died, which is no help in telling me when that text was written or who wrote it. But if you can tell me who killed the animal, then I can turn them over to an animal rights organization. lol
Back to what I originally asked you; I want to know if there are any written Korans that are independent of Uthmans lines of transmission like we have with the Apostolic Aramaic churches Peshitta, the Texts of the Apostolic Greek Orthodox churches, the texts of the Apostolic Coptic Churches, The Vetus Latin and the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, and other ancient languages?
So for your first response, I’ll give you a mulligan.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Hey Jonathan, Ty for your reply.. You mentioned the following:
“But if you can tell me who killed the animal, then I can turn them over to an animal rights organization”——If your trying to be a comedian….don’t quit your day job
I think the reason you are so dismissive of the findings of radio-carbon dating, is because your textual traditions have not gone through this scientific process. Agree with me on one point ….You do not have any radio-carbonated papyri/manuscripts from day 1 to the 4th Century?
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Thank you for your reply Archivesislam:
Good point, I probably won’t quite my day job, especially if I’m that bad. Lol.
To be perfectly honest Archivesislam, I really don’t see any sense in radio carbon dating of documents, because the documents could be forged. What did convince me is when I looked at the Apostolic Polity as evinced in the writings of Tertullian and Ireneus that the churches had to trace back to an apostle or his scribe and texts had to be in basic agreement with other church texts that can also trace back. We do find that almost all the ancient Apostolic churches have the same 4 gospels, the 14 letters of Paul, the letter of James, 1 Peter and 1 John. Until you can explain how a scribe can insert his changes into other Apostolic churches texts, langugages and theologies before there was Microsoft Cloud, and have the ability to upload and download almost anywhere in the world, I will accept the commonly received texts of these Apostolic churches.
My reading of Bukhari who is a scholar I respect used a similar technique of the Apostolic Churches in authenticating his prophets sayings 200 years after his death. Bukhari was just one man, who used a system common in the ancient world; yet the Apostolic Churches throughout the ancient world numbers in the thousands – used a similar system to establish the official writings of the New Testament.
Since we have the internet today, you can go on it and check out the Aramiac Peshitta, the Patriochal Greek Text, the Latin Vulgate and the Textus Receptus. While all four of these editions have scribal variations, there will be the birth, life, death and ressurection of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ; And if you come to believe it, we will see you in heaven.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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Thanks for your reply Jonathan,
You mentioned the following:
:” I really don’t see any sense in radio carbon dating of documents, because the documents could be forged. ——-> The logic doesn’t follow, we are confirming your claims through SCIENTIFIC means whether the dating on your papyri /manuscripts are correct.. Plain and simple. Why aren’t any of your manuscripts from the first 4 centuries , carbon-dated? Why are you scared of the truth? Perhaps Ignorance is Bliss.
—————————
You mentioned the writings of the Church Fathers, there are many things to consider. For instance, we don’t have the original writings for any of the church fathers (Like the NT) but only manuscripts from later times that were produced by scribes who sometimes changed the texts they were copying. So the text of the church father has to be reconstructed before it can be analyzed for text-critical purposes. And there’s a particularly thorny issue involved with this: if a sixth century scribe was copying the writings of a fourth century author, he, the scribe, may well have changed the wording of the author’s scripture quotations to make them conform with the text as he, the scribe, was himself more familiar with.
—————————–
Moreover in terms of their quotations: (https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2017/05/18/value-of-the-apostolic-fathers-quotations/) ::
Frederic George Kenyon: “Quotations from the New Testament are found in the earliest writers of the sub-apostolic age, but they are so scanty as to be of little service for our present purpose.”
A. T. Robertson: “Little help is gained from the Greek Apostolic Fathers for the text.”
Bruce Metzger: “The Apostolic Fathers seldom make express citations from New Testament writings.”
Marvin R. Vincent: “The Apostolic Fathers are of little value for patristic quotation, since they do not so much quote as blend the language of the New Testament with their own.”
William L. Petersen: “It is clear that the vast majority of passages in the Apostolic Fathers for which one can find likely parallels in the New Testament have deviations from our present, critically reconstructed New Testament text. It must be emphasized that the vast majority of these deviations are not minor (e.g., differences in spelling or verb tense), but major (a completely new context, a substantial interpolation or omission, a conflation of two entirely separate ideas and/or passages).”
Caspar René Gregory professes, despite his apologetic tone, that “the very earliest of the Christian writers did not make a point of quoting the New Testament with any precision.”
—————————————-
And,to complicate matters further, your Patristic texts are not in the language that the authors actually wrote in. Most of the writings of the late second-century Irenaeus are preserved only in Latin, even though he wrote in Greek. So too with much of the voluminous output of the early third century Origen. And so on.
——————————-
Basically , your using fabricated material to confirm fabricated material….i.e. the Bible.
——————–
Please do not compare your so-called Biblical transmission to Hadith science, it is an affront to true scholarship:
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/hadith-collection-and-criticism/
…Hadith science is an amazing accomplishment, that stands as one of the most impressive intellectual feats and edifices in human history…”- Prof. Jonathan Brown
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“you had previously stated: [Not everyone was present when a verse was revealed, SO CERTAIN MANUSCRIPTS WERE MISSING VERSES. There was also no order to the verses.
but now you are saying [There were no questions about missing verses or surahs or forgeries
So which is it Quaranandbibleblog?]”
Oh Lord, I see we have another apologist who is willfully dense. I said the above in the same paragraph. You must only read what you want to read and interpret it the way you want to.
I said that people’s personal copies could have been missing verses because they WERE NOT PRESENT when those verses were revealed. That does not change the fact that those verses were authentic. Indeed, there were no questions about missing verses or surahs or forgeries among the Sahabah. The reason is that others were there to write down the verses. Moreover, hundreds of Muslims memorized the Quran word for word, even when they were not necessarily present when a particular verse was revealed. They simply learned it from someone else later. What do you find so difficult to understand? I think you just desperately want your a priori ideas, which you learned from less than reputable sources, to be true. Isn’t that right?
“And then you stated [He standardized the text into one form, using the Quraishi dialect and stopped the use of the other forms] –
How would you write a text in the Quraishi dialect if vowels weren’t used in the written Arabic language at that time? Arabic only used consonants – the only way to write in the Quaraishi dialect was through the use of written vowels – but that didn’t exist yet until the 5th Kalief – What other written forms of Arabic existed at that time other than the kufi style script which used no vowels. Now when we speak we add the vowels, but it’s not in the written text, so how could have Uthman wrote it in the Quaraishi dialect?
What other written text forms were they using other than Arabic which didn’t have a vowel system at that time. Do you not get that Quranandbibleblog? How do you write in the Quraishi dialect if you have no vowels in your written language system?”
Again with the vowels? Do I have to keep repeating myself? Here it is once more:
“Arabic orthography at the time of Uthmân was not yet developed in the way we have known for centuries, particularly in two important areas. There was no distinction between letters of the alphabet of similar shape and there were no vowel marks. This may now give the impression that such a system must have given rise to great confusion in reading. This was not actually the case because the morphological patterns of words in Arabic enable readers to read even very unfamiliar material without the short vowels being marked. More important, however, as far as the Qur’an was concerned, was the fact that learning and reading relied above all on oral transmission. In the Islamic tradition, writing remained a secondary aid; nevertheless, to ensure correct reading of the written texts of the Qur’an, particularly for those coming after the first generation of Muslims, steps were taken gradually to improve the orthography. This started with the two above mentioned areas by introducing dots to indicate different vowels and nûnâtion and these were put in different coloured ink from that of the text. There were also dots to distinguish between consonants of similar shape” (http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Qiraat/green.html#Vowel)
The Quraishi dialect did not use vowels. None of the Arabic dialects did. Native Arabs did not need the vowel marks. They were added to the Uthmanic writ later to help non-Arabs to learn the Quran. Again, what is so difficult to understand?
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LOL, the ignorance of the two Christians, Jonathan and his little cheerleader, is hilarious!
I mean seriously, what’s with the obsession with vowels? Arabs didn’t use vowels, because they didn’t need to!
And Jonathan, you should know better. The churches “safeguarded” your texts? Really?
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“We have the commonly received New Testament Texts (which is made of the textual traditions of The Greek, Aramiac and Latin Apostolic Churches) – we have the lectionaries of all those churches, and we have the church fathers from all those churches. So we can compare all three to rule out any errors. Christianity didn’t have an Uthman who could chop your head off and force everyone to hand over their copies of the Koran and burn them.”
LOL, now we can Jonathan’s true nature. Just another run of the mill apologist who lies through his teeth to protect his debunked religion!
Oh, you didn’t have an “Uthman”? Well, maybe you should have! Maybe that would have spared us all the time spent in educating you nitwits about your own history!
Oh by the way, your religion produced many inquisitions and massacres. You see, your church brutally suppressed all dissenting opinions and theologies. It’s no wonder the Gnostics had to hide their texts to keep the church from destroying them. The same thing happened to any other “heretical” group who believed something different or had a different canon.
Don’t try to pull your trickery here. You will get exposed!
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Quranandbibleblog:
I like how you avoided showing independent sources for the Koran outside of Uthman
It is also interesting Quranandbibleblog that while you gladly accept the methodology used by Bakhari to establish his prophets sayings 200 years after his prophets death through independent chains of reports from reliable sources – dealing with over 600,000 variants that he widdled down to about 7000, the independent Greek, Latin and Aramaic Apostolic Churches that can independently establish a legal chain of custody back to the Apostoes through their successions of biships, churches were most familiar to the Apostles you reject. Even Stevie Wonder can see this is a double standard.
The Apostolic Polity as evinced in the writings of Tertullian and Ireneus defines a very specific criteria for the text of the New Testament – When the Gnostics made their textual claims, it was subject to the following standard; Listen to the testimony of Tertullian:
“But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs ] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men, — a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed.- Prescription Against Heresies (Tertullian)
Shortly afterword’s in his treatise Tertullian challenges the Gnostics to verify for themselves the official writings of the Apostles when he states “run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read:
Now when Marcion rejected Johns Apocalypse, listen to how Tertullian objectively demonstrates the validity of the Text; “For Tertullian states: We have also St. John’s foster churches. For although Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, the order of the bishops (thereof), when traced up to their origin, will yet rest on John as their author” Tertullian Against Marcion Book 4.
Tertullian also uses the same criteria to establish the validity of Matthew Mark, Luke and John when he states: “The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage — I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew — while that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke’s form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul” Tertullian Against Marcion Book 4 Chapter 5.
let me refer you to Dr. Mohammad Shafi lectures on the Hadith – How it was collected and compiled: The link is here for your reviewing. http://www.daralislam.org/portals/0/Publications/TheHADITHHowitwasCollectedandCompiled.pdf
Remember, these aren’t my scholars – these are yours. Pay attention to this quote from Dr Mohammad Shafi as he discusses the methodology in collecting the hadiths “The scholars had to devise methodologies to deal with the challenge of discovering the various capabilities of reporters, and of identifying fabricators and people with special tribal, ethnic, or sectarian agendas. Thus was born the next element of authenticating Hadith; the Isnad. Having reliable people in the chain was not enough. It was required that Hadith on matters of importance come through a number of independent chains”
last statement by Dr Mohammad which states “Having reliable people in the chain was not enough, it was required that Hadith on matters of importance come through a number of independent chains” if you accept the criteria as laid out by Dr Mohammed which represents the criteria used by Bukhari, why then do you reject the collection efforts that also uses chain of reports and independent witnesses that agree to verify the collection of our new testament documents. What Dr Mohammad has described is very similar process to that used in the arguments of Ireneus and Tertullian. As you can see, I’m being very fair to Islamic sources, yet your are not being fair to my Christian sources of the second century.
God Bless
Jonathan S
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LOL, we can see the two Christians struggling mightily to answer any questions. Didn’t I tell you, archive? They won’t answer your questions! But, that’s okay. We know why they won’t answer. Holy spirit fail!
And look at this now. Jonathan got an answer about the early manuscripts that were written independently of Uthman (ra), and what does he do? In a style typical of brainwashed Christians, he tries to deny the significance of the dating of the manuscript! The radiocarbon dating of the Birmingham manuscript shows that it had to have been written sometime before 645 CE. That is right around the time of Uthman (ra), but independent of him!
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However that fact aone is not sufficient to prove that there is no perfect bible out there that has been produced by the providence of God. You have to work much harder than that.
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Any guesses?
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Mars needs Bibles
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To add to Jonathan’s good points.
Irenaeus and Tertullian around 180-200 AD named, quoted from almost all of the 27 books of the NT. (22-23 out of 27)
There is an earlier list that Athanasius’ famous list in 367 AD – Origen, over a century earlier – 250 AD – listed all 27 books of the NT.
Dr. Michael Kruger writes:
“When it comes to the study of the New Testament canon, few questions have received more attention than the canon’s date. When did we have a New Testament canon? Well, it depends on what one means by “New Testament canon.” If one is simply asking when (some of) these books came to be regarded as Scripture, then we can say that happened at a very early time. But, if one is asking when we see these books, and only these books, occur in some sort of list, then that did not happen until the fourth century. To establish this fourth-century date, most scholars will appeal to the well-known canonical list of Athanasius, included in his Festal Letter in 367 A.D.
But, is Athanasius really the first complete New Testament list? Despite the repeated claims that he is, we have a list by Origen more than a century earlier (c.250), that seems to include all 27 books. Origen, in his Homilies on Joshua, writes:
“So too our Lord Jesus Christ…sent his apostles as priests carrying well-wrought trumpets. First Matthew sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel, Mark also, and Luke, and John, each gave forth a strain on their priestly trumpets. Peter moreover sounds with the two trumpets of his Epistles; James also and Jude. Still the number is incomplete, and John gives forth the trumpet sound through his Epistles [and Apocalypse]; and Luke while describing the deeds of the apostles. Latest of all, moreover, that one comes who said, “I think that God has set us forth as the apostles last of all” (1 Cor 4:9), and thundering on the fourteen trumpets of his Epistles he threw down, even to their very foundations, the wall of Jericho, that is to say, all the instruments of idolatry and the dogmas of the philosophers.[1]”
This is a fascinating passage. A reasonable interpretation of Origen’s words would leave us with a list of 27 books (he obviously puts the book of Hebrews with Paul’s letters).” Dr. Michael J. Kruger (emphasis in bold my own)
See the link to Dr. Kruger’s article within this larger article and answer to Ijaz Ahmad’s question on the canon:
https://apologeticsandagape.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/a-muslims-question-about-the-canon-of-scripture/
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You forget that there was no such thing as a book as we know it today in the first and second centuries of the Christian era.
Originally, they were individual scrolls rolled up and sent to different places. (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, Jerusalem, Philippi, Thessalonika, Crete, Galatia (central Turkey today, etc.)
A codex started to be used more and more in the later 2nd century and 3rd century – flattened out sheets of papyri tied together – they were tied with string – there was no binding yet.
Many scholars believe the impetus for even creating what later became our “book” was the Christians wanting to put the inspired writings together under one binding / tie / codex / “book cover”.
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So many points to consider comparing the textual integrity of the Qur’an vs the Bible.
First off, the Bible can not make the claim for an oral tradition. People today are not memorizing the Bible in the Aramaic which Jesus spoke, nor the Greek, nor Latin. NOT EVEN the English which they read today. Muslims today CAN MAKE THE CLAIM that they are reciting the same Arabic which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, the Christians can not make that claim.
But I digress, lets talk about surviving manuscripts of both Qur’an and Bible:
(1) In the first century of each respective calendar (Hijra vs AD), you find the Muslims can boast 91.7% of the Qur’an in the first century AH while Christians have 0% in the first century AD.
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/91-7-of-the-quran-in-first-century-ah-vs-0-of-the-bible-in-first-century-ad/
(2) Lets compare the earliest manuscript/fragment of the Qur’an vs the New Testament, P52 vs the Birmingham Manuscript.
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/p52-vs-birmingham-manuscript-comparing-the-earliest-biblical-manuscript-to-the-earliest-quranic-manuscript/
(3) It takes up to the 4th century to get a complete New Testament, you can not get the Bible from manuscripts or even Church Father quotations.
(4) Ehrman best describes the situation that Christians find themselves :
“Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places…. these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don’t even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.””
(5) Also, Christians were forbidden to read their Bible for more than a thousand years and even up till the 1970s when Catholics forbade their congregation from reading their texts. One of the first translators of the Bible into English , William Tyndale, was burned at the stake for his efforts. So even if you did have manuscripts , (which you don’t), you weren’t allowed to read them.
(6) EVEN if you did have the KJV in a leather-bound form, and were allowed to read it, Christians were too illiterate to benefit from this allowance, Literacy during the time of Jesus was 3% and that was just AMONG THE JEWS. The pagans were worst off.
These are some points to consider, if you want references for what I said, please let me know.
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Excellent points!
I honestly don’t get why Christians think they have any reasonable argument in this debate. The history of their Bible is a mess. It’s an embarrassment!
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Yes, an embarrassment of riches!! Unlike Islamic history thanks to old uthy.
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Awww, what’s wrong Cerbie? The real history of your Bible too much to handle?
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Ironically, since the comment above admits that a full NT is found from the 4th century, such a comment only falsifies Islam since Old mo told his pawns that Christians are to follow the book they have with them.
Good job pawns!!
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It’s a very arrogant and ignorant stance to think that your Bible and your Christianity was the only one around at that time. There were many groups and many Bibles that existed.
It seems to me that you might be one of those Christians who think the KJV is the word of God, and Jesus went around speaking Shakespearean English. Like one of the governors of Texas said, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.
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See archive? Cerbie shifted gears! That’s what they do! The fact that it took 300 year to get a complete copy of his Bible does not dawn on the guy!
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You complain a lot about shifting gears when in fact all we do is demonstrate the irrationality of your argument. Don’t like the consequence? Don’t rely upon silly polemics then.
Archive- please address the problem. You cant say the bible is corrupt if muhammad told us to follow the book that you admit was present centuries before he existed.
So which is it? Is it corrupt or is muhammad wrong?
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Paulus, maybe you can bring up the ayah of the Qur’an so we can examine it together…..
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“You complain a lot about shifting gears when in fact all we do is demonstrate the irrationality of your argument. Don’t like the consequence? Don’t rely upon silly polemics then.
Archive- please address the problem. You cant say the bible is corrupt if muhammad told us to follow the book that you admit was present centuries before he existed.
So which is it? Is it corrupt or is muhammad wrong?”
Hahahaha, so instead of responding to the argument, you respond by saying the argument is “irrational”? Hmmm, now what’s that called? The fallacy of…oh, what was it?!
Idiot, archive refuted your stupid argument! You are too stupid to realize that your Bible had hundreds of versions and competing theologies. Just because your church succeeded in suppressing the competing sects does not mean they all died out. The Quran was not referring to your Bible. You know…the gospel according to so and so? Such corrupted documents were not what the Quran was referring to. I know it’s hard to understand or accept. But face it. Your Bible has a very shady and embarrassing history. Reasonable people accept this fact. But then, who said you were reasonable? .
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Devastating
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It’s so illogical to compare the 7th century to the first. Of course the later inhistory we forge less likely to have manuscripts.
Let’s be more accurate and fair. We have access to approx 53 New Testament manuscripts from the 7th century.
Koranic manuscripts? Approx 2 or 3
As I said, embarrassment of riches. Had old uthy not decimated the history, u guys might stand a chance
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Perhaps I have not articulated my point properly. Let’s try again….
Christians do not have their original Bible , either in an oral tradition or a textual one.
Muslims do.
The majority of your manuscripts come much later on, as Ehrman mentions:
“94% of our surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament date from after the ninth Christian century. That is 800 years (years!) after the so-called originals.”
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/94-of-biblical-manuscripts-come-from-the-9th-century-and-onwards/
Moreover the ” 1090 manuscripts in the original Greek from the twelfth century is not much more helpful in recreating the originals tan that we have 100 million new copies printed each year. What matters are the earliest copies—perhaps the hundred from first four centuries. And the hundred dwindle down to just a relevant handful of copies that are larger than scraps.
25,000 New Testament manuscripts? Big deal.”
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/25000-new-testament-manuscripts-big-deal/
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Oh, and that’s only Greek new testaments. Shall we also consider the Latin, Syriac, etc of all the other mss traditions
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Paulus,
On a separate note, how can I contact you on your blog – I was going to ask you something on a separate topic. Thanks
God Bless
Jonathan S
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“It’s so illogical to compare the 7th century to the first. Of course the later inhistory we forge less likely to have manuscripts.
Let’s be more accurate and fair. We have access to approx 53 New Testament manuscripts from the 7th century.
Koranic manuscripts? Approx 2 or 3
As I said, embarrassment of riches. Had old uthy not decimated the history, u guys might stand a chance”
ROFTL!! Are you serious, Cerbie?
So now you want to compare numbers of manuscripts between the Bible and the Quran by century? That’s illogical!
Of course there may be more manuscripts of the Bible in the 7th century! You Christians had a 600 years head-start, you moron!
But let’s really be fair, shall we? How many manuscripts of your Bible are there from the first two centuries of your religion’s history?
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Archive- 6% of 5800+ Greek manuscripts still
leaves 348 Greek mss. Then there are hundreds more, possibly thousands of other translated mss. Still an embarrassment of riches for scholars. Can you provide any other Ancient Greek work with such an abundance of textual evidence. Combine this with Jonathan’s points above and your objections begin to look rather juvenile.
Ibn Sow Fail..
Like usual, you fail to see the point. The reason we have so many nt mss from the 7th century is not because they were written 600 years earlier, dingbat, but because they have been preserved from that century. My figure excludes all the mss from previous centuries. So no head start buddy, just plain historical fact.
Now, you have an unfortunate 2 or 3. Why? Because uthy destroyed the evidence. Imagine how much richer your tradition could be if uthy wasn’t such a moron?
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Hey Paulus, Thank you for your reply.
Please see the above comment I made to Jonathan. And please answer the question I have posed to him as well: , do you have any manuscripts that are radio-carbon dated from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or fourth centuries?
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not one manuscript from the 1st century.
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Wrong. Numerous parchments from the Dead Sea scrolls contain portions of the New Testament. Since Qumran was abandoned around ad 70, then clearly the mss predate this period.
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Wow….. Just wow.
Reference pls.
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“Wrong. Numerous parchments from the Dead Sea scrolls contain portions of the New Testament. Since Qumran was abandoned around ad 70, then clearly the mss predate this period.”
Hahahaha, Cerbie must be a comedian. because I am laughing my head off!
The desperation is really starting to show. The second they get cornered, out come the lies from these brainwashed zombies.
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Cleary the Muslims here aren’t up to date on scholarship. Oh well, what can one expect when erhman is their only source of info.
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“Wrong. Numerous parchments from the Dead Sea scrolls contain portions of the New Testament. Since Qumran was abandoned around ad 70, then clearly the mss predate this period.”
Waiting for your reference……, whenever you comment to anyone I will be posting this to remind you
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We know Ehrman is a common xtian bitchslapper and that it annoys crosstians.
The man has done a great job getting so many people out of your cult.
All xtians can do in return is whine.
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Well, aren’t you immature. This is a com box, so I’m certainly nglad r going to waste my time producing all the academic periodicals and journals on this, especially to a Muslim using liberal arguments to firtherhis christophobia.
But alas, how about you do some research yourself on Carsten Peter Thiede, a German scholar who argues the hypothesis (begun by Spanish Papyrologist José O’Callaghan) that cave 7, an exclusively Greek mss collection, contains a very early ms of Mark (7Q5). There has, of course, been intense discussion on this in many journals and periodicals.
But probably let me save you the trouble. Given your reliance and blind acceptance of erhman as your primary source, I’m sure you will dismiss the findings of Theide because they don’t suit your agenda. Cheerio
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Thanks for your reply Paulus, I think we can agree that when someone makes a claim, YOU HAVE TO BACK IT UP.
—————-
Your 7Q5 is UNIVERSALLY REJECTED as a fragment of Mark.:
Millard, A. R. (2000). Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus. NYU Press. pp. 56. ISBN 0-8147-5637-9. “C.P. Thiede drew on papyrology, statistics and forensic microscopy to try to prove O’Callaghan’s case, yet without convincing the majority of leading specialists.”
McCready, Wayne O. (1997). “The Historical Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls”. In Arnal, William E.; Desjardins, Michael. Whose Historical Jesus?. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 193. ISBN 0-88920-295-8. “On the whole, O’Callaghan’s thesis has met with scholarly skepticism since the fragments are extremely small, almost illegible, and his strongest case does not agree with known versions of Mark.”
Qumran ms. 7Q5 … is captioned as if it contains a fragment of Mark: it was of course O’Callaghan who made that controversial — and now virtually universally rejected – identication of this Dead Sea text as a piece of the New Testament …” Elliot (2004), JK, Book Notes, Novum Testamentum, Volume 45, Number 2, 2003 , pp. 203.
———————————
I don’t see Ehrman’s name above, do you?
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ROFTL!!! Oh Cerbie, Cerbie, what are we going to do with you? The spirit of ignorance is strong in you! I had a feeling you were going for O’Callaghan’s BS about the gospel of Mark! I heard this argument years ago. Archive sums it well. This claim is pure Christian BS! Your lying spirit has shown itself once again. This isn’t “scholarship”. It’s Christians making things up to save themselves the embarrassment of not having a single 1st century manuscript of their pathetic “New Testament”.
As for your non sequitur about the NT manuscripts, you have presented absolutely no evidence that these manuscripts reflect the preserved material from the 1st century. I’m sorry Cerbie, but your fantasies don’t count as evidence! Poor, poor Cerbie. So desperate!!!
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well, call me a prophet cause I just predicted precisely what you would say, did I not? The ‘majority of scholars’ objection doesn’t work. First, it’s fallacious. Second, I know for certain you would abandon such a position on say the consensus of scholars on Jesus death. So forgive me for laughing at your affirmed objection.
As it stands, I think the position for its authenticity has been well defended above the retractors you mention. If you disagree, perhaps provide proper reasons, not just isolated quotes from others. The primary reason it has been rejected has been because it would place GMark too early. But of course such an objection isn’t really an objection at all if ones dating is only an educated guess. Sadly these scholars abandon hard evidence for a preferred dating hypothesis. Much like Muslims really.
Mr Fail.
Just another boring rant from you pretending to be another expert again. Gee, we must be up to 20 or so disciplines you pretend to be an expert in. And unsurprising not a shred of evidence against my position .
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Hahahahaa, Cerbie you dummy! It’s ironic that you didn’t bring a shred of evidence to support the claim that the gospel of Mark is in the Dead sea scrolls and yet rant about me not bringing any evidence myself. Also, when did I claim I was an expert? I said that I have heard this argument before and that I think it is just a bunch of BS. Come now, Cerbie. Surely you can do better than these childish rants? Oh wait, no you cant. Nevermind.
now will you actually present evidence for a change or should we assume that you are just parroting what you hear like a good Christian zombie?
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Thanks for your reply,
I am going to have to step out from our discussions, Paulus and Jonathan. It was an….interesting experience, to say the least
I leave you with these words from the Qur;an, Surah 18:110 :
Say: I am only a mortal like you. My Lord inspireth in me that your God is only One God. And whoever hopeth for the meeting with his Lord, let him do righteous work, and make none sharer of the worship due unto his Lord.
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Apparently I don’t need to prevent evidence since you already apparently know all about the papyrologist O’Callaghan’s research and have already concluded its BS.
We all know that what that really means is that our are in fact the parrot, have never read anything from the guy but simply dismiss like a typical muhammadan.
You’re boring me Porky. Zzzzzzzzzz
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Yaaaaawn, oh sorry. I’m getting sleepy again from the usual Christian whining and BS. Don’t blame me for being up to date on the scholarship. You’re the one bringing out of date arguments that have been debunked for a long time! It has nothing to do with being an expert. It has to do with reading the research literature.
Present your proof, idiot. We’re all waiting. If you don’t have any, then let us know so we can conclude that you have nothing. Such a good Christian zombie, you are!
Speaking of fallacies, your posts are riddled with them. Thus far, no proof has been given. All you are doing is appealing to the fact that certain Christian scholars have made the argument about the Dead Sea Scrolls. By you own standards, you are committing a fallacy. Hahahaha, poor stupid doggie!
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Where’d you run off you, doggie? Here boy (whistles)…
What is your evidence for 7Q5 being a fragment of the Gospel of Mark? We’re still waiting. While you desperately search for this evidence, let me make it even harder for you. Here is a devastating critique from a fellow Christian, namely Dr. Daniel Wallace (a darling of the Evangelical camp):
“First, what is the hard evidence on which O’Callaghan’s identification is based? A scrap of papyrus smaller than a man’s thumb with only one unambiguous word—και. Only six other letters are undisputed: τω (line 2), τ (line 3, immediately after the και), νη (line 4), η (line 5). To build a case on such slender evidence would seem almost impossible even if all other conditions were favorable to it. But to identify this as Mark 6:52-53 requires (1) two significant textual emendations (tau for delta in a manner which is unparalleled; and the dropping of ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν even though no other MSS omit this phrase); and (2) unlikely reconstructions of several other letters. Add to this that the MS is from a Qumran cave and that it is to be dated no later than 50 CE and the case against the Marcan proposal seems overwhelming. If it were not for the fact that José O’Callaghan is a reputable papyrologist and that C. P. Thiede is a German scholar, one has to wonder whether this hypothesis would ever have gotten more than an amused glance from the scholarly community.”
https://bible.org/article/7q5-earliest-nt-papyrus
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Next he will bring up First Century Mark, which is also a bust
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/shhhh-first-century-mark-is-not-authentic/
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Well you can’t blame him. Christians are in dire straits and getting desperate.
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JazakAllahkhairun for the link to Wallace on 7Q5. I have put it on my blog, since I have found it noteworthy
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Yes, I saw it. Keep up the good work!
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Yawn. I already told you little muhammadan that you bore me. Citing th “common” objections to this ms isn’t really all that exciting.
I’ve already addressed that second objection on a too early dating for GMark. Imagine I rejected the Birmingham Koranic ms because it appeared too early for my preconceived idea. Would you find such an argument persuasive?
And the first doesn’t convince me or many others. The are plenty of mss emendations in the 5800+ Greek mss tradition.
The most likely source for that manuscript is GMark. Or can you propose something else that fits the criteria? Bet you can’t…
Now go back to ge masjid and try to find yourself some jihadi to annoy.
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LOL, poor Cerbie is in denial and mad as hell!
If you want to be a moron your whole life, that’s your business, but don’t expect reasonable people to buy your BS. The fact is that numerous studies have been done (one by Robert Gundry comes to mind) and they all conclude that 7Q5 is not a fragment of Mark. Even Christians, like Wallace, say this.
Your idiotic question as to what that document really is, if not the Gospel of Mark, is childish at best. The answer is that we cannot identify the document because there is just not enough information. As Wallace pointed out, the ONLY clear word in the fragment is “kai”. That’s it! How can you possibly identify the document from such meager evidence? Like I said, you Christians are just desperate.
Interestingly, if you bothered to read Wallace’s article, he explains that he found 16 possible matches between the fragment and other documents. Here is what Wallace says:
“Second, when one allows for different possibilities than just O’Callaghan’s for the partially legible letters, the Ibycus program19 does, indeed, seem to permit other texts to be identified with 7Q5. In my own cursory examination of the TLG via Ibycus, I found sixteen texts which could possibly fit (though only if one stretched both his or her imagination and the textual evidence).”
In the footnote, he identifies the possible candidates:
“The search involved the following pattern: των, καιτ, ννη, corresponding to lines two, three, and four of 7Q5 (and even allowing O’Callaghan his nu in line 2). The passages found include Ezek 23:36; Josephus, Vita 42-3; Vita 236; Bellum 5.528; 7.380-1; Philo Cher. 44; 119; Plant. 135; Plant. 136; Mut. 173; Thucydides, Hist. 1.10.2; 1.60.1; 3.109.2; 4.67.4; 5.82.5; 8.55.1. I would not be so rash as to suggest that 7Q5 is a copy of any of these passages, but just that the identification with Mark 6 is not unparalleled. Almost all of these passages—like Mark 6—involve what I consider to be insuperable problems: date (in the case of the Josephus texts), length of line, and manipulation of partially legible letters. With a little imagination, however, I was able to emend several of the texts (even finding plausible homoioteleuta, metatheses, etc.) and make the data fit. In fact, in one text this was not even necessary. In Philo, Plant. 135 the three lines of text can be reconstructed, without any textual emendation, in a 16/14/16 stichometry:
θωματων απαντων αρ (16)
ιστον και τελειο (14)
τατον γεννημα ο εισ (16)
τον πατερα . . .
There is a certain advantage of this text over Mark 6: whereas O’Callaghan’s reconstruction involves twenty or twenty-one letters per line as the norm—including line 3 which has a three-letter gap and ought therefore to have fewer letters, the Philonic text has two letters fewer in line 3, taking into account the gap in 7Q5 at this point.
Of course, there is still the problem of forcing the partially legible letters into the theory—but this suffers no disadvantage over against the Marcan proposal.”
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“Next he will bring up First Century Mark, which is also a bust”
I see you’ve gone back to being an erhman puppet. Geez you Muslims are so predictable. Haven’t got an original thought ever!
Boring.
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“I see you’ve gone back to being an erhman puppet. Geez you Muslims are so predictable. Haven’t got an original thought ever!
Boring.”
Bwahahaha! Oh you silly boys get so riled up when Ehrman is mentioned! I love it!
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“The Quraishi dialect did not use vowels. None of the Arabic dialects did. Native Arabs did not need the vowel marks. They were added to the Uthmanic writ later to help non-Arabs to learn the Quran. Again, what is so difficult to understand?”
I like the way you pretend to both answer the objection and act daft in the same paragraph. So, let’s get to the bottom of this.
Based on what you said, how did the scribes therefore write the Koran in the quraishi dialect?
“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.”
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You’re asking this question and yet you pretend to know so much that because of your “efforts”, Muslims have realized the transmission of the Quran wasn’t perfect? Hmm, who is the daft one here? LOL!!
Here is an example of dialectical differences:
“…the phrase ‘alayhim (on them) was read by some ‘alayhumoo and the word siraat (path, bridge) was read as ziraat and mu’min (believer) as moomin.”
You see now? Get it Cerbie?
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No, I don’t get it because you didn’t address the question. I asked how the scribes wrote down the quraishi dialect as per the above Hadith. How did they write it in the dialect of quraish when you’ve claimed that quraishidialect did not use vowels.
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Your dialectical differences seem to be governed by vowels, so how did they right the script in quraishi dialect when vowels didn’t exist? Don’t evade the question.
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“No, I don’t get it because you didn’t address the question. I asked how the scribes wrote down the quraishi dialect as per the above Hadith. How did they write it in the dialect of quraish when you’ve claimed that quraishidialect did not use vowels.”
LOL, then you are just an idiot, as I had found out long ago!
No dialect used vowels, let alone the Quraishi dialect. The Arabs knew how to read their own language, stupid! The vowel markings were added later to make it easier for the growing number of non-Arabs who converted to Islam.
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“Your dialectical differences seem to be governed by vowels, so how did they right the script in quraishi dialect when vowels didn’t exist? Don’t evade the question.”
And your question seems to be governed by your stupidity. The various dialects spoken by the Arabs did not need vowels, because they knew how to read their own language! Let me know once you’ve gotten that through your head! I know it will take time, but let’s hope you won’t be a dummy your whole life.
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Still evading the question I see.
Let’s try again, with a different angle. Old uthy requested the Koran be written in the quraishi dialect. How did the scribes do that? How was the quraishi written dialect differentiated from another Arab tribe without vowels? Remember, old uthy made this request to standardise the Koran, so surely it’s not hard to answer…
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reciters were sent with the Uthmanic codex around the Islamic world to ensure correct pronunciation
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Mr Williams,
Your are correct – [reciters were sent with the Uthmanic codex around the Islamic world to ensure correct pronunciation] – It is also correct to say that Uthman did a text critical edition on the WRITTEN Koran after burning the other incorrect WRITTEN editions of the Koran.
By the way, what ever happened to the version of the WRITTEN Koran that was compiled and vetted under the first rightly guided Caliph Abu Bakr according to Bukhari?
God Bless
Jonathan S
I’ll be waiting for your reply
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“Let’s try again, with a different angle. Old uthy requested the Koran be written in the quraishi dialect. How did the scribes do that? How was the quraishi written dialect differentiated from another Arab tribe without vowels? Remember, old uthy made this request to standardise the Koran, so surely it’s not hard to answer…”
Wow, it must really be hard to be a Christian. Common sense flies out the window, only to be replaced by the holy spirit of ignorance.
Sure, let’s try again. Now, pay attention stupid. You don’t “write” a dialect. You “speak” a dialect. See? In Arabic, the dialects were differentiated by different pronunciations, vocabulary and so on. I gave you examples already. Now, using the Arabic alphabet, those words would have been written without vowels, because vowels were only added later to help non-Arabs learn the Quran. If you can’t get it at this point, then I would just admit that you have a learning disability and get professional help.
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“You don’t “write” a dialect“
I love it when you say dumb stuff. You’ve just made uthy a liar
“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.”- old uthy
Hahahahahaha
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I love it when you pretend to know something but only prove yourself to be a brainless ChrChristian zombie. Once again, the Arabs spoke various dialects, which differed in vocabulary and pronunciation. Obviously, if pronunciation of a word was different or a different word was used, it would be reflected in the writing. The key is that originally the writing did not have vowel marks. Let’s hope you get it soon, even though you are an old dog who can’t learn new tricks.
Hahahahaha!
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Let’s follow this. You began…
“You don’t “write” a dialect. You “speak” a dialect. See? In Arabic, the dialects were differentiated by different pronunciations“
Notice what you said- pronunciation was part of a verbal dialect. And you don’t write these. However, when hog tied, you unsurprising contradict yourself…
“if pronunciation of a word was different or a different word was used, it would be reflected in the writing.”
You’re dumb! Haha. But let me give you the benefit of the doubt for a moment…can you provide an example of a different word (ie variation) being used? Not pronunciation. Not differentiation promised on later vowels. But completely different Arabic words in the script
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LOL, still not quite getting it, eh? I already gave you examples of dialectical differences. But I know, Cerbie. It’s okay. I know you want to create an issue when there is no issue because that’s part of your agenda and you would do anything to distract attention away from your mess of a Bible. As soon as you have an actual point, let me know so I can destroy that too! Hahaha, dummy!
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Yes, you gave verbal dialectical differences, not written dialectical differences. You’ve failed to explain how one can even write a dialect. I know you said earlier you don’t write them, but that was before you realised this contradicts the moron uthy’s Hadith statement.
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Buwahahaha, the only moron around here is you and your lying spirit. I know it’s hard to admit you are a dummy, but try anyway dummy.
As I said, the differences in the dialects would be reflected in the writing using the Arabic alphabet, which at the time did not use vowels. I know boy, you’re a dummy with an agenda so you want to pretend like this is not answer. I mean you are a pagan trinitarian with an embarrassment of a holy book. Its all you can do, really. Poor doggie.
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Fine. All you need to do is provide an example. Give an example of the quraishi dialect spelling of the Arabic alphabet as opposed to another dialect which uses a different spelling. Written words. C’mon loser
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Hahahaha, haven’t you made a fool of yourself long enough? OK, since you are insistent on making a bigger fool of yourself, I found some more examples or “written words”. See here: https://www.kalamullah.com/Books/history_of_quranic_text.pdf
Go to p. 98 of the book (or p. 118 in the PDF) for a chart showing differences between the mushaf of Uthman and the mushaf of Madina. In all cases, there is a difference of one letter. As Al-Azami states:
“…these variations are inconsequential to the meaning of each verse and bear no alteration to the semantics whatsoever.”
Note of course that in the original mushaf of Uthman (ra), there would have been no dots or vowel marks.
For a picture of an actual manuscript lacking dots or vowels, see p. 96. The manuscript bears the Hejazi script, but with no such marks. That is how the Uthmanic manuscripts would have been written or something similar.
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So, what happened loser? Did you get your answer? I have given you examples of different pronunciations as well as different spellings, all due to the 7 ahruf, and I have shown “written words” as you asked. So, where’d you run off to?
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It’s funny how christians desperately try to make a point against Qur’an. They are just headache, especially with this spirit of ignorance.
It’s like if I said ” The poor christians…. you have only the book which has been approved by the disciples of Jesus. However, we have thousands of mms for books we have no clue who wrote them, and why they are considered scriptures by the church in the first place ” .
Preaching is really damaging for the brains.
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My guess is HS inhabitation
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“..They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless.” QT
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Not desperate, just wondering how the Koran was written into quraishi script as per uthy’s desire. Care to explain rather than be a christophobe?
You complain of ignorance but don’t offer an answer to clarify. Why is that I wonder…
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“Christophobe”? Is that even a word?
Your question has already been answered multiple times, you silly goose. Now if you would just answer the questions that you and your buddy Jonathan have been avoiding, we could progress further.
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Answered? You mean when you contradicted yourself and continue avoid explaining how the quraishi dialect was written down? That answer? As it stands not a single Muslim can explain how ithe scribes wrote the Koran in a dialectical form that is only distinguishable by vowels that didn’t exist. Not verbal dialects, but written.
C’mon pork chop, don’t be such a muhammadan
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“The fact is that numerous studies have been done (one by Robert Gundry comes to mind) and they all conclude that 7Q5 is not a fragment of Mark. “
When you’re so used to hyperbole and lying, eventually (and often these day with a muhammadan like you), you get caught out. I’ve posted the following for your interest. Note, it’s from your own source
“There is today both interest in and sympathy toward the O’Callaghan hypothesis—especially now that it has a fresh advocate in Thiede.6 Indeed, at the ETS national meeting in November 1992, even Alan Johnson pleaded the case for Thiede’s volume.7”
Hmm, at the time this article was written it sure shows you to be a demonic liar!
And just to demolish your stupidity and lies, let’s demonstrate that these objections have been discussed already.
“Thiede also responds at length to the three most common (and most serious) objections to this identification: (1) 7Q5 has a tau where Mark 6:53 has a delta (τι[απεράσαντες] vs. διαπεράσαντες); (2) in order to make the lines be of somewhat equal length and correspond to Mark’s text, the ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν of v. 53 must be omitted—even though no extant MSS omit this expression; and (3) a number of O’Callaghan’s identifications of the partially readable letters are quite improbable. To those involved in the debate over 7Q5’s identification, Thiede’s argument is more summary than new insight. In essence, he argues that (1) there are frequent interchanges between tau and delta in koine Greek,13 rendering such a possibility here hardly surprising; (2) other early papyri (e.g., Ì52, Ì45) omit material at times, even though such an omission is a singular reading; and (3) if O’Callaghan’s critics had taken the time to look at the fragment instead of a photograph, their objections about his letter reconstructions would have vanished“
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Ooooh, such anger! Poor Cerbie is clinging to the ashes of this theory; so desperate to save the integrity of his Bible!
Moron, do a little research before you open your mouth. The article is from Wallace’s original paper…from 1994! Read here:
http://place.asburyseminary.edu/trenpapers/683/
Face it, poor doggie. The theory has been universally rejected by scholars. There is just no current discussion anymore.
And as for your…ahem…”demolishment” of my “stupidity and lies”, you actually showed that you are the stupid and demonic liar! Read the very paragraph, dummy! Wallace states:
“These counter-charges by Thiede are not as substantial as he supposes. We shall approach them chiastically. First, both the original editors of this fragment and most who have followed disagree with several of O’Callaghan’s letter reconstructions. At every point in which the enlarged photograph of the fragment at the end of Thiede’s booklet (p. 68) seems to disprove O’Callaghan’s reconstructions, Thiede discounts the empirical evidence which he himself provides and renders his own judgments untouchable by any who have access only to a photograph. In other words, he is saying, “You don’t have a right to criticize O’Callaghan’s reconstruction because you haven’t seen the fragment.” Such a stance is elitist at best; at worst, it moves the entire discussion from a scholarly dialogue to a fideistic statement: Thiede basically says “Trust me.” A constant refrain is that O’Callaghan’s reconstructions are possible. Perhaps this is so, but such are also highly unlikely. In particular, an unbiased reader looking at the photograph will almost certainly disagree with O’Callaghan’s reconstructed nu in line 214 and agree with the original editors’ judgment about epsilon, sigma in line 5 (against O’Callaghan’s sigma, alpha). Thiede is quite right that examination of a document firsthand is to be preferred to examination of a photograph.15 And this is precisely where his and O’Callaghan’s approach falters: others have looked at the MS firsthand and have disagreed with O’Callaghan.”
Hahahaha, when will you learn, you satanic dog of hell?
And to further humiliate you, here are some excerpts from Robert Gundry:
“Notably, he [Thiede] makes much of his having examined 7Q5 itself, not just photographs of it; but when it comes to the crucial disputed letter in line 2, he argues from the photograph and admits that the supposed diagonal stroke of a nu does not appear to the naked eye.”
Based on microscopic examination, he then humorously concludes:
“Perhaps the identification of 7Q5 with Mark 6:52-53 can now rest in peace with suffering exhumation. Regrets.” (No NU in Line 2 of 7Q5: A Final Disidentification of 7Q5 With Mark 6:52-53.” Journal Of Biblical Literature 118, no. 4: 698.)
Ouch, poor Cerbie has more wounds to lick! Where will you go from here, little mutt?
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I guess I better just become a muhammadan then. Find me some black raisin head slaves, a few concubines and maybe star in some Jihadi cause. That must be the only option available, correct?
Haha, I’m not clinging to anything. It might be news to a silly masjidian muhammadan slave like yourself, but you’ll find that there will be disagreement on every topic. Silly Jihadi wannabe…
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Hahahaha, this is all poor Cerbie can do. Mouth off on unrelated nonsense, and humiliate himself further!
So, are there any 1st century manuscripts then of your so-called “New Testament”? You crashed and burned on 7Q5 and are clearly unable to defend your asinine views with reasonable evidence. No wonder you are so ticked off! So, are there any other candidates that you want us to consider? I’ll be waiting. 😉
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Grammatical error on the title…it should be “an ex-Christian” instead of “a ex-Christian”…as a grammar Nazi it’s my holy duty to inform you, so please make the correction…
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Sorry it’s not the title but the description…
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