Rebuttal to Anis
Shorrosh's reason of why the Muslims
believe the Bible is corrupt
Sami
Zaatari
http://truth-in-crisis.com/FAQ.htm#corrupted
On his website,
Shorrosh has a section titled FAQ.
These are questions that are frequently asked to him and so on.
One of the questions reads why Muslims believe the Bible is
corrupt. Shorrosh gives one of the
worst answers he could possibly give.
Anis
Shorrosh
Why do
Muslims claim that the Bible is corrupted?
The Muslims
believe that with the different version of the Bible (i.e,
King James, New International Version, etc.) that the Bible
cannot be
trusted as a legitimate source of God's word. What they fail to
realize that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and the New
Testament is written in Greek, neither in English. These
originals have NOT changed. They were translated into these
versions to further our understanding of God's Word
My
Response
If only it
were that simple. No, Muslims do not simply believe the Bible is
corrupt because of all the different amount of versions out
there, but because mainly the Quran
tells us. Also the huge amount of contradictions in the Bible
also prove this, plus the Bible's own admission that it is
corrupted.
What I will
basically do now is show exactly why we as Muslims do believe
the Bible is corrupted.
To begin
with, Shorrosh seems to act like the
different Bible versions we have out there are only different in
translations and nothing else. Correction, the different
versions of the Bible that we do have are not simply different
translations and so on, but each Bible has different amount of
books in them!
The Catholic
Bible and the Protestant Bible are both different from one
another, the Catholic Bible contains 73 books, while the
Protestant Bible contains 66, so Mr.
Shorrosh, is this a mere difference in translation? I
think not.
Here is an
overview of one catholic Bible:
Old Testament
* Genesis
* Exodus
*
Leviticus
* Numbers
*
Deuteronomy
* Joshua
* Judges
* Ruth
* 1
Samuel
* 2
Samuel
* 1 Kings
* 2 Kings
* 1
Chronicles
* 2
Chronicles
* Ezra
*
Nehemiah
*
Tobit
*
Judith
* Esther
* 1
Maccabees
* 2
Maccabees
* Job
* Psalms
*
Proverbs
*
Ecclesiastes
* Song of
Songs
*
Wisdom
*
Sirach
* Isaiah
*
Jeremiah
*
Lamentations
*
Baruch
* Ezekiel
* Daniel
* Hosea
* Joel
* Amos
* Obadiah
* Jonah
* Micah
* Nahum
*
Habakkuk
*
Zephaniah
* Haggai
*
Zechariah
* Malachi
New Testament
* Matthew
* Mark
* Luke
* John
* Acts
* Romans
* 1
Corinthians
* 2
Corinthians
*
Galatians
*
Ephesians
*
Philippians
*
Colossians
* 1
Thessalonians
* 2
Thessalonians
* 1
Timothy
* 2
Timothy
* Titus
*
Philemon
* Hebrews
* James
* 1 Peter
* 2 Peter
* 1 John
* 2 John
* 3 John
* Jude
*
Revelation
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/
The books
that are underlined are NOT found in a protestant Bible. Hence
what you have here is not two different Bible translations, what
you have is two different Bibles! So just say I do become a
Christian, I wouldnt know which book to believe in!
As I also
said, the Quran also tells us that
the Bible is corrupt. Here is the information from the
Quran, which commentary as well:
004.157
YUSUFALI:
That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of
Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor
crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those
who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain)
knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they
killed him not:-
Here is
another explicit verse speaking of Bible corruption, the
Quran states that if anyone believes
that Jesus died and was crucified they then follow nothing but
CONJECTURE which is corruption. Which book today tells us that
Jesus died and was crucified? The Bible, so hence the
Quran here does call the Bible
corrupt. So it can’t get anymore clear than that.
005.013
YUSUFALI: But
because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and
made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their
(right) places and forget a good part of the message that was
sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them- barring a few -
ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them, and overlook
(their misdeeds): for Allah loveth
those who are kind.
Another verse
showing Bible corruption, this is referring to the Jews. They
changed the words from their right places, this could be
miss-interpret miss-quote or change the words and put them in
different places than they originally were. Each one is a
corruption of the book. Here is what the
Tafsir says about this verse:
The Jews
Alter and Change the Law, Such As Stoning the Adulterer
[íõÍóÑøöÝõæäó
Çáúßóáöãó ãöä
ÈóÚúÏö
ãóæóÖöÚöåö]
(They change
the words from their places:) by altering their meanings and
knowingly distorting them after they comprehended them,
[íóÞõæáõæäó
Åöäú ÃõæÊöíÊõãú
åóÜÐóÇ
ÝóÎõÐõæåõ æóÅöä
áøóãú
ÊõÄúÊóæúåõ ÝóÇÍúÐóÑõæÇú]
(they say,
"If you are given this, take it, but if you are not given this,
then beware!") It was reported that this part of the Ayah was
revealed about some Jews who committed murder and who said to
each other, "Let us ask Muhammad to judge between us, and if he
decides that we pay the Diyah,
accept his judgement. If he decides
on capital punishment, do not accept his
judgement.'' The correct opinion is that this Ayah was
revealed about the two Jews who committed adultery. The
Jews changed the law they had in their Book from Allah on the
matter of punishment for adultery, from stoning to death, to a
hundred flogs and making the offenders ride a donkey facing the
back of the donkey. When this incident of adultery
occurred after the Hijrah, they said
to each other, "Let us go to Muhammad and seek his
judgement. If he gives a ruling of
flogging, then implement his decision and make it a proof for
you with Allah. This way, one of Allah's Prophets will have
upheld this ruling amongst you. But if he decides that the
punishment should be stoning to death, then do not accept his
decision.'' There are several Hadiths
mentioning this story. Malik
reported that Nafi` said that
`Abdullah bin `Umar said, "The Jews
came to Allah's Messenger and mentioned that a man and a woman
from them committed adultery. Allah's Messenger said to them,
«ãóÇ
ÊóÌöÏõæäó Ýöí
ÇáÊøóæúÑóÇÉö
Ýöí ÔóÃúäö
ÇáÑøóÌúãö¿»
(What do
find of the ruling about stoning in the
Tawrah) They said, `We only find that they should be
exposed and flogged.' `Abdullah bin Salam
said, `You lie. The Tawrah mentions
stoning, so bring the Tawrah.'
They brought the Tawrah and opened
it but one of them hid the verse about stoning with his hand and
recited what is before and after that verse. `Abdullah bin
Salam said to him, `Remove your
hand,' and he removed it, thus uncovering the verse about
stoning. So they said, He (`Abdullah bin
Salam) has said the truth, O Muhammad! It is the verse
about stoning.' The Messenger of Allah decided that the
adulterers be stoned to death and his command was carried out. I
saw that man shading the woman from the stones with his body.''
Al-Bukhari and Muslim also collected
this Hadith and this is the wording
collected by Al-Bukhari. In another
narration by Al-Bukhari, the Prophet
said to the Jews,
«ãóÇ
ÊóÕúäóÚõæä
ÈöåöãóÇ¿»
(What would
you do in this case) They said, "We would humiliate and expose
them.'' The Prophet recited,
[Þõáú
ÝóÃúÊõæÇú
ÈöÇáÊøóæúÑóÇÉö ÝóÇÊúáõæåóÇ
Åöä ßõäÊõãú]
(Bring here
the Tawrah and recite it, if you are
truthful.) So they brought a man who was blind in one eye and
who was respected among them and said to him, "Read (from the
Tawrah).'' So he read until he
reached a certain verse and then covered it with his hand. He
was told, "Remove your hand,'' and it was the verse about
stoning. So that man said, "O Muhammad! This is the verse
about stoning, and we had hid its knowledge among us.'' So
the Messenger ordered that the two adulterers be stoned, and
they were stoned. Muslim recorded that a Jewish man and a Jewish
woman were brought before Allah's Messenger because they
committed adultery. The Messenger of Allah went to the Jews
and asked them,
«ãóÇ
ÊóÌöÏõæäó Ýöí
ÇáÊøóæúÑóÇÉö
Úóáì ãóäú
Òóäóì¿»
(What is
the ruling that you find in the Tawrah
for adultery) hThey said, "We expose
them, carry them (on donkeys) backwards and parade them in
public.'' The Prophet recited;
[Þõáú
ÝóÃúÊõæÇú
ÈöÇáÊøóæúÑóÇÉö ÝóÇÊúáõæåóÇ
Åöä ßõäÊõãú]
(Bring
here the Tawrah and recite it, if
you are truthful.) So they brought the
Tawrah and read from it until the reader reached the
verse about stoning. Then he placed his hand on that verse and
read what was before and after it. `Abdullah bin
Salam, who was with the Messenger of
Allah , said, "Order him to remove his hand,'' and he removed
his hand and under it was the verse about stoning.
So the Messenger of Allah commanded that the adulterers be
stoned, and they were stoned. `Abdullah bin `Umar
said, "I was among those who stoned them and I saw the man
shading the woman from the stones with his body.'' Abu
Dawud recorded that
Ibn `Umar
said, "Some Jews came to the Messenger of Allah and invited him
to go to the Quff area. So he went
to the house of Al-Midras and they
said, `O Abu Al-Qasim! A man from us
committed adultery with a woman, so decide on their matter.'
They arranged a pillow for the Messenger of Allah and he sat on
it and said,
«ÇÆúÊõæäöí
ÈöÇáÊøóæúÑóÇÉ»
(Bring the
Tawrah to me.) He was brought the
Tawrah and he removed the pillow
from under him and placed the Tawrah
on it, saying,
«ÂãóäúÊõ
Èößö æóÈöãóäú
ÃóäúÒóáóß»
(I trust you
and He Who revealed it to you.) He then said,
«ÇÆúÊõæäöí
ÈöÃóÚúáóãößõã»
(Bring me
your most knowledgeable person.) So he was brought a young
man... '' and then he mentioned the rest of the story that
Malik narrated from
Nafi`. These
Hadiths state that the Messenger of Allah issued a
decision that conforms with the ruling in the
Tawrah, not to honor the Jews in
what they believe in, for the Jews were commanded to follow the
Law of Muhammad only. Rather, the Prophet did this because Allah
commanded him to do so. He asked them about the ruling of
stoning in the Tawrah to make them
admit to what the Tawrah contains
and what they collaborated to hide, deny and exclude from
implementing for all that time. They had to admit to what they
did, although they did it while having knowledge of the correct
ruling. What made them go to the Prophet for
judgement in this matter was their
lusts and desires, hoping that the Prophet would agree with
their opinion, not that they believed in the correctness of his
judgment. This is why they said,
[Åöäú
ÃõæÊöíÊõãú
åóÜÐóÇ]
(If you are
given this,) referring to flogging, then take it,
[æóÅöä
áøóãú
ÊõÄúÊóæúåõ ÝóÇÍúÐóÑõæÇú]
(but if you
are not given this, then beware!) and do not accept or implement
it. Allah said next,
[æóãóä
íõÑöÏö Çááøóåõ
ÝöÊúäóÊóåõ
Ýóáóä Êóãúáößó
áóåõ ãöäó
Çááøóåö ÔóíúÆÇð
ÃõæúáóÜÆößó
ÇáøóÐöíäó áóãú
íõÑöÏö Çááøóåõ
Ãóä íõØóåøöÑó
ÞõáõæÈóåõãú
áóåõãú Ýöì
ÇáÏøõäúíóÇ
ÎöÒúìñ æóáóåõãú
Ýöì ÇáÇøñÎöÑóÉö
ÚóÐóÇÈñ
ÚóÙöíãñÓóãøóÜÚõæäó áöáúßóÐöÈö
ÃóßøóÜáõæäó
áöáÓøõÍúÊö]
(And
whomsoever Allah wants to put in Fitnah,
you can do nothing for him against Allah. Those are the ones
whose hearts Allah does not want to purify; for them there is a
disgrace in this world, and in the Hereafter a great torment.
They (like to) listen to falsehood, to devour
Suht) `Suht'
refers to bribes, as Ibn
Mas`ud and others stated. The Ayah
states that if one is like this, how can Allah cleanse his heart
and accept his supplication Allah said to His Prophet ,
[ÝóÅöä
ÌóÂÁõæßó]
(So if they
come to you...) so that you judge between them,
[ÝóÇÍúßõãú
Èóíúäóåõãú Ãóæú
ÃóÚúÑöÖú
Úóäúåõãú æóÅöä
ÊõÚúÑöÖú
Úóäúåõãú Ýóáóä
íóÖõÑøõæßó
ÔóíúÆÇð]
(either judge
between them, or turn away from them. If you turn away from
them, they cannot hurt you in the least.) meaning, there is no
harm if you do not judge between them. This is because when they
came to you to judge between them, they did not seek to follow
the truth, but only what conformed to their lusts. We should
mention here that Ibn `Abbas,
Mujahid, `Ikrimah,
Al-Hasan,
Qatadah, As-Suddi,
Zayd bin Aslam,
`Ata' Al-Khurasani, and several
others said that this part of the Ayah was abrogated by Allah's
statement,
[æóÃóäö
ÇÍúßõã
Èóíúäóåõãú ÈöãóÂ
ÃóäÒóáó Çááøóåõ]
(And so judge
among them by what Allah has revealed.)
[æóÅöäú
ÍóßóãúÊó
ÝóÇÍúßõã Èóíúäóåõã
ÈöÇáúÞöÓúØö]
(And if you
judge, judge with justice between them.) and with fairness, even
if the Jews were unjust and outcasts from the path of fairness,
[Åöäøó
Çááøóåó íõÍöÈøõ
ÇáúãõÞúÓöØöíäó]
(Verily,
Allah loves those who act justly.)
So note, the
Jews hid the truth, they made up lies about the rule of stoning
to the point where many other Jews had believed it to. So this
just shows how they had been corrupting their book by hiding
information and making things up. So who knows what else they
hid, who knows what else they added, who knows what else they
mis-interpreted with the Torah. This
is just one case in which they were exposed and the truth was
brought forth, but however so it is safe to say that there are
many other lies and mis-interpretations
in their book.
004.046
YUSUFALI: Of
the Jews there are those who displace words from their (right)
places, and say: "We hear and we disobey"; and "Hear what is not
Heard"; and "Ra'ina"; with a twist
of their tongues and a slander to Faith. If only they had said:
"What hear and we obey"; and "Do hear"; and "Do look at us"; it
would have been better for them, and more proper; but Allah hath
cursed them for their Unbelief; and but few of them will
believe.
How more
clear can get it? They displace words from their right places.
Here is the tafsir of this verse:
Allah states
that the Jews, may Allah's continued curse fall on them until
the Day of Resurrection, have purchased the wrong path instead
of guidance, and ignored what Allah sent down to His Messenger
Muhammad . They also ignored the knowledge that they inherited
from previous Prophets, about the description of Muhammad , so
that they may have a small amount of the delights of this life.
[æóíõÑöíÏõæäó
Ãóä ÊóÖöáøõæÇú
ÇáÓøóÈöíáó]
(and wishing
that you should go astray from the right path.) for they would
like that you disbelieve in what was sent down to you, O
believers, and that you abandon the guidance and beneficial
knowledge that you have.
[æóÇááøóåõ
ÃóÚúáóãõ
ÈöÃóÚúÏóÇÆößõãú]
(Allah has
full knowledge of your enemies) meaning, Allah has better
knowledge of your enemies, and He warns you against them.
[æóßóÝóì
ÈöÇááøóåö
æóáöíøÇð æóßóÝóì
ÈöÇááøóåö
äóÕöíÑÇð]
(and Allah is
sufficient as a Wali (Protector),
and Allah is Sufficient as a Helper) He is a Sufficient
Protector for those who seek refuge with Him and a Sufficient
Supporter for those who seek His help. Allah then said,
[íõÍóÑøöÝõæäó
Çáúßóáöãó Úóä
ãøóæóÇÖöÚöåö]
(there are
some who displace words from (their) right places) meaning,
they intentionally and falsely alter the meanings of the Words
of Allah and explain them in a different manner than what Allah
meant,
[æóíóÞõæáõæäó
ÓóãöÚúäóÇ
æóÚóÕóíúäóÇ]
(And say: "We
hear your word and disobey) saying, "We hear what you say, O
Muhammad, but we do not obey you in it,'' as
Mujahid and Ibn
Zayd explained. This is the implied
meaning of the Ayah, and it demonstrates the Jews' disbelief,
stubbornness and disregard for Allah's Book after they
understood it, all the while aware of the sin and punishment
that this behavior will earn for them. Allah's statement,
[æóÇÓúãóÚú
ÛóíúÑó ãõÓúãóÚò]
(And "Hear
and let you hear nothing.'') means, hear our words, may you
never hear anything, as Ad-Dahhak
reported from Ibn `Abbas.
This is the Jews' way of mocking and jesting, may Allah's curse
descend on them.
[æóÑóÚöäóÇ
áóíøÇð
ÈöÃóáúÓöäóÊöåöãú æóØóÚúäÇð
Ýöì ÇáÏøöíäö]
(And
Ra`ina, with a twist of their
tongues and as a mockery of the religion.) meaning, they pretend
to say, `Hear us,' when they say, Ra`ina
(an insult in Hebrew, but in Arabic it means `Listen to us.').'
Yet, their true aim is to curse the Prophet . We mentioned this
subject when we explained Allah's statement,
[íóÜÃóíøõåóÇ
ÇáøóÐöíäó
ÁóÇãóäõæÇú áÇó
ÊóÞõæáõæÇú
ÑóÚöäóÇ æóÞõæáõæÇú
ÇäÙõÑúäóÇ]
(O you who
believe! Say not Ra`ina but say
Unzurna (make us understand)).
Therefore, Allah said about them, while they pretend to say
other than what they truly mean,
[áóíøÇð
ÈöÃóáúÓöäóÊöåöãú
æóØóÚúäÇð Ýöì
ÇáÏøöíäö]
(With a twist
of their tongues and as a mockery of the religion) because of
their cursing the Prophet . Allah then said,
[æóáóæú
Ãóäøóåõãú
ÞóÇáõæÇú ÓóãöÚúäóÇ
æóÃóØóÚúäóÇ
æóÇÓúãóÚú æóÇäúÙõÑúäóÇ
áóßóÇäó ÎóíúÑÇð
áøóåõãú
æóÃóÞúæóãó æóáóßöä
áøóÚóäóåõãõ
Çááøóåõ ÈößõÝúÑöåöãú
ÝóáÇó
íõÄúãöäõæäó ÅöáÇøó
ÞóáöíáÇð]
(And if only
they had said: "We hear and obey'', and "Do make us
understand,'' it would have been better for them, and more
proper; but Allah has cursed them for their disbelief, so they
believe not except a few.) meaning, their hearts are cast away
from the path of righteousness and therefore, no beneficial part
of faith enters it. Earlier, when we explained,
[ÝóÞóáöíáÇð
ãøóÇ
íõÄúãöäõæäó]
(so little is
that which they believe) which means they do not have beneficial
faith.
So as you can
see, the Jews intentionally mis-interpreted
what they were given and made several things up, so their book
is indeed corrupt, they have added their own desires into the
Torah.
003.078
YUSUFALI:
There is among them a section who distort the Book with their
tongues: (As they read) you would think it is a part of the
Book, but it is no part of the Book; and they say, "That is from
Allah," but it is not from Allah: It is they who tell a lie
against Allah, and (well) they know it!
So the verse
is clear, they make things up and say it is from God when it is
not from God, clear corruption, here is the
tafsir:
Allah states
that some Jews, may Allah's curses descend on them,
distort Allah's Words with their tongues, change them from their
appropriate places, and alter their intended meanings. They do
this to deceive the ignorant people by making it appear that
their words are in the Book of Allah. They attribute their own
lies to Allah, even though they know that they have lied and
invented falsehood. Therefore, Allah said,
[æóíóÞõæáõæäó
Úóáóì Çááøóåö
ÇáúßóÐöÈó
æóåõãú íóÚúáóãõæäó]
(and they
speak a lie against Allah while they know it.)
Mujahid,
Ash-Sha`bi, Al-Hasan,
Qatadah and Ar-Rabi`
bin Anas said that,
[íóáúæõæäó
ÃóáúÓöäóÊóåõã
ÈöÇáúßöÊóÜÈö]
(who distort
the Book with their tongues,) means, "They alter them (Allah's
Words).''
Al-Bukhari
reported that Ibn `Abbas
said that the Ayah means they alter and add although none among
Allah's creation can remove the Words of Allah from His Books,
they alter and distort their apparent meanings.
Wahb bin
Munabbih said, "The Tawrah
and the Injil remain as Allah
revealed them, and no letter in them was removed. However,
the people misguide others by addition and false interpretation,
relying on books that they wrote themselves. Then,
[æóíóÞõæáõæäó
åõæó ãöäú
ÚöäÏö Çááøóåö
æóãóÇ åõæó
ãöäú ÚöäÏö
Çááøóåö]
(they
say: "This is from Allah,'' but it is not from Allah;)
As for
Allah's Books, they are still preserved and cannot be changed.''
Ibn Abi
Hatim recorded this statement.
However, if Wahb meant the books
that are currently in the hands of the People of the Book, then
we should state that there is no doubt that they altered,
distorted, added to and deleted from them. For instance, the
Arabic versions of these books contain tremendous error, many
additions and deletions and enormous misinterpretation. Those
who rendered these translations have incorrect comprehension in
most, rather, all of these translations.
If Wahb meant the Books of Allah
that He has with Him, then indeed, these Books are preserved and
were never changed.
Christians
always love to quote a small part of this section in which it
says:
Al-Bukhari
reported that Ibn `Abbas
said that the Ayah means they alter and add although none among
Allah's creation can remove the Words of Allah from His Books
They always
quote that part but never the rest, why don’t they ever quote
the rest? The fact is this statement that non can change Allah's
words in his books is referring to the ORIGINALS. The Originals!
However so they can make copies and write books with their own
hands and ADD things to it, this is not the OIRIGINAL book but
their own invention with their hands. Note what the
tafsir says:
However, the
people misguide others by addition and false interpretation,
relying on books that they wrote themselves
So they made
their own books up, they copied a lot from the ORIGINAL book and
with that they added their own interpretation and lies! Non can
corrupt Allah's original books, they can make copies and write
with their own hands, that’s how the corruption occurs. The
tafsir then summarizes the Muslim
position back then and now when it states:
However, if
Wahb meant the books that are
currently in the hands of the People of the Book, then we should
state that there is no doubt that they altered, distorted, added
to and deleted from them. For instance, the Arabic versions of
these books contain tremendous error, many additions and
deletions and enormous misinterpretation
How more
obvious does it get???????? This shows that the Muslims back
then did view the Bible as corrupt, and gave an example of the
arabic Bible to show how corrupt it
is, they were not limiting the corruption to the
arabic text only, they were
referring to the Bible as a whole. So this summarizes the Muslim
position. The ORIGINAL BOOKS which Allah sent cannot be
corrupted, THE ORIGINAL ONES in the hands of Jesus and Moses.
However so people could make copies, they could copy it down and
with that they could write their own lies to it which is what
they did.
What makes
this all the more interesting is that the Bible also calls
itself corrupt:
"How can you
say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But,
behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a
lie. (From the RSV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)"
Christians
have come up with all sorts of explanations to solve this mess,
one common response they give is that this is referring to the
rabbis own laws and traditions, ones they made up and then
abandoned the Torah. This explanation does not work, because the
text says THE LAW has been turned into a lie, what is the law?
The Torah is called THE LAW, so hence when the law is mentioned,
this is indeed talking about the Torah, and not some rabbi
traditions.
So even if
the Quran did not tell us the Bible
is corrupt which it does, we could simply quote the Bible to
show that the Bible itself calls the Bible corrupt!
Now let us
turn our attention to the contradictions. These are very
interesting contradictions since Christians have not and will
never come up with a good explanation to these ones:
From
Karims Great article:
1: In
Matthew 4:5-8 the Devil took Jesus to the pinnacle and then to
the mountain, while in Luke 4:5-9 he took him to the mountain
and then the pinnacle.
2: In Matt.
21:12-19 Jesus cleansed the temple and later cursed the fig
tree, while in Mark 11:13-15 he cursed the fig tree and later
cleansed the temple.
3: In Matt.
8:28-32 Jesus caused devils to enter swine and later called Levi
(Matt. 9:9), while in Luke 5:27-28 Jesus called Levi and later
caused devils to enter swine (Luke 8:26-33).
4: In Mark
1:12-13 Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and later John was
arrested (Mark 6:17-18), while in Luke 3:19-20 John was arrested
and later Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13).
5: In Mark
2:13-17 Matthew was called by Jesus and later the tempest was
calmed (Mark 4:35-40), while in Matt. 8:18, 23-27 the tempest
was calmed and later Matthew was called (Matt. 9:9-17).
6: In Matt.
8:1-4 Jesus cleansed the leper and later healed Peter's
mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14-15), while in Mark 1:29-31 Jesus
healed Peter's mother-in-law and later cleansed the leper (Mark
1:40-44).
7: In Matt.
8:28-32 Jesus caused devils to enter swine and later appointed
the 12 apostles (Matt. 10:1-4), while in Mark 3:13-19 Jesus
appointed the 12 apostles and later caused the devils to enter
the swine (Mark 5:1-13).
8: In Luke
3:19-20 John the Baptist was arrested and later Jesus healed
Peter's mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39), while in Mark 1:29-31
Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law and later John was arrested
(Mark 6:17-18).
9: In Luke
3:19-20 John was arrested and later the storm was calmed (Luke
8:22-25), while in Mark 4:35-40 the storm was calmed and later
John the Baptist was arrested (Mark 6:17-18).
10: In Luke
5:27-32 Levi (Matthew) was called and later the storm was calmed
(Luke 8:22-25), while in Matt. 8:18-27 the storm was calmed and
later Levi was called (Matt. 9:9-17).
11: In Matt.
8:14-15 Jesus cured Simon's mother-in-law and later John the
Baptist was arrested (Matt. 14:3-5), while in Luke 3:19-20 John
was arrested and later Jesus cured Simon's mother-in-law (Luke
4:38-39).
12: In
Matthew 21:1-11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and later purified the
Temple (Matthew 21:12-16), while in John 2:13-25 and 3:1-12 he
purified the Temple and later entered Jerusalem (John 12:12-16).
13: In Matt.
8:28-32 Jesus caused devils to enter swine and later paid
tribute to John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11-14), while in Luke
7:24-28 Jesus paid tribute to John the Baptist and later caused
devils to enter swine (Luke 8:26-33).
14: In Luke
22:14-21 Jesus said after supper that the hand of his betrayer
was with him on the table, while in Matt. 26:21 and Mark l4:18
Jesus made this statement during supper.
15: And
lastly, in Matt. 8:23-27 Jesus calmed the storm and later
appointed the 12 apostles (Matt. 10:1-4), while in Mark 3:13-19
Jesus appointed the 12 apostles and later calmed the storm (Mark
4:35-41).
http://answering-christianity.com/karim/15_clear_chronological_contradictions_in_the_bible.htm
Here are some
more contradictions from Abdullah Smith's great article:
The earth
shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: [even]
Sinai itself [was moved] at the presence of God, the God of
Israel. (Psalms 68:8)
Contradicted
by:
The LORD
reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed
with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be
moved. (Psalms 93:1)
Say among the
nations, "The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it
cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity. (Psalms
96:10)
Does God
reject his people?
For the LORD
will not reject his people; he will never forsake his
inheritance. (Psalms 94:14)
Contradicted
by:
And the LORD
rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and
delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them
out of his sight. (2 Kings 17:20)
(6) Will the
sun burn forever?!
Once for all,
I have sworn by my holiness— and I will not lie to David- that
his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me
like the sun; (Psalms 89:37)
Scientifically, the sun will NOT last forever, it will
eventually burn out.
http://answering-christianity.com/abdullah_smith/contradictions_in_the_psalms.htm
Here are some
more errors in the Bible from another great article of Abdullah
Smith:
Did Herod
slaughter the innocents?
Another
prophecy related to the birth of Jesus is the claim that the
Messiah would be born at a time when King Herod was killing
children. Only the gospel of Matthew (2:16-18) makes this claim,
quoting a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) which states that "A
voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel
weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted,
because they were no more." There are two problems with this
alleged messianic prophecy: it is not a prophecy about children
being killed and it is quite doubtful that there ever was such a
slaughter of innocents by Herod. "Rachel weeping for her
children" refers to the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (and wife
of Jacob) weeping about her children taken captive to Egypt. In
context, the verse is about the Babylonian captivity, which its
author witnessed. Subsequent verses speak of the children being
returned, and thus it refers to captivity rather than murder.
The slaughter by Herod is also in doubt because the writer of
Matthew is the only person who has noted such an event. Flavius
Josephus, who carefully chronicled Herod's abuses, makes no
mention of it.
(www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_lippard/fabulous-prophecies.html)
His cruelty
was reflected in the biblical account of the Massacre of the
Innocents. At the same time as Jesus was born, he was said to
have ordered the slaughter of all children (boys) in Bethlehem
under two years old. Herod was supposedly fearful of prophecies
that said that a "King of the Jews" would be born in Bethlehem.
This challenged his authority, and thus he ordered the crackdown
to protect himself. This massacre is not mentioned in any
non-biblical sources, however, and is very probably apocryphal.
(http://www.answers.com/Herod)
“As we have
already seen, the stories of the angels and the shepherds, in
Luke, and of the wise men, in Matthew, are rewrites of Egyptian
mythical themes from at least two thousand years earlier. They
are portrayed in the art at
Luxor.
There is no historical evidence of Herod’s “slaughter of the
innocents” either. Common sense tells us that such an order was
impossibility in any case. Did Herod intend to kill the children
of his friends, his soldiers, his civil servants, tourists
passing through, and so on? You know for certain the whole
matter is symbolic once you realize that an attempt to slaughter
a holy child appears in all the ancient hero myths, from Moses
to Horus to Sargon to Hercules. As
noted earlier, the threat to the newly born
Horus, the Egyptian Christ, came from
Herut, the serpent. (Tom Harper, The
Pagan Christ, p. 126)
Geographical
Errors
Commenting in
his (Harold Liedner) 1999 book The
Fabrication of the Christ Myth on the well-known Gospel story of
the Gadarene swine, which rushed
down a steep cliff and were drowned in the Sea of Galilee, the
Jewish scholar Joseph Leidner points
out that because Gadera is actually
several kilometers away from the sea, the whole incident is
evidence of either ignorance or total lack of concern with
veridical history. Citing other similar examples, he writes,
“From the evidence…the blunt conclusion emerges that the Gospel
writers did not know the geography and customs of the Holy Land,
and did not know Judaism itself. They were working with source
material having nothing to do with historical data of any kind.
(ibid, p. 163)
Mark makes
serious mistakes in his geographical references to Palestine. He
knows the Galilean place names
and the
general relative positions of the localities, but not specific
details. Hence he "represents Jesus as
travelling back
and forth in
Galilee and adjacent territories in a puzzling fashion" (Kee,
117, pp 102 - 3). To go (as Jesus is said to in Mk. 7:31) from
the territory of
Tyre
by way of
Sidon
to the Sea of Galilee "is like travelling
from Cornwall to London via Manchester" (Anderson, 2, p 192).
Again, Mark’s references to movements across the Sea of Galilee
are impossible to trace sequentially. Mention of specific
location near the sea are either unknown sites, such as
Dalmanutha (8:10), or are patently
inaccurate, as in the designation of the eastern shore of the
lake as the country of the Gerasenes
(5:1)" (Kee, loc cit).
Gerasa is more than thirty miles
southeast of the lake, too far away for the setting of the story
which demands a city in its vicinity, with a precipitous slope
down to the water. Probably all that concerned Mark, collecting
and adapting pre-existing stories about Jesus, was that the lake
and its surrounding territories, some Jewish and some mainly
Gentile, was an ideal setting for journey's of Jesus and his
disciples, showing how both Jews and Gentiles responded to him
with faith. That place names in Mark caused perplexity among
early readers is shown by the wide range of variants in the
textual tradition where names occur in the gospel. Perplexity is
also evidenced by Matthew, who changed Mark’s
Gerasenes to
Gadarenes (Mt. 8:28),
Gadara
being a well-known spa only eight miles from the lake.
(G. A. Wells,
The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Prometheus Books, 1982), p.
230
Many other
examples of improbable reconciliations could be offered. Since
Matt has a Sermon on the Mount and Luke has a similar Sermon on
the Plain (Matt 5:1; Luke 6:7), there must have been a plain on
the side of the mountain. Since Matt has the Lord's Prayer
taught in that sermon and Luke has it later on the road to
Jerusalem (Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4), the disciples must have
forgotten it, causing Jesus to repeat it. Mark 10:46 places the
healing of the blind man after Jesus left Jericho, while Luke
18:35; 19:1 places it before Jesus entered Jericho. Perhaps
Jesus was leaving the site of the OT Jericho and entering the
site of the NT Jericho!
Raymond E.
Brown, S.S., An Introduction To The New Testament, The Anchor
Bible Reference Library (Doubleday, 1997) pp. 109-110
http://answering-christianity.com/abdullah_smith/historical_errors_in_the_gospels-3.htm
Some more
contradictions in the Bible from another great article by
Abdullah Smith!
(1)
'I am pure
and without sin; I am clean and free from guilt. (Job 33:9)
Contradicted
by:
Who can say,
"I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin"?
(Proverbs 20:9)
(2)
Wisdom is the
principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting
get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7)
Contradicted
by:
For in much
wisdom is much grief: and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth
sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)
http://answering-christianity.com/abdullah_smith/bible_contradictions.htm
The problems
do not stop there, here is some more:
the book of
Matthew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew
The
authorship of this Gospel is traditionally ascribed to St
Matthew, a tax-collector who became an apostle of Jesus.
However, most modern scholars are content to let it remain
anonymous.
The relation
of the gospels to one another is the subject of some debate.
Most modern scholars believe that Matthew borrowed from Mark and
the hypothetical Q document, but some scholars believe that
Matthew was written first and that Mark borrowed from Matthew
(see: Augustinian hypothesis). Out of a total of 1071 verses,
Matthew has 387 in common with Mark and the Gospel of Luke, 130
with Mark, 184 with Luke; only 387 being peculiar to itself.
Like the
authors of the other gospels, the author of Matthew wrote
this book according to his own plans and aims and from HIS OWN
POINT OF VIEW, while at the same time borrowing from other
sources. According to
the two-source hypothesis (the most commonly accepted solution
to the synoptic problem), Matthew borrowed from both Mark and a
hypothetical sayings collection, known by scholars as Q (for the
German Quelle, meaning "source").
There are
numerous testimonies, starting from Papias
and Irenaeus, that Matthew
originally wrote in the Hebrew tongue, which could also refer to
Aramaic. The sixteenth century Erasmus was the first to express
doubts on the subject of an original Hebrew version of the
Gospel of Matthew: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew
wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any
trace of such a volume." Here Erasmus distinguishes between a
Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew and the lost apocryphal Gospel of
the Hebrews and Gospel of the Nazoraeans,
from which patristic writers do quote. The vast majority of
contemporary scholars, based on analysis of the Greek of
canonical Gospel of Matthew and use of sources such as the Greek
Gospel of Mark, conclude that the book we have today was written
originally in Greek and is not a translation from Hebrew or
Aramaic (per Rev. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New
Testament, p. 210). If they are correct, then writers such
as Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
and Jerome referred to a document or documents distinct from the
present Gospel of Matthew, as confirmed by the fact that
Nicephorus lists the Gospel of
Matthew and Gospel of the Hebrews separately in his
Stichometry. All of the
aforementioned texts are distinct from the Gospel of the
Ebionites, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew,
and Shem-Tov Matthew.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/matthew.html
It is also
the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle
Matthew. Such an idea is based on the second century statements
of Papias and
Irenaeus. As quoted by Eusebius in
Hist. Eccl. 3.39,
Papias states: "Matthew put together
the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one
interpreted them as best he could." In Adv.
Haer. 3.1.1, Irenaeus
says: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in
their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at
Rome and laying the foundations of the church." We know that
Irenaeus had read
Papias, and it is most likely that
Irenaeus was guided by the statement
he found there. That statement in Papias
itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of
Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not
the author's first-hand experience.
Herman N.
Ridderbos writes (Matthew, p. 7):
This means,
however, that we can no longer accept the traditional view of
Matthew's authorship. At least two things forbid us to do so.
First, the tradition maintains that Matthew authored an Aramaic
writing, while the standpoint I have adopted does not allow us
to regard our Greek text as a translation of an Aramaic original.
Second, it is extremely doubtful that an eyewitness like the
apostle Matthew would have made such extensive use of material
as a comparison of the two Gospels indicates. Mark, after all,
did not even belong to the circle of the apostles. Indeed
Matthew's Gospel surpasses those of the other synoptic writers
neither in vividness of presentation nor in detail, as we would
expect in an eyewitness report, yet neither Mark nor Luke had
been among those who had followed Jesus from the beginning of
His public ministry.
Francis Write
Beare notes (The Gospel according to
Matthew, p. 7):
But the
dependence of the book upon documentary sources is so great as
to forbid us to look upon it as the work of any immediate
disciple of Jesus. Apart from that, there are clear
indications that it is a product of the second or third
Christian generation. The traditional name of Matthew is
retained in modern discussion only for convenience.
So just note
the problems the Christians faced just on dealing with what
language Matthew wrote in! Hebrew-Aramaic, or Greek. Also note
the other problem they face, many did not believe that Matthew
even authored the entire account but some other third party did
so.
Continuing
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10057a.htm
II.
AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST GOSPEL
The question
of authenticity assumes an altogether special aspect in regard
to the First Gospel. The early Christian writers assert that
St. Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew; this Hebrew Gospel has,
however, entirely disappeared, and the Gospel which we
have, and from which ecclesiastical writers borrow quotations as
coming from the Gospel of Matthew, is in Greek.
3) Finally,
were the Logia of Matthew and the Gospel to which ecclesiastical
writers refer written in Hebrew or Aramaic? Both hypotheses are
held. Papias says that Matthew wrote
the Logia in the Hebrew (Hebraidi)
language; St. Irenæus and Eusebius
maintain that he wrote his gospel for the Hebrews in their
national language, and the same assertion is found in several
writers. Matthew would, therefore, seem to have written in
modernized Hebrew, the language then used by the scribes for
teaching. But, in the time of Christ, the national language of
the Jews was Aramaic, and when, in the New Testament, there is
mention of the Hebrew language (Hebrais
dialektos), it is Aramaic that is
implied. Hence, the aforesaid writers may allude to the Aramaic
and not to the Hebrew. Besides, as they assert, the Apostle
Matthew wrote his Gospel to help popular teaching. To be
understood by his readers who spoke Aramaic, he would have had
to reproduce the original catechesis in this language, and it
cannot be imagined why, or for whom, he should have taken the
trouble to write it in Hebrew, when it would have had to be
translated thence into Aramaic for use in religious services.
Moreover, Eusebius (Hist.
eccl., III, xxiv, 6) tells us that
the Gospel of Matthew was a reproduction of his preaching, and
this we know, was in Aramaic. An investigation of the Semitic
idioms observed in the Gospel does not permit us to conclude as
to whether the original was in Hebrew or Aramaic, as the two
languages are so closely related. Besides, it must be home in
mind that the greater part of these Semitisms simply reproduce
colloquial Greek and are not of Hebrew or Aramaic origin.
However, we believe the second hypothesis to be the more
probable, viz., that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic.
Let us now
recall the testimony of the other ecclesiastical writers on the
Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Irenæus
(Adv. Haer., III,
i, 2) affirms that Matthew published
among the Hebrews a Gospel which he wrote in their own language.
Eusebius (Hist.
eccl., V, x, 3) says that, in India,
Pantænus found the Gospel according to St. Matthew
written in the Hebrew language, the Apostle Bartholomew having
left it there. Again, in his "Hist.
eccl." (VI xxv, 3, 4), Eusebius
tells us that Origen, in his first
book on the Gospel of St. Matthew, states that he has learned
from tradition that the First Gospel was written by Matthew,
who, having composed it in Hebrew, published it for the converts
from Judaism. According to Eusebius (Hist.
eccl., III, xxiv, 6), Matthew
preached first to the Hebrews and, when obliged to go to other
countries, gave them his Gospel written in his native tongue.
St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel
in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad
Hedib.", iv), but says that it
is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of
Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius,
St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine,
etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that
Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to
express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me
that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has
seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St.
Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve
difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at
hand. Pantænus also had it, as,
according to St. Jerome ("De Viris
Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the
testimony of Pantænus is only
second-hand, and that of Jerome remains rather ambiguous, since
in neither case is it positively known that the writer did not
mistake the Gospel according to the Hebrews (written of course
in Hebrew) for the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew. However all
ecclesiastical writers assert that Matthew wrote his Gospel in
Hebrew, and, by quoting the Greek Gospel and ascribing it to
Matthew, thereby affirm it to be a translation of the Hebrew
Gospel
So note the
major problems the Christians face just on establishing what
language Matthew wrote his Gospel in. The early Christians as we
see had a different version of Matthew than we have today!
Matthew
extenuates or omits everything which, in Mark, might be
construed in a sense derogatory to the Person of Christ or
unfavourable to the disciples. Thus,
in speaking of Jesus, he suppresses the following phrases: "And
looking round about on them with anger" (Mark 3:5); "And when
his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him.
For they said: He is beside himself" (Mark 3:21), etc. Speaking
of the disciples, he does not say, like Mark, that "they
understood not the word, and they were afraid to ask him" (ix, 3
1; cf. viii, 17, 18); or that the disciples were in a state of
profound amazement, because "they understood not concerning the
loaves; for their heart was blinded" (vi, 52), etc. He likewise
omits whatever might shock his readers, as the saying of the
Lord recorded by Mark: "The sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath" (ii, 27). Omissions or alterations of this
kind are very numerous.
Who knows
what else Matthew omitted and took out? If all the Gospels are
God-breathed why would Matthew delete things from it? It is
clear that these Gospels are not God breathed but are eye
witness accounts based on what they thought. They never received
any revelations as we clearly see, they wrote the Gospels to how
they saw fit.
Continuing
VI. DATE AND
PLACE OF COMPOSITION
Ancient
ecclesiastical writers are at variance as to the date of the
composition of the First Gospel. Eusebius (in his Chronicle),
Theophylact, and
Euthymius
Zigabenus are of opinion that the Gospel of Matthew was
written eight years, and Nicephorus
Callistus fifteen years, after
Christ's Ascension--i. e. about A.D.
38-45. According to Eusebius, Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew
when he left Palestine. Now, following a certain tradition
(admittedly not too reliable), the Apostles separated twelve
years after the Ascension, hence the Gospel would have been
written about the year 40-42, but following Eusebius (Hist.
eccl., III, v, 2), it is possible to
fix the definitive departure of the Apostles about the year 60,
in which event the writing of the Gospel would have taken place
about the year 60-68. St Irenæus is
somewhat more exact concerning the date of the First Gospel, as
he says: "Matthew produced his Gospel when Peter and Paul were
evangelizing and founding the Church of Rome, consequently about
the years 64-67." However, this text presents difficulties of
interpretation which render its meaning uncertain and prevent us
from deducing any positive conclusion.
In our day
opinion is rather divided. Catholic critics, in general,
favour the years 40-45, although
some (e.g. Patrizi) go back to 36-39
or (e.g. Aberle) to 37.
Belser assigns 41-42;
Conély, 40-50; Schafer, 50-51; Hug,
Reuschl, Schanz,
and Rose, 60-67. This last opinion is founded on the combined
testimonies of St. Irenæus and
Eusebius, and on the remark inserted parenthetically in the
discourse of Jesus in chapter xxiv, 15: "When therefore you
shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by
Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place": here the author
interrupts the sentence and invites the reader to take heed of
what follows, viz.: "Then they that are in Judea, let them flee
to the mountains." As there would have been no occasion for a
like warning had the destruction of Jerusalem already taken
place, Matthew must have written his Gospel before the year 70
(about 65-70 according to Batiffol).
Protestant and Liberalistic critics also are greatly at variance
as regards the time of the composition of the First Gospel.
Zahn sets the date about 61-66, and
Godet about 60-66;
Keim, Meyer,
Holtzmann (in his earlier writings),
Beyschlag, and Maclean,
before 70, Bartiet about 68-69; W.
Allen and Plummer, about 65-75; Hilgenfeld
and Holtzmann (in his later
writings), soon after 70; B. Weiss and
Harnack, about 70-75; Renan,
later than 85, Réville, between 69
and 96, Jülicher, in 81-96,
Montefiore, about 90-100,
Volkmar, in 110;
Baur, about 130-34.
So note
Christians can’t even get the time and date composition of
Matthew! What makes this even funnier is that Christians always
ask us Muslims when did the Bible get corrupted? Well I ask you
the Christian, when did the book of Matthew get compiled and
composed? We have no such problems with the
Quran, we know when and where it was composed, and how it
was done as well.
Continuing
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/goodspeed/ch11.html
It is easy to
see how Matthew, with his disposition to organize and assemble
his material, should have omitted this, for it would hardly fit
in with his teaching against public giving. We may say there is
really no fundamental conflict between them, and yet we would
hot want to record them together, no matter how much we prize
them both. In fact, there is hardly a detail given by Mark which
Matthew has omitted which we cannot understand his omitting. The
demonic recognitions of Jesus, the difficulty Jesus sometimes
seems to have in effecting a cure. Mark 8:23-25, his apparent
use of means in healing. Mark 7:33; 8:23—these may have
deterred Matthew from using some accounts when he had what he
may well have considered better ones with which to fill his
gospel.
This
Marcan material, which can be seen
displayed in any Greek or English harmony of the gospels, [1]
Matthew somewhat rearranged, yet in using it he
followed the order of Mark's phrases to an extraordinary degree.
We can form a very fair idea of the way in which Matthew used
his sources by the way he used Mark, and while he rearranged
blocks and items of material with some freedom, in detail he
was singularly
So Matthew
took out what he didn’t like, put in what he did like and
re-arranged things. How convenient.
Continuing
To most
moderns it seems an act of sheer plagiarism to use another man's
book so freely and say nothing about it. But we must always
remember that both Matthew and Mark were anonymous; neither
writer gave his name to his gospel or claimed it as his own;
So note the
Christian does show that what Matthew did is plagiarism, but he
tries to clear this up by saying the writers were anonymous and
didn’t giver their names or claimed the Gospel to be of his own,
if so, then how do you know Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark? Ah
yes, you ASSUME.
Continuing
The question
arises: What other sources had Matthew for the writing of his
gospel? It is plain that one, at least, of these other sources
was used by Luke also, since many things absent from Mark are
present in both Luke and Matthew and in the same form of words.
Luke is especially instructive here, for his method, unlike
Matthew's, was to use his sources en bloc, not minutely
interwoven. So it comes about that there are in Luke
considerable areas where Mark has not been used at all; we may
call them Mark-free areas. Since these alternate with solid
extracts from Mark, which were evidently taken directly from
that gospel with slight verbal changes, it seems very probable
173
that the non-Marcan
passages were likewise taken from other written sources, which
Matthew also used in his own peculiar way.
The longest
of these Mark-free areas in Luke is 9:51-18:14. Then, after an
excerpt from Mark, 19:1-28 is again Mark-free. These may be
called the Perean Section, [1] since
their scene is laid in Perea. They
probably formed a separate document or documents; certainly they
were used by Matthew.
Another of
these Mark-free areas in Luke is 6:20-8:3, which may be called
the Galilean Section, as its action takes place in Galilee. But
with it we may naturally group scattered passages such as
3:7-18;
4:2-13,
wanting in Mark and yet used also by Matthew. Whether these two
sections, the Galilean and the Perean,
were separate or are to be thought of as one (the so-called "Q"
or "Quelle") has been much
discussed; they are different in certain definite respects, and
Luke in his preface, 1:1-4, leads us to expect him to show the
use of a number of sources: "Many writers have undertaken to
compose accounts, . ..." It is clear that Luke and Matthew used
the material of these sections, in addition to Mark. There is no
substantial reason for supposing that they were combined into
one document, and Luke's statement, 1:1, is definitely against
it. They had reached written form probably somewhere in the
Greek world.
Papias
of Hierapolis, in one of the
fragments from
[1] Cf. D. R.
Wickes, The Sources of Luke's
Perean Section (Chicago, 1912), and
E. W. Parsons, A Historical Examination of Some Non-Marcan
Elements in Luke (Chicago, 1914).
So note, all
the Gospel writers are just borrowing from other sources and
just mixing it around to make their own Gospel.
Continuing
Yet Matthew
probably had other sources, chiefly traditions of sayings of
Jesus, current in more or less developed forms in Christian
preaching, which he wrought into fuller and more finished forms,
e.g., in the finely rounded parables of chapter 25. These may
have been combined into a document or they may have existed
separately. They had been reduced to writing somewhere in Greek
Christian circles, probably about Antioch. They would be of that
"formless," that is, unorganized, type of sayings collection
natural enough in the oral stage in Jewish Christian groups,
since it was in this way that the Jews were wont to gather and
transmit (of course orally) the sayings of the rabbis.[1]
Some problems
with the Gospel of John:
John 5:3-4
The fifth
chapter tells of the cure of the paralytic at the pool of
Bethsaida
in Jerusalem. According to the Vulgate the text of the second
part of verse three and verse four runs as follows: " . . .
waiting for the moving of the water. And an angel of the Lord
descended at certain times into the pond, and the water was
moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the
motion of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he
lay under." But these words are wanting in the three oldest
manuscripts, the Codex Vaticanus
(B), Codex Sinaiticus (aleph), and
Codex Bez (D), in the original text
of the palimpsest of St. Ephraem
(C), in the Syrian translation of Cureton,
as well as in the Coptic and Sahidic
translations, in some minuscules, in
three manuscripts of the Itala, in
four of the Vulgate, and in some Armenian manuscripts. Other
copies append to the words a critical sign which indicates a
doubt as to their authenticity. The passage is therefore
regarded by the majority of modern critics, including the
Catholic exegetes, Schegg,
Schanz, Belser,
etc., as a later addition by Papias
or some other disciple of the Apostle.
John
7:53-8:11
This passage
contains the story of the adulteress. The external critical
evidence seems in this ease to give still clearer decision
against the authenticity of this passage. It is wanting in the
four earliest manuscripts (B, A, C, and aleph) and many others,
while in many copies it is admitted only with the critical mark,
indicative of doubtful authenticity. Nor is it found in the
Syrian translation of Cureton, in
the Sinaiticus, the Gothic
translation, in most codices of the Peshito,
or of the Coptic and Armenian translations, or finally in the
oldest manuscripts of the Itala.
None of the Greek Fathers have treated the incident in their
commentaries, and, among Latin writers,
Tertullian, Cyprian, and Hilary appear to have no
knowledge of this pericope.
So now we
have verses in the Gospel of John on which there is doubt, and
are not authentic and not written by John. This itself is enough
to throw this book away.
Another
problem is the ending of Mark:
Ending
There was
some dispute among textual critics in the 19th century as to
whether 16:9-20, describing some disciples' encounters with the
resurrected Jesus, were actually part of the original Gospel, or
if they were added later. The oldest extant manuscripts do
not contain these verses and the style differs from the rest of
Mark, suggesting that they were a later addition. A few
manuscripts even include a different ending after verse 8. By
the 5th century, at least 4 different endings have been
attested. (See Mark 16 for a more comprehensive
treatment of this topic.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16
Mark 16 is
the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark. There is much debate
about the ending of Mark, and many textual problems—there are
nine different endings known—but most of the debate focuses
around the so-called ‘longer’ ending (16:9-20).
Possible
Scenarios
* The
original ending of Mark was lost, and somebody else at a very
early date completed the gospel. C. H. Turner has suggested
that the original version of the gospel may have been a codex
and the last pages may have been lost. However, it seems
unlikely that Christian use of the codex form stretched as far
back as the proposed date for the writing of Mark, though there
is evidence for its adoption in the second century;
* The
author(s) of Mark intentionally ended the gospel at 16:8, and
someone else at an early date completed the gospel;
* More
than one edition of Mark’s Gospel was made, so some Christian
communities would have possessed the longer ending edition, and
others would have possessed the edition that stopped at 16:8.
( SAM- MEANING PEOPLE HAD DIFFERENT BIBLES)
* The
original ending was inconvenient to the church, and it was
replaced.
Verses 16:8-9
read as follows in the New Revised Standard Version:
(16:8) So
they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement
had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were
afraid. (16:9) Now after he rose early on the first day of the
week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from who he had cast
out seven demons.
Note the way
the narrative flow abruptly changes from "they were afraid" to
"now after he rose". Also, Mary Magdalene, introduced at the
beginning of the chapter (16:1), is re-introduced almost as
though she had not already been mentioned.
The final
sentence in v.8 is also regarded as strange by many scholars,
because in the Greek text it finishes with the conjunction ?a?
(gar, 'for'). It is contended by those who see 16:9-20 as
originally Markan that ?a? literally
means “because”, and this ending to v.8 is therefore not
grammatically coherent (literally, it would read “they were
afraid because”). However, this objection misunderstands the
nature of the Greek language. Since Greek is an
inflexive language as opposed to a
syntactic language such as English, word order is not as
important. (Compare Grammar in Greek language and Grammar in
English language.) ?a? is never the first word of a sentence:
there is no such rule that states it can never be the last word,
though it is very rare for a book to end with ?a?.
Still, ?a?
aside, the grammar of v.8 is still odd, as the verb
f?ße?µa? (phobeomai,
'I fear') has no object. Gundry also mentions that only 10% of
Mark’s ?a? clauses—6 out of 66—conclude
pericopes (Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the
Cross, Chapters 9-16). As such, this statistic
favours the view that, rather than
concluding 16:1-8, v.8 begins a new
pericope, the rest of which is now lost to us. Gundry
therefore does not see v.8 as the intended ending; a
resurrection narrative was either written, then lost, or planned
but never actually written. Either way, the originality of
vv.9-20 is denied by Gundry—and, indeed, the overwhelming
majority of textual critics.
Mark 16:9-20
is in most of the undamaged Greek copies of the Gospel of Mark.
A copy of a manuscript, however, is only as good as the text
being copied, so all of the texts with 16:9-20 may simply be
copies of the same non-Markan
addition. The verses are absent in the oldest manuscripts of
Mark, including the vitally important Codices
Sinaiticus and
Vaticanus, which both conclude the gospel at 16:8.
However, Mark
16:9-20 is absent in other early church fathers (e.g. Clement of
Alexandria, Origen). At any rate,
all that can be concluded from this use of the longer ending is
that, rightly or wrongly, Mark 16:9-20 had become part of Church
tradition and scripture much like other apocryphal writings such
as The Shepherd of Hermas and the
Didache, neither of which are now
considered canonical.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09674b.htm
Some textual
problems, however, still remain, e.g. whether
Gerasenon or
Gergesenon is to be read in v, 1,
eporei or epoiei in vi, 20,
and whether the difficult autou,
attested by B, Aleph, A, L, or autes
is to be read in vi, 20
the great
textual problem of the Gospel concerns the genuineness of the
last twelve verses. Three conclusions of the Gospel are known:
the long conclusion, as in our Bibles, containing verses 9-20,
the short one ending with verse 8 (ephoboumto
gar), and an intermediate form which (with some slight
variations) runs as follows: "And they immediately made known
all that had been commanded to those about Peter. And after
this, Jesus Himself appeared to them, and through them sent
forth from East to West the holy and incorruptible proclamation
of the eternal salvation." Now this third form may be dismissed
at once. Four unical manuscripts,
dating from the seventh to the ninth century, give it, indeed,
after xvi, 9, but each of them also makes reference to the
longer ending as an alternative (for particulars cf.
Swete, op. cit., pp.
cv-cvii). It stands also in the
margin of the cursive Manuscript 274, in the margin of the
Harclean Syriac
and of two manuscripts of the Memphitic
version; and in a few manuscripts of the Ethiopic it stands
between verse 8 and the ordinary conclusion. Only one authority,
the Old Latin k, gives it alone (in a very corrupt rendering),
without any reference to the longer form. Such evidence,
especially when compared with that for the other two endings,
can have no weight, and in fact, no scholar regards this
intermediate conclusion as having any titles to acceptance.
We may pass
on, then, to consider how the case stands between the long
conclusion and the short, i.e. between accepting xvi, 9-20, as a
genuine portion of the original Gospel, or making the original
end with xvi, 8. In favour of the
short ending Eusebius ("Quaest. ad
Marin.") is appealed to as saying that an apologist might get
rid of any difficulty arising from a comparison of Matt. xxviii,
1, with Mark, xvi, 9, in regard to the hour of Christ's
Resurrection, by pointing out that the passage in Mark beginning
with verse 9 is not contained in all the manuscripts of the
Gospel. The historian then goes on himself to say that in nearly
all the manuscripts of Mark, at least, in the accurate ones (schedon
en apasi tois
antigraphois . . .
ta goun
akribe, the Gospel ends with xvi, 8.
It is true, Eusebius gives a second reply which the apologist
might make, and which supposes the genuineness of the disputed
passage, and he says that this latter reply might be made by one
"who did not dare to set aside anything whatever that was found
in any way in the Gospel writing". But the whole passage shows
clearly enough that Eusebius was inclined to reject everything
after xvi, 8. It is commonly held, too, that he did not apply
his canons to the disputed verses, thereby showing clearly that
he did not regard them as a portion of the original text (see,
however, Scriv., "Introd.",
II, 1894, 339). St. Jerome also says in one place ("Ad.
Hedib.") that the passage was
wanting in nearly all Greek manuscripts (omnibus
Græciæ libris
poene hoc
capitulum in fine non habentibus),
but he quotes it elsewhere ("Comment. on Matt."; "Ad
Hedib."), and, as we know, he
incorporated it in the Vulgate. It is quite clear that the whole
passage, where Jerome makes the statement about the disputed
verses being absent from Greek manuscripts, is borrowed almost
verbatim from Eusebius, and it may be doubted whether his
statement really adds any independent weight to the statement of
Eusebius. It seems most likely also that Victor of Antioch, the
first commentator of the Second Gospel, regarded xvi, 8, as the
conclusion. If we add to this that the Gospel ends with xvi, 8,
in the two oldest Greek manuscripts, B and Aleph, in the Sin.
Syriac and in a few Ethiopic
manuscripts, and that the cursive Manuscript 22 and some
Armenian manuscripts indicate doubt as to whether the true
ending is at verse 8 or verse 20,
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html
The author of
the Gospel of Mark does indeed seem to lack first-hand knowledge
of the geography of Palestine. Randel
Helms writes concerning Mark 11:1 (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p.
6): "Anyone approaching Jerusalem from Jericho would come first
to Bethany and then Bethphage, not
the reverse. This is one of several passages showing that Mark
knew little about Palestine; we must assume, Dennis
Nineham argues, that 'Mark did not
know the relative positions of these two villages on the Jericho
road' (1963, 294-295). Indeed, Mark knew so little about the
area that he described Jesus going from
Tyrian territory 'by way of Sidon
to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the Ten Towns'
(Mark 7:31); this is similar to saying that one goes from London
to Paris by way of Edinburgh and Rome. The
simplist solution, says Nineham,
is that 'the evangelist was not directly acquainted with
Palestine' (40)."
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/mark/intro.htm
Other hands
have attached additional endings after Mark 16:8; see the note
on Mark 16:9-20.
All
this information is enough to cast doubt upon the entire book of
Mark. We don’t know for sure on who wrote Mark, we don’t where
it was exactly written, we don’t know exactly when it was
written. Finally the fact that there is such a controversy on
the ending of Mark throws the whole book into question just on
this fact alone. The fact that additions have been made in the
last chapter leaves us wondering what else has been added in
Mark.
Now there is
some other things that do call into question the Bible’s author,
such as several disturbing stories found in the OT, such as the
law of the rapist marrying the victim if she is a virgin, and
murdering women and children etc. This is quite contrary to the
Islamic teaching on warfare and justice, let me first quote the
relevant passages from the noble Quran,
and then quote some hadiths of the
prophet:
002.190
YUSUFALI: Fight in the cause of Allah those who
fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah
loveth not transgressors.
Also from the
hadiths, the prophet said:
Volume
004, Book 052, Hadith Number 257.
Narrated By
'Abdullah : During some of the Ghazawat
of the Prophet a woman was found killed. Allah's Apostle
disapproved the killing of women and children.
Volume
004, Book 052, Hadith Number 258.
Narrated By
Ibn 'Umar
: During some of the Ghazawat of
Allah's Apostle a woman was found killed, so Allah's Apostle
forbade the killing of women and children.
Chapter 2:
APPOINTMENT OF THE LEADERS OF EXPEDITIONS BY THE IMAM AND HIS
ADVICE TO THEM ON ETIQUETTES OF WAR AND RELATED MATTERS
Book 019,
Number 4294:
It has been reported from
Sulaiman b.
Buraid through his father that when the Messenger of
Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an
army or detachment he would especially exhort him to fear Allah
and to be good to the Muslims who were with him. He would say:
Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight
against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not
embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not
mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children.
When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to
three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these,
you also accept it and withold
yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept)
Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist
from fighting against them. Then invite them to migrate from
their lands to the land of
Muhairs
and inform them that, if they do so, they shall have all the
privileges and obligations of the Muhajirs.
If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the
status of Bedouin Muilims and will
be subjected to the Commands of Allah like other Muslims, but
they will not get any share from the spoils of war or
Fai' except when they actually fight
with the Muslims (against the disbelievers). If they refuse to
accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya.
If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your
hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and
fight them. When you lay siege to a fort and the besieged appeal
to you for protection in the name of Allah and His Prophet, do
not accord to them the guarantee of Allah and His Prophet, but
accord to them your own guarantee and the guarantee of your
companions for it is a lesser sin that the security given by you
or your companions be disregarded than that the security granted
in the name of Allah and His Prophet be violated When you
besiege a fort and the besieged want you to let them out in
accordance with Allah's Command, do not let them come out in
accordance with His Command, but do so at your (own) command,
for you do not know whether or not you will be able to carry out
Allah's behest with regard to them
Let us now
turn our attention to the Bible, which completely contradicts
these teachings from Islam which does make us wonder. From the
Bible:
Deuteronomy
Chapter 2
32-37
And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have begun to give
Sihon and his land before thee:
begin to possess, that thou mayest
inherit his land.
32
Then
Sihon came out against us, he and
all his people, to fight at Jahaz.
33
And the LORD our God
delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and
all his people.
34
And we took all his
cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the
women, and the little ones,
of every city, we left none to remain.
36
From
Aroer, which is by the brink of the
river of
Arnon,
and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there
was not one city too strong for us: the LORD our God delivered
all unto us
Deuteronomy
Chapter 3
1-7
1
Then we
turned, and went up the way to
Bashan:
and Og the king of
Bashan
came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at
Edrei.
2
And the LORD said
unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his
people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou
shalt do unto him as thou didst unto
Sihon king of the Amorites,
which dwelt at Heshbon.
3
So the LORD our God
delivered into our hands Og also,
the king of
Bashan,
and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to
him remaining.
4
And we took all his
cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from
them, threescore cities, all the region of
Argob, the kingdom of
Og
in
Bashan.
5
All these cities were
fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside
unwalled towns a great many.
6
And we utterly
destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon
king of Heshbon, utterly destroying
the men, women, and children, of every city.
7
But all the cattle,
and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves
Deuteronomy
Chapter 7
1-6
1
When the LORD
thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou
goest to possess it, and hath cast
out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the
Girgashites, and the Amorites, and
the Canaanites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, seven nations greater and
mightier than thou;
2
And when the LORD thy
God shall deliver them before thee; thou
shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou
shalt make no covenant with them,
nor show mercy unto them:
3
Neither
shalt thou make marriages with them;
thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shalt
thou take unto thy son.
4
For they will turn
away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods:
so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and
destroy thee suddenly.
5
But thus shall ye
deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down
their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven
images with fire.
6
For thou art an holy
people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee
to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are
upon the face of the earth
Joshua
Chapter 6
17-27
17 And the
city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to
the LORD: only Rahab the harlot
shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because
she hid the messengers that we sent.
18
And ye, in any wise
keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves
accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp
of Israel a curse, and trouble it.
19
But all the silver,
and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto
the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.
20
So the people shouted
when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass,
when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people
shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so
that the people went up into the city, every man straight before
him, and they took the city.
21
And they utterly
destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young
and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
22
But Joshua had said
unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the
harlot's house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she
hath, as ye sware unto her.
23
And the young men
that were spies went in, and brought out
Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren,
and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred, and
left them without the camp of Israel.
24
And they burnt the
city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and
the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into
the treasury of the house of the LORD.
25
And Joshua saved
Rahab the harlot alive, and her
father's household, and all that she had; and she
dwelleth in Israel even unto this
day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy
out Jericho. 26
And Joshua
adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the
LORD, that riseth up and
buildeth this city Jericho: he shall
lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest
son shall he set up the gates of it.
27
So the LORD was with
Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country.
Joshua
Chapter 8
1-29
1
And the LORD
said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all
the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have
given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his
city, and his land:
2
And thou
shalt do to Ai and her king as thou
didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the
cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay
thee an ambush for the city behind it.
3
So Joshua arose, and
all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out
thirty thousand mighty men of valor,
and sent them away by night.
4
And he commanded
them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city,
even behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye
all ready: 5
And I, and all
the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it
shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the
first, that we will flee before them,
6
(For they will come
out after us) till we have drawn them from the city; for they
will say, They flee before us, as at the first: therefore we
will flee before them.
7
Then ye shall rise up
from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the LORD your God
will deliver it into your hand.
8
And it shall be, when
ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on fire:
according to the commandment of the LORD shall ye do. See, I
have commanded you.
9
Joshua therefore sent
them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between
Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that
night among the people.
10
And Joshua rose up
early in the morning, and numbered the people, and went up, he
and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
11
And all the people,
even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew
nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of
Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai.
12
And he took about
five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel
and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13
And when they had set
the people, even all the host that was on the north of the city,
and their liers in wait on the west
of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the
valley. 14
And it came to
pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up
early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to
battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the
plain; but he wist not that there
were liers in ambush against him
behind the city.
15
And Joshua and all
Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the
way of the wilderness.
16
And all the people
that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them: and
they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
17
And there was not a
man left in Ai or Bethel, that went not out after Israel: and
they left the city open, and pursued after Israel.
18
And the LORD said
unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward
Ai; for I will give it into thine
hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand
toward the city.
19
And the ambush arose
quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had
stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took
it, and hasted and set the city on fire.
20
And when the men of
Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the
city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this
way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness
turned back upon the pursuers.
21
And when Joshua and
all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the
smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the
men of Ai. 22
And the other
issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst
of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they
smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.
23
And the
king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.
24
And it came to pass,
when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai
in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and
when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they
were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and
smote it with the edge of the sword.
25
And so it was, that
all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve
thousand, even all the men of Ai.
26
For Joshua drew not
his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he
had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
27
Only the
cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto
themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he
commanded Joshua.
28
And Joshua burnt Ai,
and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.
29
And the king of Ai he
hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was
down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down
from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the
city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that
remaineth unto this day.
Ezekiel 9:5-7
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through
the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no
mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and
women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the
mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began
by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD
commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you
kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were
told."
So note how contradictory these teachings are compared to the
Quran, Allah tells us to not
transgress the limits, and the prophet Muhammad also told us do
not kill the women and children, and we are commanded to follow
the prophets orders on the order of Allah. So this also makes us
the Muslims doubt the Bible even more, to find such brutal
massacres and injustice being done. Allah told us to stand out
for justice:
004.135
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! stand out firmly
for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves,
or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich
or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts
(of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or
decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all
that ye do.
Yet where is
the justice in this:
Ezekiel 9:5-7
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through
the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no
mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and
women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the
mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began
by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD
commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you
kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were
told."
AND
Isaiah 13:15-18
Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their
little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.
Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the
attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against
Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The
attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows.
They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no
compassion for the children.The wives shall be raped!
So these type of stories do cast doubt on the Bible from a
Muslim perspective since they completely contradict the message
of the
Quran.
I could give many more reasons to why we Muslims believe the
Bible is corrupt, but I think that shall do, and that shall
defenitly refute the claim of
Shorrosh that Muslims believe the
Bible is corrupt just because of so many different Bible
translated version.