Is the Bible Still the Word of God?

Shibboleth wrote: So Andalus, to make a long story short the Bible HAS been persevered which pre-dates �Islam� by a long shot!

Yes�making long stories short�this is equivalent to the use of �yada yada yada� from the Seinfeld series. This gives the power to by pass any inconveniences. This is also called �handwaving�, comparable to what magicians do before the trick. You my disingenuous friend, are attempting to handwave your way through the discussion. I am not sure what evidence you have found, but so far what you have presented falls very short of any claim of �bible has been preserved�.  Proof by assertion is not proof, it is a fallacy. You have no clue about the origins of your gospel accounts, where they came from, who narrated them, or what the original stories looked like. If you assert that you do, then you are either a liar or ignorant.

I gave a link to a table that shows clearly all of the tail chasing your fellow worshipers were doing with regards to a canon. How can you make such an absurd claim to preservation when it took 2000 years to figure out what is a canon?

What we have today is what was available before Muhammad�s birth;

What you have before the birth of Prophet Muhammad (saw) are fragments, copies of copies of copies of copies of some original (without the first few copies in the first 150 years you have no clue as to what the earliest copies looked like). So, for you claim, I respond, so what? What does it mean and what does it prove? In light of what I have shown, it means nothing.

I�ll even work with you regarding the fragment portions to keep it simple.

LOL�..You have no choice. You will work with me? What else could you do, deny they are fragments? Pretend you are a fool or crazy? I mean really. A bunch of fragments were presented that were themselves removed by at least 150 years from the original. Keep it simple? This fact alone sinks your ship!

I�m not going play around with semantics with you; it�s too frivolous to say the least and time consuming.

I am with you�lets not engage in semantics. But do not hide behind strawmen to deflect from having to deal with the tons of problems I have pointed out in your evidence.

But, even if the MS go back to the 6th century, I�ll even say that ALTHOUGH it doesn�t, what has been corrupted?

This is incoherent drivel. You have a collection of MS used by your doctors to conjure up a canon. The MSS become more uniform the later in date because professional scribes were used, vs. the times before 350CE when scribes were normally volunteers. The earliest MSS have a high rate of variants, rather verses and words that differ from MS to MS. These MSS were not all collected and catalogued as today; they were separated by region and time period.

The early copies are just that, COPIES. Copies removed from the point of origin by at least 100 to 150 years. So you have a HUGE gap in the transmission, without ANY way to reconstruct the copies your copies came from. As a statement of fact, you cannot say with any certainty how closely your early MSS match the point of origin for the source. So for a moment, lets forget about finding corruption in your current MS sources. What we can say with the evidence before us is that you are in no position to make claims with any element of confidence about Jesus or his path during late second temple period.

An example of a �corruption� in your bible, the story of the adulteress is not found in ANY of your early MSS witnesses. The story is not there. Any rational human would admit that the story was a later insertion at the hands of scribes.

(you provided me with that example when I took a look at the fragment evidence you presented, thank you for that information!)

Let�s skip threw rhetoric. You tell me what�s been corrupted regarding the coming of Muhammad in the Bible that Muslims/Christians/Jews need to know. Let�s start with his prophethood.

You mean lets skip the topic now that you have been presented with material that is over your head, and move on to something completely irrelevant! I do not think so. This is irrelevant to the thread. Stay on topic.

The most important issue is whether Muhammad is a legitimate / true prophet in the tradition of the Biblical revelation of Moses in the Torah. In particular, the issue whether he is announced in the scriptures:   This translation is similar to the one in the 3rd Century for starters. If you�re using the KJV which I suspect you are almost 2000 years later, the message is the same.   I need YOU not a link to Explain how this applies to Muhammad; Deut. 18:18-20 �A prophet I shall raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you [like Moses]; and I shall indeed put my words in his mouth, and he will certainly speak to them all that I shall command him. And it must occur that the man who will not listen to my words that he will speak in my name, I shall myself require an account from him. However, the prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.�   (Side note for me- Compare Jeremiah 14:14; 28:11, 15.)

Off topic. If you continue to go off topic every time you are faced with propositions you dislike, you will find yourself with an official warning. Seriously. This has become you M O. You engage in a topic, and then at a given point, you begin to blither about Gods name, deut 18, previous scriptures�You give me a headache. Stay on the topic in the thread. Seriously.

Again, here is my proof in the Quran to the �Modern Day� Muslim of the 21^st century! But be it fragments, tablets, canon, skin, camel, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, you still have not one shred of evidence of the Bible to be corrupted, just myths, denial and accusations. Can�t you just cut and paste to prove what was uncorrupted is now corrupted? You should be able to present at least 1, 2 or even 3 texts out of the Bible that was UNCORRUPTED but now it is CORRUPTED as we have it today. That is the basis of these posts!  

Surely you can do that! Prove your ALLAGATIONS with FACTS or call it quits!

1. In the Qur'an, Al Imran 3:2, we read these words: "He sent down the Torah and the Gospel aforetime, as guidance to the people." God sent down the Torah and the Gospel for the guidance of mankind.
2. In al-Ma'ida 5:72: "Say: `People of the Book, you do not stand on anything, until you perform the Torah and the Gospel.'" This shows that the Torah and Gospel are reliable, otherwise Muhammad would not attest to them.
3. Also in al-Ma'ida 5:51: "So let the People of the Gospel judge according to what God has sent down therein," meaning that the Gospel is sent down from God and Muhammad recognized its authority.
4. In al-Nisa' 4:135: "O believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has sent down on His Messenger and the Book which He sent down before. Whoso disbelieves in God and His angels and His Books, and His Messengers, and the Last Day, has surely gone astray into far error." It judges the infidelity of the Muslim who does not believe in the Torah and Gospel in the same way that he believes in the Qur'an.
5. In Saba', 34:30: "The unbelievers say, `We will not believe in this Qur'an, nor in that before it.'" Thus the people of Mecca knew about the Torah and Gospel in the same way they knew the Qur'an.
6. In al-Qasas 28:49: "Say: `Bring a Book from God that gives better guidance than these (the Qur'an and the Bible), and follow it, if you speak truly.'" Clearly Muhammad attests to the accuracy of the Torah and Gospel and their equality with the Qur'an.
7. In al-Ma'ida 5:47: "Yet how will they make thee their judge seeing they have the Torah, wherein is God's judgement." Here we have a plain admission that the Torah is sound, contains God's decrees and whoever follows it will not need another arbitrator.

The meaning of the foregoing verses is very plain, and they do not require interpretation or explanation.

Do you still hold back from believing in this Book, in spite of these explicit verses, and consider it as irrelevant? How will you excuse yourself on the day of reckoning for disobeying God's commands, when the books will be opened?

You have learned from the aforementioned Qur'anic verses that the Book (Torah and Gospel) was quite perfect and reliable in Muhammad's day. Otherwise he would not have testified to it and commanded people to keep its precepts. You have to admit that at one time at least it was correct, free from alteration and forgery.

Read the following verses to see for yourself if such changes could take place, or if humans could alter it in such a manner:

"Recite what has been revealed to thee of the Book of thy Lord; no man can change His words" (al-Kahf 18:26).

"No man can change the words of God" (al-An`am 6:34).

"No man can change His words" (al-An`am 6:115).

"There is no changing the words of God" (Yunis 10:65).

"And thou shalt never find any changing the word of God" (al-Fath 48:23).

"A Book Sublime; falsehood comes not to it from before it nor from behind it" (Fussilat 41:42).

"It is We who have sent down the Remembrance, and We watch over it" (al-Hijr 15:9).

From these quotes you will see that NO ONE can change the words of God, because God has sent down a Book and promised to protect it. Should you say that what is meant here by the "Remembrance" is the Qur'an, I would respond that it also means the Torah and Gospel. Witness, for instance, the Qur'anic statement: "Question the People of the Remembrance (the Torah and the Gospel), if you do not know" (Sura al-Anbiya' 21:7). In fact, the Torah itself is referred to as "Qur'an" in the verse: "We gave Moses and Aaron Salvation (al-Furkau) and a Radiance, and a Remembrance for the godfearing..." (Sura al-Anbiya' 21:49).

You say this applies only to the Qur'an; I say, all that applies to the Qur'an applies also to the Torah and the Gospel. For the Torah and Gospel are the words of God and the Qur'an, according to your belief, is the word of God. If you believe that God said in the Qur'an that there is no change, corruption, addition or deletion of his word (as Jalalayn has stated), then how can you say that the Torah and Gospel have been altered in view of all this?

If you allow this possibility, then it would also follow that the Qur'an could have been changed, because what is admissible for the Torah and Gospel is also admissible for the Qur'an. If men are able to alter God's words - the Torah and Gospel - it follows that they would inevitably have been able to alter the Qur'an, as al-Razi has stated. And you do not admit that the Qur'an has been changed. Therefore, you are obliged to agree that altering the Torah and Gospel is an impossibility. You must admit that they are genuine, observe their precepts and adopt them as your guide to Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. As for the alleged corruption referred to by the Qur'an in the Medina Suras, it was with reference to some of the Jews only (with their tongue). The Gospel is free from this accusation. The corruption intended here was in the meaning of certain verses, that is, in their interpretation, since the Jews used to interpret them contrary to Muhammad's wishes. This has been proven by al-Razi and al-Baidawi in their exposition of "corrupted texts". Otherwise, the words of the Qur'an in the Medina Suras would contradict the Meccan Suras.

Doubtless, the Muslims' claim that the Bible has been changed is a charge without proof. Otherwise, where are the texts which have been altered? Which texts are they, what were they originally, and what was the purpose in changing them? If there is no answer to these questions, and it is clear that is so, I ask you: "How does someone dare to make such an allegation? The prudent scholar does not embark on such a scheme without first having something to support his allegation." The Gospel had been translated into Arabic before the appearance of Islam, for the benefit of those Arab tribes who were Christianised, such as: Himyar, Ghassan, Rabiya and the people of Nijran, Heera and others. How else would they have understood Christianity? These facts are corroborated in the book "al-Aghanee" (The Songs), for it relates that Waraka Bin Nawfal (the most famous Arab writer of Muhammad's time) wrote this book, copying in it whatever he desired of the Arabic Gospel. Now, if the Gospel had been subsequently changed, Muslims would have kept the original, to substantiate their case.

If you reject the Bible in it�s entirety, then so be it. My hands are clean and free                                                                             from blood guilt.

 ¹⁹And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

 ²⁰And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

 ²¹And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

 ²²And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man