When was the Bible corrupted?

**Grace Seeker** · 07-10-2007

As I understand it, according to the Qur'an the Bible is corrupted. We will start with that as a given then -- that Islam holds to a view that the Bible is corrupted. Thus, I don't need multiple quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith to "prove" this to me. But what I am curious about is the question of when?

Now, one other issue that I don't see as relevant to this discussion, and I hope to head off here at the beginnng. I don't think it is germain to a discussion of when the Bible was corrupted to speak of the many different English translations of it that one can find today. The Qur'an made its statements about the Bible being corrupted before English even existed as a langauge, so even getting the Pope and every priest/preacher in the world to confess that English Bibles were corrupted would have no relevance to the Bible that Muhammad (pbuh) spoke of.

Obviously Muhammad thought the Bible was corrupted by his time. But was it corrupted from the very beginning, where the first writings themselves corrupted? Was it corrupted when the first copies were made? Some centuries later? When was the Bible corrupted?

**Abdul Fattah** · 07-11-2007

Hi grace seeker
First of all, Allah subhana wa ta'ala knows best, and we don't have certainty of exactly when it got corrupted. But I think the problem here is with the term bible. If I understand correctly, the bible was never considered a holy book, but a compilation of books, of which some were holy. So in that sense, the first bible was already a corruption of the holy text (by putting non-holy next to holy as equal). Next there is the question of their being altered upon compiling the bible, some of these scriptures are not available to the public and kept in the Vatican. So there's no way to check if what was compiled in the Bible was actually the genuine text, or an alteration of it. Thirdly, the Vatican publicized an open letter of the pope a couple years ago (this was still the previous one then) where they openly admitted to have added (fabricated) text into the bible
(I tried looking for the link, I remember reading it on bbc-news website, but sadly can't find it anymore). Next to that we have the issue of interpretations there's hundreds of different bibles each laying their own specific accents and interpretations of the origenal text.

**Grace Seeker** · 07-11-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

Next to that we have the issue of interpretations there's hundreds of different bibles each laying their own specific accents and interpretations of the origenal text.

As I said in my opening post, the issue of interpretation isn't something with which I am concerned here. Certainly, there are those who would take issue with many of the various interpretations, but that is for some other thread(s) -- or at least I hope it will not be allowed to side-track us here.

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

Hi grace seeker
First of all, Allah subhana wa ta'ala knows best, and we don't have certainty of exactly when it got corrupted. But I think the problem here is with the term bible. If I understand correctly, the bible was never considered a holy book, but a compilation of books, of which some were holy. So in that sense, the first bible was already a corruption of the holy text (by putting non-holy next to holy as equal). Next there is the question of their being altered upon compiling the bible, some of these scriptures are not available to the public and kept in the Vatican. So there's no way to check if what was compiled in the Bible was actually the genuine text, or an alteration of it. Thirdly, the Vatican publicized an open letter of the pope a couple years ago (this was still the previous one then) where they openly admitted to have added (fabricated) text into the bible

So, it sounds as if your concern is with the issue of how the compilation was achieved. Is that what was meant by corruption in the Qur'an, or is there another issue that causes it to say the Bible was corrupted. If the compilation process is the issue, then does Islam grant that the original autographs, prior to their compilation, may have carried the true Injil? The problem of corruption then takes place sometime between the writing of the various texts and their amalgamation into a book called the Bible, but (if recoverable) at least some of the actual books that later came to make up the Bible were not corrupted in their original forms?

**Abdul Fattah** · 07-11-2007

Isn't false interpretation a corruption in itself?

So, it sounds as if your concern is with the issue of how the compilation was achieved. Is that what was meant by corruption in the Qur'an,

No, that's not certain. Like I said only Allah subhana wa ta'ala knows where and when the scriptures got corrupted. Since it wasn't revealed, the best we can do is look at the history of the bible. I just listed some problems when looking at that history, but that doesn't mean that one of these is the corruption Allah subhana wa ta'ala spoke of. And Allah subhana wa ta'ala knows best.

If the compilation process is the issue, then does Islam grant that the original autographs, prior to their compilation, may have carried the true Injil? The problem of corruption then takes place sometime between the writing of the various texts and their amalgamation into a book called the Bible, but (if recoverable) at least some of the actual books that later came to make up the Bible were not corrupted in their original forms?

Perhaps, the problem is, we simply can't know which parts are accurate and which are corrupted, or even fabricated altogether, since not all of the sources of the bible are publicly available.

**Grace Seeker** · 07-11-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

Isn't false interpretation a corruption in itself?

No, because by that standard I can go to some of the many English interpretations of the Qur'an, find a few that disagree with each other, declare one of them false, and suddenly we have a corrupted Qur'an. Now, neither of us believes that is valid. You based on faith, and both of us based on logic. Now what makes it invalid logically is that a false interpretation of an original does nothing to the integrity of the original, only to the interpretation. And I am specifically elminating the various translations and interpretations from the issue under discussion in this thread and leaving that for others at another time to discuss if they wish to in another thread.

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

Perhaps, the problem is, we simply can't know which parts are accurate and which are corrupted, or even fabricated altogether, since not all of the sources of the bible are publicly available.

Why do you say that? I don't think that is actually the case. True, you and I couldn't walk up and present our library card to check out the oldest extant copies, but we couldn't do that with any old books or documents. It is my understanding that legitimate scholars working on these documents do indeed have access to them. The story you relate above of no access to the Vaticanus does not ring true with what I have understood from those who work with these ancient texts. In fact, the only ones I know of that people have had trouble access have been the "Dead Sea Scrolls". The curators of those scrolls did keep them out of the public for about the first 30 years into they had examined them thoroughly themselves. I don't know if you are into biblical archeology (no reason for you to be) but there were some major articles on this in the late 1990s as we approached the 50th annivesary of their discovery. But the "Dead Sea Scrolls" and the Bible are different issues. No one in my reading has ever raised concerns with regard to access to any of the ancient Biblical texts.

**queefer** · 07-11-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

Isn't false interpretation a corruption in itself?

Then you'd better tell the Taliban, Al Qada and the like that they're messing up the Quran, big time.

**Joe98** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

the best we can do is look at the history of the bible. I just listed some problems when looking at that history,……….

Graceseeker has asked you keep the discussion to the era before the year 700AD

-

**Abdul-Raouf** · 07-12-2007

Can u please tell me about King James... when did he live.. was he
roman king.. how did he do the collection... i heard that the romans changed the holy day of the week from saturday to sunday..... DID THE ROMANS MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES AS THEY WISH ?

Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions
about Sunday and the Bible Sabbath

History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.
In the second portion of this article are quotations from Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONFESSIONS

James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.

"But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.

"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? "Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

**Malaikah** · 07-12-2007

The bible that Christians use today is not that Book that was given to Jesus (pbuh). It is something else. Therefore we don't need to prove that it has been corrupted because it was never authoritative in the first place (from an Islamic perspective).

The bible is not the 'injeel' that is referred to in the Quran.

This should help clarify what I mean:

The Gospels that are extant nowadays were written after the time of ‘Eesa (peace be upon him) and have been tampered with a great deal

Question:
It is well known among us Muslims that Allaah revealed the Gospel (Injeel) to ‘Eesa (peace be upon him), but when I studied some things about Christianity, they told me that the Gospel was not brought by the Messiah, rather it was written by the disciples of the Messiah after the crucifixion (or after Allaah raised him up to Him, as it says in the Qur’aan). How can we reconcile between the two views?.

Answer:
Praise be to Allaah.

There is no contradiction between the two views such that we would need to ask how they can be reconciled. Rather the reason why the questioner is confused is that he is mixing up two things that we must believe in and that are both true, praise be to Allaah.

The first issue is the Gospel that was revealed from the Lord of the Worlds to the Prophet of Allaah ‘Eesa (peace be upon him). Belief that Allaah revealed a Book to His Prophet ‘Eesa and that the name of this book was the Gospel (Injeel), are basic principles of faith that we must believe in. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“The Messenger (Muhammad) believes in what has been sent down to him from his Lord, and (so do) the believers. Each one believes in Allaah, His Angels, His Books, and His Messengers. (They say,) ‘We make no distinction between one another of His Messengers’ — and they say, ‘We hear, and we obey. (We seek) Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the return (of all)’”

[al-Baqarah 2:285]

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said to Jibreel, when he asked him about faith, as mentioned in the well-known hadeeth: “Faith means to believe in Allaah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in His divine will and decree, both good and bad.” (Agreed upon).

Disbelieving in that or doubting it is misguidance and kufr or disbelief in Allaah. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“O you who believe! Believe in Allaah, and His Messenger (Muhammad), and the Book (the Qur’aan) which He has sent down to His Messenger, and the Scripture which He sent down to those before (him); and whosoever disbelieves in Allaah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day, then indeed he has strayed far away.

137. Verily, those who believe, then disbelieve, then believe (again), and (again) disbelieve, and go on increasing in disbelief; Allaah will not forgive them, nor guide them on the (right) way”

[al-Nisa’ 4:136-137]

“Verily, those who disbelieve in Allaah and His Messengers and wish to make distinction between Allaah and His Messengers (by believing in Allaah and disbelieving in His Messengers) saying, “We believe in some but reject others,” and wish to adopt a way in between.

151. They are in truth disbelievers. And We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating torment”

[al-Nisa’ 4:150-151]

The second issue is the Gospel or, more precisely, the Gospels that the Christians have today. Although one of the basic principles of our faith is to believe in the Gospel that was revealed to ‘Eesa, we also believe that there is no longer any book that remained as it was revealed by Allaah, neither the Gospel nor anything else, apart from the Qur’aan. Even the Christians themselves do not believe that the books that they have before them were revealed in that form from God, nor do they claim that the Messiah wrote the Gospel or at least that it was written during his lifetime. Imam Ibn Hazm (may Allaah have mercy on him) says in al-Fasl fi’l-Milal (2/2):

We do not need to try hard to prove that the Gospels and all the books of the Christians did not come from God or from the Messiah (peace be upon him), as we needed to do with regard to the Torah and the books attributed to the Prophets that the Jews have, because the Jews claim that the Torah that they have was revealed from God to Moosa, so we needed to establish proof that this claim of theirs is false. With regard to the Christians, they have taken care of the issue themselves, because they do not believe that the Gospels were revealed from God to the Messiah, or that the Messiah brought them, rather all of them from first to last, peasants and kings, Nestorians, Jacobites, Maronites and Orthodox are all agreed that there are four historical accounts written by four known men at different times. The first of them is the account written by Matthew the Levite who was a disciple of the Messiah, nine years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Hebrew in Judaea in Palestine, and it filled approximately twenty-eight pages in a medium-sized script. The next account was written by Mark, a disciple of Simon ben Yuna, who was called Peter, twenty-two years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Greek in Antioch in the land of the Byzantines. They say that the Simon mentioned is the one who wrote it, then he erased his name from the beginning of it and attributed it to his disciple Mark. It filled twenty-four pages written in a medium-sized script. This Simon was a disciple of the Messiah. The third account written was that of Luke, a physician of Antioch who was also a disciple of Simon Peter. He wrote it in Greek after Mark had written his account, and is similar in length to the Gospel of Matthew. The fourth account was written by John the son of Zebedee, another disciple of the Messiah, sixty-odd years after the Messiah has been taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Greek, and it filled twenty-four pages in a medium-sized script. End quote.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said in al-Jawaab al-Saheeh (3:21):

With regard to the Gospels that the Christians have, there are four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are agreed that Luke and Mark did not see the Messiah, rather he was seen by Matthew and John. These four accounts which they call the Gospel, and they call each one of them a Gospel, were written by these men after the Messiah had been taken up into heaven. They did not say that they are the word of God or that the Messiah conveyed them from God, rather they narrated some of the words of the Messiah and some of his deeds and miracles. End quote.

Moreover, these books which were written after the time of the Messiah did not remain in their original form. The original versions were lost long ago. Ibn Hazm said:

With regard to the Christians, there is no dispute among them or anyone else that only one hundred and twenty men believed in the Messiah during his lifetime… and all of those who believed in him concealed themselves and were afraid during his lifetime and afterwards; they called people to his religion in secret and none of them disclosed himself or practised his religion openly, because any of them who was caught was executed.

They continued in this manner, not showing themselves at all, and they had no place where they were safe for three hundred years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven.

During this time, the Gospel that had been revealed from Allaah disappeared, apart from a few verses which Allaah preserved as proof against them and as a rebuke to them, as we have mentioned. Then when the Emperor Constantine became a Christian, then the Christians prevailed and started to practise their religion openly and assemble in safety.

If a religion is like this, with its followers practicing it in secret and living in constant fear of the sword, it is impossible for things to be transmitted soundly via a continuous chain of narrators and its followers cannot protect it or prevent it from being distorted.

End quote. Al-Fasl, 2/4-5.

In addition to this huge disruption in the chain of transmission of their books, which lasted for two centuries, these books did not remain in the languages in which they were originally written, rather they were translated, more than once, by people whose level of knowledge and honesty is unknown. The contradictions in these books and their shortcomings are among the strongest evidence that they have been distorted and that they are not the Gospel (Injeel) that Allaah revealed to His slave and Messenger ‘Eesa (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Allaah indeed spoke the truth when He said (interpretation of the meaning):

“Had it been from other than Allaah, they would surely, have found therein many a contradiction”

[al-Nisa’ 4:82].

Islam Q&A

http://www.islam-qa.com/index.php?ref=47516&ln=eng

**north_malaysian** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul-Raouf

Can u please tell me about King James... when did he live.. was he
roman king..
wwwislamicboardcom - When was the Bible corrupted?

King James was the King of England (1566 - 1625)

**Redeemed** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Malaikah

The bible that Christians use today is not that Book that was given to Jesus (pbuh). It is something else. Therefore we don't need to prove that it has been corrupted because it was never authoritative in the first place (from an Islamic perspective).

The bible is not the 'injeel' that is referred to in the Quran.

This should help clarify what I mean:

The Gospels that are extant nowadays were written after the time of ‘Eesa (peace be upon him) and have been tampered with a great deal

Question:
It is well known among us Muslims that Allaah revealed the Gospel (Injeel) to ‘Eesa (peace be upon him), but when I studied some things about Christianity, they told me that the Gospel was not brought by the Messiah, rather it was written by the disciples of the Messiah after the crucifixion (or after Allaah raised him up to Him, as it says in the Qur’aan). How can we reconcile between the two views?.

Answer:
Praise be to Allaah.

There is no contradiction between the two views such that we would need to ask how they can be reconciled. Rather the reason why the questioner is confused is that he is mixing up two things that we must believe in and that are both true, praise be to Allaah.

The first issue is the Gospel that was revealed from the Lord of the Worlds to the Prophet of Allaah ‘Eesa (peace be upon him). Belief that Allaah revealed a Book to His Prophet ‘Eesa and that the name of this book was the Gospel (Injeel), are basic principles of faith that we must believe in. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“The Messenger (Muhammad) believes in what has been sent down to him from his Lord, and (so do) the believers. Each one believes in Allaah, His Angels, His Books, and His Messengers. (They say,) ‘We make no distinction between one another of His Messengers’ — and they say, ‘We hear, and we obey. (We seek) Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the return (of all)’”

[al-Baqarah 2:285]

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said to Jibreel, when he asked him about faith, as mentioned in the well-known hadeeth: “Faith means to believe in Allaah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in His divine will and decree, both good and bad.” (Agreed upon).

Disbelieving in that or doubting it is misguidance and kufr or disbelief in Allaah. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“O you who believe! Believe in Allaah, and His Messenger (Muhammad), and the Book (the Qur’aan) which He has sent down to His Messenger, and the Scripture which He sent down to those before (him); and whosoever disbelieves in Allaah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day, then indeed he has strayed far away.

137. Verily, those who believe, then disbelieve, then believe (again), and (again) disbelieve, and go on increasing in disbelief; Allaah will not forgive them, nor guide them on the (right) way”

[al-Nisa’ 4:136-137]

“Verily, those who disbelieve in Allaah and His Messengers and wish to make distinction between Allaah and His Messengers (by believing in Allaah and disbelieving in His Messengers) saying, “We believe in some but reject others,” and wish to adopt a way in between.

151. They are in truth disbelievers. And We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating torment”

[al-Nisa’ 4:150-151]

The second issue is the Gospel or, more precisely, the Gospels that the Christians have today. Although one of the basic principles of our faith is to believe in the Gospel that was revealed to ‘Eesa, we also believe that there is no longer any book that remained as it was revealed by Allaah, neither the Gospel nor anything else, apart from the Qur’aan. Even the Christians themselves do not believe that the books that they have before them were revealed in that form from God, nor do they claim that the Messiah wrote the Gospel or at least that it was written during his lifetime. Imam Ibn Hazm (may Allaah have mercy on him) says in al-Fasl fi’l-Milal (2/2):

We do not need to try hard to prove that the Gospels and all the books of the Christians did not come from God or from the Messiah (peace be upon him), as we needed to do with regard to the Torah and the books attributed to the Prophets that the Jews have, because the Jews claim that the Torah that they have was revealed from God to Moosa, so we needed to establish proof that this claim of theirs is false. With regard to the Christians, they have taken care of the issue themselves, because they do not believe that the Gospels were revealed from God to the Messiah, or that the Messiah brought them, rather all of them from first to last, peasants and kings, Nestorians, Jacobites, Maronites and Orthodox are all agreed that there are four historical accounts written by four known men at different times. The first of them is the account written by Matthew the Levite who was a disciple of the Messiah, nine years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Hebrew in Judaea in Palestine, and it filled approximately twenty-eight pages in a medium-sized script. The next account was written by Mark, a disciple of Simon ben Yuna, who was called Peter, twenty-two years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Greek in Antioch in the land of the Byzantines. They say that the Simon mentioned is the one who wrote it, then he erased his name from the beginning of it and attributed it to his disciple Mark. It filled twenty-four pages written in a medium-sized script. This Simon was a disciple of the Messiah. The third account written was that of Luke, a physician of Antioch who was also a disciple of Simon Peter. He wrote it in Greek after Mark had written his account, and is similar in length to the Gospel of Matthew. The fourth account was written by John the son of Zebedee, another disciple of the Messiah, sixty-odd years after the Messiah has been taken up into heaven. He wrote it in Greek, and it filled twenty-four pages in a medium-sized script. End quote.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said in al-Jawaab al-Saheeh (3:21):

With regard to the Gospels that the Christians have, there are four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are agreed that Luke and Mark did not see the Messiah, rather he was seen by Matthew and John. These four accounts which they call the Gospel, and they call each one of them a Gospel, were written by these men after the Messiah had been taken up into heaven. They did not say that they are the word of God or that the Messiah conveyed them from God, rather they narrated some of the words of the Messiah and some of his deeds and miracles. End quote.

Moreover, these books which were written after the time of the Messiah did not remain in their original form. The original versions were lost long ago. Ibn Hazm said:

With regard to the Christians, there is no dispute among them or anyone else that only one hundred and twenty men believed in the Messiah during his lifetime… and all of those who believed in him concealed themselves and were afraid during his lifetime and afterwards; they called people to his religion in secret and none of them disclosed himself or practised his religion openly, because any of them who was caught was executed.

They continued in this manner, not showing themselves at all, and they had no place where they were safe for three hundred years after the Messiah was taken up into heaven.

During this time, the Gospel that had been revealed from Allaah disappeared, apart from a few verses which Allaah preserved as proof against them and as a rebuke to them, as we have mentioned. Then when the Emperor Constantine became a Christian, then the Christians prevailed and started to practise their religion openly and assemble in safety.

If a religion is like this, with its followers practicing it in secret and living in constant fear of the sword, it is impossible for things to be transmitted soundly via a continuous chain of narrators and its followers cannot protect it or prevent it from being distorted.

End quote. Al-Fasl, 2/4-5.

In addition to this huge disruption in the chain of transmission of their books, which lasted for two centuries, these books did not remain in the languages in which they were originally written, rather they were translated, more than once, by people whose level of knowledge and honesty is unknown. The contradictions in these books and their shortcomings are among the strongest evidence that they have been distorted and that they are not the Gospel (Injeel) that Allaah revealed to His slave and Messenger ‘Eesa (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Allaah indeed spoke the truth when He said (interpretation of the meaning):

“Had it been from other than Allaah, they would surely, have found therein many a contradiction”

[al-Nisa’ 4:82].

Islam Q&A

http://www.islam-qa.com/index.php?ref=47516&ln=eng

But how can we be sure that the Qur'an is not corrupt like you say the Bible is. There are cults that have started today and in the recent past that say that there leader is really god and has the last message. People or misguided souls follow believing them true. When I think about Jesus and His works, I see no one who can compare to what he has done. His disciples were just witnesses of what they heard Jesus say and what they saw him do including his rising from the dead. It is written; “Receive not an accusation unless it be in the mouth of two or three witnesses”. Jesus has had many witnesses of all he has done that have more clout than anyone in history. Hitler once said that if you are going to tell a lie, make it a big one. The bigger the lie, the more apt people are to believe it. To say that the Bible is corrupted is the biggest lie next to the theory of evolution I have ever heard. Are you saying I should just blindly believe the Bible corrupt when that goes against all the logic and reasoning Muslims have been telling me I should use?

**Abdul-Raouf** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul-Raouf

Can u please tell me about King James... when did he live.. was he
roman king.. how did he do the collection... i heard that the romans changed the holy day of the week from saturday to sunday..... DID THE ROMANS MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES AS THEY WISH ?

Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions
about Sunday and the Bible Sabbath

History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.
In the second portion of this article are quotations from Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONFESSIONS

James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.

"But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.

"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? "Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

Originally Posted by north_malaysian

King James was the King of England (1566 - 1625)

So.. Is King James the one who released the first full collection ?...(which is just in the 16th century) ....

did anyone release any other version before him...?

**Basirah** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul-Raouf

So.. Is King James the one who released the first full collection ?...(which is just in the 16th century) ....

did anyone release any other version before him...?

I really don't want to offend you my friend, but if you do not know this basic information, and you thought that King James was a Roman King, than I would advise you to not participate in this discussion on the Bible, because to be honest, you do not posess the backround knowledge to understand many of the concepts that may be discussed. Your limited to copy and pasting others observations. Therefore, my friend, I would advise you look up a lot of information and do some reading or learn from the people posting in thsi thread who have researched more about the Bible and its origins. Again, I hope I did not hurt your feelings, and warmest regards!

**Joe98** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Malaikah

The bible that Christians use today is not that Book that was given to Jesus (pbuh).

Jesus was never given a book. Christins have never claimed Jeses was given a book.

The Muslim presumption is wrong to begin with.

-

**doorster** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Joe98

Jesus was never given a book. Christins have never claimed Jeses was given a book.

The Muslim presumption is wrong to begin with.

-

are you just another lying troll or a Christian?

reason I ask is that you claim to be an athiest yet keep trolling here!

Atheist >> NO God, which for a Christian is Jesus. Since Jesus is God, there is no need for him to give himself a book because he would be giver of torah and books before that.

on the other hand there is NO God called Jesus in Islam.

The God in Islam is known as Allah and one of his Messengers was and is known as Hazrat Easa Alaisalam, who was given a book called Injeel by The God (Allah)

**Trumble** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Abdul-Raouf

So.. Is King James the one who released the first full collection ?...(which is just in the 16th century) ....

did anyone release any other version before him...?

The 'only' significance of the King James version in this context (it has had a massive cultural influence) is that is was the first generally accepted (but not the first) English translation of the Bible... the translation being from Hebrew and Greek for the Old and New Testaments respectively. Prior to that (and for some time after in non-Protestant traditions) most Bibles would have been in Latin, the most famous text being the 5th century 'Vulgate'.

**Pynthanomai** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

As I understand it, according to the Qur'an the Bible is corrupted. We will start with that as a given then -- that Islam holds to a view that the Bible is corrupted. Thus, I don't need multiple quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith to "prove" this to me. But what I am curious about is the question of when?

Now, one other issue that I don't see as relevant to this discussion, and I hope to head off here at the beginnng. I don't think it is germain to a discussion of when the Bible was corrupted to speak of the many different English translations of it that one can find today. The Qur'an made its statements about the Bible being corrupted before English even existed as a langauge, so even getting the Pope and every priest/preacher in the world to confess that English Bibles were corrupted would have no relevance to the Bible that Muhammad (pbuh) spoke of.

Obviously Muhammad thought the Bible was corrupted by his time. But was it corrupted from the very beginning, where the first writings themselves corrupted? Was it corrupted when the first copies were made? Some centuries later? When was the Bible corrupted?

It's a very interesting question you pose, my friend, and one to which I am also very keen to receive an answer, if only to increase my knowledge of Islam. One point, however, I fear may reduce its coherence: when you or I speak of the "Bible", I am almost assured in my mind that that to which we make reference is utterly foreign to that to which Muslims make reference when they use the same English word. Indeed, from what I have gleaned from other posts and threads, there seems to be very little agreement about the very composition of the Bible, or what books are supposed or believed to constitute it. But if we have no common point of reference, then any conclusions that either Christians or Muslims may draw from the purported corruption of the Bible will not, so far as I can see, have any direct relevance to the doctrines or teachings of their respective religions - inasmuch as they are predicated upon entirely different foundations, i.e. different "Bibles".

It is also worth considering the (quite glaring) disparities that exist between Protestant and Roman Catholic considerations of the constitution of the Christian canon: viz., that the Catholic Bible includes several books deemed apocryphal by Protestants. We can only assume that such discrepancies reduce the strength of Christians' claims of unity about matters of their faith in the eyes of Muslims.

**Malaikah** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by Joe98

Jesus was never given a book. Christins have never claimed Jeses was given a book.

The Muslim presumption is wrong to begin with.

If you actually bothers to read the post, you will see that it doesn't matter to Muslims what the Christians claim.

**Malaikah** · 07-12-2007

Originally Posted by alapiana1

The bigger the lie, the more apt people are to believe it. To say that the Bible is corrupted is the biggest lie next to the theory of evolution I have ever heard. Are you saying I should just blindly believe the Bible corrupt when that goes against all the logic and reasoning Muslims have been telling me I should use?

Biggest lie? You first need to prove (If not to us, then to yourself, because your faith is baseless without it) that the book you call the bible was written by people who had the authority to write it.

The point of my post was that we Muslim do not believe that the bible is as authoritative as Christians like to think it.

So when the Quran says the books have been changed, it is not referring to the bible used today, therefore asking us to show where and when it was changed from the original is pointless because we aren't even talking about the same book.

**Umar001** · 07-12-2007

Great thread,

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

As I understand it, according to the Qur'an the Bible is corrupted. We will start with that as a given then -- that Islam holds to a view that the Bible is corrupted. Thus, I don't need multiple quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith to "prove" this to me. But what I am curious about is the question of when?

If you are asking when do the Islamic teachings say the Bible was curropted then I don't think they do mention dates or names. If you ask when can starting from the point of Islam, then look back at history and say 'It is possible that changes happend here here and here' then that's a different matter.

I can't give you the Islamic teachings on what dates the Bible were curropted or by whom, but I can give you what I found outside the realms of Islamic sources about the 'Corruption' of the Bible.

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

Obviously Muhammad thought the Bible was corrupted by his time. But was it corrupted from the very beginning, where the first writings themselves corrupted? Was it corrupted when the first copies were made? Some centuries later? When was the Bible corrupted?

Well if you want the answer from islamic sources, then what we know is that it would have been from Jesus time to Muhammad's time. I have yet to find dates of the instances.

If we speak outside the realms of Islam, then I personally think it would have been possibly curropted at the sources, through the time of its begging from pen to paper, and in the copies and also centuries later.

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

As I said in my opening post, the issue of interpretation isn't something with which I am concerned here. Certainly, there are those who would take issue with many of the various interpretations, but that is for some other thread(s) -- or at least I hope it will not be allowed to side-track us here.

But what if the interpretation lead to textual curroption. Example,

Original Text - 'Then forth, Jesus took Simon Peter to the peak of the Hill'

Copy of Scribe - 'Then forth, Jesus took Simon Peter to the highest level of understanding amongst the disciples'

Someone might think it's rediculous but, I beg to differ, maybe you can enlighten me but I do think there have been 'exegis' and scribal addition to 'clarify' the text at times.

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

So, it sounds as if your concern is with the issue of how the compilation was achieved. Is that what was meant by corruption in the Qur'an, or is there another issue that causes it to say the Bible was corrupted. If the compilation process is the issue, then does Islam grant that the original autographs, prior to their compilation, may have carried the true Injil? The problem of corruption then takes place sometime between the writing of the various texts and their amalgamation into a book called the Bible, but (if recoverable) at least some of the actual books that later came to make up the Bible were not corrupted in their original forms?

Original autographs of the Four Gospels? I wouldn't have thought so, the Injil is the word of God delivered to Jesus. The Four Gospels in their Original would have been Oral traditions, used by the authors to reflect their communities understanding or theological ideas about Jesus and so on. So I don't think even at the first autographs we would have that which Islam speaks of. The sources of the autographs are probably closer to it.

Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

Why do you say that? I don't think that is actually the case. True, you and I couldn't walk up and present our library card to check out the oldest extant copies, but we couldn't do that with any old books or documents. It is my understanding that legitimate scholars working on these documents do indeed have access to them. The story you relate above of no access to the Vaticanus does not ring true with what I have understood from those who work with these ancient texts. In fact, the only ones I know of that people have had trouble access have been the "Dead Sea Scrolls". The curators of those scrolls did keep them out of the public for about the first 30 years into they had examined them thoroughly themselves. I don't know if you are into biblical archeology (no reason for you to be) but there were some major articles on this in the late 1990s as we approached the 50th annivesary of their discovery. But the "Dead Sea Scrolls" and the Bible are different issues. No one in my reading has ever raised concerns with regard to access to any of the ancient Biblical texts.

Whilst I don't agree with Abdul Fatah's whole statement, I namely disagree with, the 'since not all of the sources of the bible are publicly available.' since I think some might be, and since I dont think public availability would improve anything much.

But I do think that it is true that we are hardpressed to know now what is true and what is not. What originally was in the original writings and what was not. With the discovery of earlier and more accurate manuscripts which caused a need for revision of earlier editions, which had 'grave defects' I do wonder if any manuscripts would be found in the future which would do the same. There is only so much comparison between manuscripts can do, and also comparison between the four Gospels themselves can do.

Originally Posted by alapiana1

But how can we be sure that the Qur'an is not corrupt like you say the Bible is.

Maybe we shouldn't diviate, there is a thread speaking on the validity of the Qur'ans retention. I do personally think that the social circumstances of the believers of each faith played a big part in its preservation. I believed that even as a non Muslim.

Originally Posted by alapiana1

When I think about Jesus and His works, I see no one who can compare to what he has done.

Well when you think about what you read in the Gospels, and that'd be an assumption that those records are accurate. The whole point of this thread.

Although one of the most amazing changes is about the resurection in Mark's Gospel, where the author leaves the Gospel abpruptly and someone else then later comes and adds the whole resurrection story. Scholars have wondered who done that and why the original author stopped earlier.

Originally Posted by alapiana1

His disciples were just witnesses of what they heard Jesus say and what they saw him do including his rising from the dead.

I think it would be healthy to speak on the problems which I percieve with the resurrection stories. But we are here to speak of the 'changes' to the Bible, not on other such topics.

Originally Posted by alapiana1

It is written; “Receive not an accusation unless it be in the mouth of two or three witnesses”. Jesus has had many witnesses of all he has done that have more clout than anyone in history. Hitler once said that if you are going to tell a lie, make it a big one. The bigger the lie, the more apt people are to believe it.

Yes, I think to say God is three is the Biggest lie. What's you point, to say that BIble is curropted is the Biggest lie, maybe we should take it more academically then namely preaching.

Originally Posted by alapiana1

Are you saying I should just blindly believe the Bible corrupt when that goes against all the logic and reasoning Muslims have been telling me I should use?

Well maybe you aint been using you logic or reasoning. You have yet to show why you believe it is an accurate account. We are here to discuss whether the Bible was curropted and share experiences on it. To simply come here and say 'Am I to believe it is curropted....Oh thats the Biggest lie and Hitler said something about making big lies....Jesus had witnesses (according to the same text we are sayin is curropt)...'

Noone is asking you to blindly believe the Bible has been changed. Get an NIV Bible, look at the footnotes, when they say that the 'earliest and most reliabile manuscripts do not contain these verses' [something to that effect] then you're on the first step of your journey.

Originally Posted by Joe98

Jesus was never given a book. Christins have never claimed Jeses was given a book.

The Muslim presumption is wrong to begin with.

-

On what basis do you rank the presumption of Muslims wrong? On the Basis that the Christians never claimed Jesus was given one? If so then what makes you think that the Christian position is right?