JESUS

[Muhammad]

But still, Scripture says in John 10:30–33:“I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you want to stone me?”They replied, “It is not for any good work that we want to stone you, but because you, a mere man, make yourself God.”Notice that this explicitly says God, so the argument does not hold. And Matthew 26:63–66 reinforces the same ideia.

Anyway, you make here a linguistic mistake in your claim. In Koine Greek, the absence of the definite article doesnt automatically make theos indefinite. Anarthrous theos frequently expresses essence or nature, not “a god.” This is well established in Greek grammar. Moreover, in the Gospel of John, theos is never used to mean “a god” in a lesser or pagan sense (for example). The immediate context of John 10:33 shows that the accusation is ontological — that Jesus, being a man, was making Himself equal with God — not merely claiming delegated authority or divine commission.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that the accusation is ontological. Their reaction only shows how they received his words, not what Jesus actually claimed. Throughout John, hostile misunderstandings are common and are often corrected or reframed by Jesus himself. Jesus responds by citing Psalm 82, where human judges are called “gods,” and then argues from lesser to greater: if calling these lesser people “gods” isn’t bad, then it can't be bad to give this greater person (the Messiah) the lesser description, "God’s son".

Note how Jesus does not say, “yes, I am God,” rather he corrects them about what he’s claiming: “I said, ‘I am God’s Son‘” – which in this gospel means that he’s the Messiah. (See the start of the passage – “I have told you”!) Also note John 10:36: “Why do you say, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” Jesus equates the disputed claim with “Son of God,” not “I am God". In verse 29 Jesus explicitly says the Father is greater than ALL, grounding his identity as being sent by God.

You are confusing two different things. Hen means “one” and can indicate unity of purpose in certain contexts, but your mistake is assuming that because it can mean unity of will in John 17, it must mean the same thing in John 10. That is a semantic transfer fallacy. Words do not have fixed meanings; they are determined by context.In John 10:30, notice the context carefully. Jesus speaks about giving eternal life, says that no one can snatch the sheep from His hand, then immediately says that no one can snatch them from the Father’s hand, and only then concludes, “I and the Father are one.” The argument is clearly about power and nature, not mission. Jesus is equating His divine capacity with that of the Father. This kind of argument is not present in John 17.

I agree that words don’t have fixed meanings and that hen must be interpreted by context. I’m not arguing that John 17 mechanically controls John 10, but John 17 does show how John uses unity language. Jesus explicitly prays that believers may be “one” (hen) in the same way that he and the Father are "one". That’s not semantic transfer; it’s authorial usage within the same Gospel.

In John 10, the argument is about security of the sheep, but that does not require shared essence. The logic works perfectly well if Jesus is claiming shared purpose. Jesus does not say “no one can snatch them from us because we are the same being.” He explicitly distinguishes “my hand” and “the Father’s hand.” Again, in verse 29, its shows hierarchy and that authority is from God: “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.”

Furthermore, hen is neuter, not masculine. If Jesus had meant “one person,” John would have used heis. The neuter form points to unity of essence, not personal identity. As Raymond E. Brown states, “The neuter ‘one’ points to unity of nature, not to personal identity.” Likewise, D. A. Carson notes, “The context demands more than unity of purpose; it is unity of being.”

Neuter hen does not inherently mean unity of essence; it regularly denotes shared action or function. John 17 shows how John himself understands this unity, and the immediate context of John 10 also shows this. As for Brown and Carson, they are offering theological judgments, not grammatical necessities i.e. they go beyond what the grammar alone can prove.

Finally, John has already established this theological framework earlier: in John 1:1, the Word was God, and in John 5:18 Jesus is accused of “making Himself equal with God.” John does not redefine “one” in John 17; he presupposes what he has already established.

John 1:1 does not define the meaning of hen in John 10:30, nor does it specify how unity language functions between Father and Son in every later passage. There are some 50 translations of the Bible which reflect the original meaning of John 1:1 and which do not presume it speaks of a second person in a Triune Godhead (for example, either by not capitalizing “word” as "Word" to turn it into a second divine Person, or by using the pronoun “it” for the word, rather than “Him” etc.). The whole purpose of John's gospel was to inculcate the belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, not that he is God: “But these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:31)

In John 5:18, “making Himself equal with God” is the charge of Jesus’ opponents, not John’s explanatory voice. As elsewhere in John, hostile interpretations are reported and then reframed by Jesus in his response. John 17 is not a redefinition of “one,” but the only place where Jesus explicitly explains what this unity entails — and he does so by extending the same unity language to believers. That explanatory passage must inform how to understand earlier, less explicit statements.

Moreover, why would the authorities have attempted to stone him if he had claimed to be only the Messiah? The whole city was already shouting “Hosanna” and celebrating, yet what provoked such a reaction was his claim as the Son of Man, not a purely human messianic title.

The Bible itself provides the answer, that the Jews stoned and killed many Prophets because they challenged the status quo, confronted idolatry and injustice and reminded people of God's commands. The Bible also mentions numerous instances where Prophets were falsely accused, slandered or maligned by people who opposed their message. These Prophets never claimed to be God, and Jesus is no different. He, too, was rejected when he brought the truth to the people. Matthew 23:37 quotes Jesus as saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

At Jesus’ trial, the High Priest asked, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ” (Matt. 26:63). We should notice that no one at the trial asked Jesus if he were God. If they thought he had been claiming to be God, that would have certainly been a question they would have asked but such is never recorded anywhere. When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, in John 19, and Pilate was inclined to release him, they accused him saying, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the son of God.” (v.7) It is clear from all this that the Jews picked up stones to kill Jesus because they understood he was claiming to be the Messiah.

 

[Muhammad]

Your argument does not take into account that Jesus demonstrates attributes unique to God, such as forgiving sins, exercising universal eschatological judgment, and pre-existence. Such authority is divine — what other prophet in history has possessed this kind of power?It is true that kings could forgive or bless on God’s behalf, just as pastors do in churches today, but Jesus forgives sins specifically, a prerogative that belongs only to God in the Old Testament.Acting as God can, in a sense, be delegated, but that does not justify, in Matthew 25, the universal and eschatological judgment He executes

In the Bible, God alone is the source of forgiveness, but He regularly authorizes Prophets and priests to pronounce it. Nathan declares David forgiven, priests pronounce forgiveness after atonement and Moses’ intercession results in God forgiving Israel. When Jesus says, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” (Matthew 9:6 ) This shows that Jesus’ authority to forgive sins was not by his own authority but by God’s authority, the One who sent him. If Jesus was God, he wouldn’t need to explain that his ability to forgive sins was not from himself. And the crowd responds (v. 8): “…they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.” The text itself interprets Jesus’ authority as given, not intrinsic.

The same applies to the issue of judgement. There are many passages in the Gospels that confirm that all of Jesus’ authority came from God:

“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19)

“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” (John 5:30)

“So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.’” (John 8:28-29)

“For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” (John 12:49-50)

I think your point is strong, but it rests on a mistaken assumption. You are assuming that only the full phrase egō eimi ho ōn (Exodus 3:14) can function as divine self-identification. However, in the Greek Old Testament (LXX), God repeatedly uses egō eimi by itself, without any complement, as a divine self-designation. For example, Isaiah 43:10 says:“hina pisteusēte kai pisteusēte hoti egō eimi” —“that you may know and believe that I AM.”The same occurs in Isaiah 43:13:“kai ap’ archēs egō eimi” —“from the beginning, I AM.”In both cases, the exact phrase egō eimi is used with no predicate. Therefore, John 8:58 does not lack divine context at all. On the contrary, the Old Testament pattern clearly exists and would have been well known. I can cite additional passages with the same semantics if needed.

The key issue here is about context; the phrase egō eimi is semantically flexible and only functions as a divine claim when the context clearly points to it. In the LXX, egō eimi occurs in tightly marked contexts indicating clear divine context. So the issue is not whether the phrase exists, but whether John 8:58 reproduces the same discourse environment. In John 8, Jesus repeatedly claims that he is sent by God, that he speaks what he has heard from God, that he acts in dependence on God and that God is greater than him (cf. 8:28, 8:40, 8:42, 8:54). This framework is consistent throughout the chapter.

As for John 8:58, there are different interpretations of what it can mean. It is not necessarily understood as a literal, personal existence, but may be referring to an ideal existence in God’s plan. This is because in Jewish thought, many things had a sort of existence long before they were actually brought to pass in the real world. This existence was not viewed as actual but in the purpose and plan, the blueprint as it were, of that which God willed to bring about. Hence the Bible presents Jeremiah as being a Prophet before he was conceived in his mother's womb; "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5) Yet no one says that his pre-human existence qualifies him for deity.

Emil Schurer in The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Vol.2 p.522 wrote: “In Jewish thinking, everything truly valuable preexisted in heaven.” Catholic theologian Karl-Josef Kuschel, on p. 218 of Born Before All Time?, wrote: ” … in the synagogue a particular kind of pre-existence was always associated with the Messiah, but it did not set him apart from other men. This is pre-existence in God’s thought, the ideal pre-existence of the Messiah.”

Ans now notice something crucial in John 8:58. Grammatically, the expected construction would be: “Before Abraham was, I was” —prin Abraam genesthai, ēn.But Jesus instead saysrin Abraam genesthai, egō eimi.This is striking, because it breaks normal grammatical expectation. Jesus uses an absolute present tense in contrast with a finite past event. As Daniel Wallace — a leading scholar and professor of Koine Greek — explains regarding this verse: “This is not a historical present. It is a timeless present expressing eternal existence.”

Again, ontology still has to be argued from context, not tense alone. Wallace is describing the function of the tense, not defining its theological implications. Second Temple Jewish literature can speak of pre-existent entities (Wisdom, Logos, the Son of Man, even the Messiah in some traditions) without equating them with God. Therefore, the step from “timeless existence” to “Jesus is identifying himself as God” is a theological conclusion that requires additional contextual markers, which this passage does not make explicit.

Your comparison with John 9:9 is interesting, but it is a false equivalence. In John 9, egō eimi clearly means “it is I,” functioning as simple personal identification within a narrative context. There is no theological debate and no reaction of blasphemy, nor would such a reaction make any sense there. In John 8, however, egō eimi appears without a predicate, in an explicit temporal contrast, within a theological dispute over Jesus’ identity. ONLY in this context do the Jews attempt to stone Him. The same grammatical form does not guarantee the same meaning, that is precisely the semantic transfer fallacy again.

I agree that the same grammatical form does not guarantee the same meaning, and that egō eimi must be interpreted by context. The point of John 9:9 is not to equate contexts, but to demonstrate that egō eimi without a predicate is not intrinsically a divine self-designation in John’s Gospel. It can function as simple self-reference.

Finally, it is another mistake to claim that John 10:34–36 corrects or retracts John 8:58. John 10 does not redefine egō eimi. Jesus is responding to a different accusation (“you make yourself God”) and He uses an a fortiori argument, not a retraction. As D. A. Carson — one of the most respected New Testament scholars — states: “Jesus does not withdraw His claim but strengthens it.”Carson is known for rigorous Greek exegesis, and his work Exegetical Fallacies reflects precisely the kind of semantic and contextual errors being made here.

My point is that John 10 shows how Jesus himself responds when his claims are interpreted as ontological identity with God. he reframes the accusation in terms of being sent by God. Jesus does not say, “I am God." or, "I share the same being as the Father.” Rather he says, “I am the Son of God,” “the one the Father sanctified and sent.” These are explanatory statements, not evasions or a retraction.

Carson’s judgment reflects a trinitarian reading of John, but his conclusion goes beyond what the argument in John 10 itself explicitly states. His concern in Exegetical Fallacies is with illegitimate semantic moves, not with forbidding contextual clarification of disputed claims. His opinion goes beyond what the a fortiori argument itself requires.

 

[Muhammad]

Thomas clearly says, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), recognizing Jesus as God, and Jesus does not correct him. This alone is an explicit affirmation. A true prophet would never allow such a claim of divinity about himself if it were false. If you want to get in the greek semantics is no problem.

As mentioned earlier, it depends on how you interpret Thomas' statement. According to the interpretation that Thomas is not declaring Jesus to be God, then obviously Jesus does not need to correct him.

Furthermore, the purpose of John’s Gospel is not to list divine titles, but to prove that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God (John 20:31). In Jewish thought, the term “Son of God” (or “Son of Man”) already carries divine significance, especially when combined with His miracles. John did not need to explicitly use the word “God” in every passage; the theological context of the entire book already demonstrates Jesus’ divinity.Remember that in chapter 20, verse 30, the author clearly states the purpose of the book, saying: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” The purpose of the book is explicit, and throughout the text, the selections of passages about Jesus make this unmistakably clear. There is no logical reason to go hunting for Greek wordplay to deny this.

It is a false premise to claim that the titles 'son of God' or 'son of man' carry divine significance. ‘Son of God’ is one of the most common titles used for individuals apart from Jesus. It does not mean anything more or less than a person who has a special relationship with God. Adam, David, Solomon, Jesus and numerous others had a special relationship to God. If ‘Son of God’ truly connotes divinity then dozens of people in the Bible would be Gods since they are called son/s of God. Thus, we find the following statement from scholars Howard Clark Kee, Eric M. Meyers, John Rogerson and Anthony J Saldarini : “The term “Son of God” implies a unique relationship and a central role that is to be fulfilled in the working out of God’s purpose for his people rather than expressing some form of supernatural origin or the divininization of a human being. The link between “Son of God” and servant underscores the obedient role that this person is to fulfill in accomplishing God’s work.” [Kee, H. C., Meyers, E. M., Rogerson, J. & Saldarini, A. J. (1997). The Cambridge Companion to the Bible. Cambridge, U.K. : Cambridge University Press. p. 460]

The eminent theologian from Fuller Theological Seminary Prof. Collin Brown succinctly remarks, “To be ‘Son of God’ one has to be a being who is not God! It is a designation for a creature indicating a special relationship with God.” [Cited in Buzzard, A. (2007). Jesus was Not a Trinitarian: A Call to return to the Creed of Jesus. Morrow, Georgia: Restoration Fellowship. p. 215]

In Second Temple Judaism, “Son of God” does not mean “God himself.” It denotes kingship, election, obedience, or unique agency. That’s precisely why John can say the purpose of the Gospel is to show that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God — not “God".

As for 'son of man', the Hebrew expression 'ben-adam' appears 107 times in the Hebrew Bible, 93 of them in the Book of Ezekiel. It is used as a generic expression for human beings or mortal human existence in most contexts. Importantly, the Hebrew phrase never appears with the definite article, ‘the son of man’, as a title. New testament scholar Dr Larry Hurtado states, ‘But at least from the 1970s onward, it has become increasingly widely granted that, in fact, there is no evidence for the supposed use of “the son of man” as a fixed title for any figure in second-temple Jewish tradition.’

Notice also that it says, “that by believing you may have life in His name” — tell me, which prophet in Scripture is described in this way and people can have life in the prophets name?

In Jewish thought, acting or receiving benefit ‘in someone’s name’ often refers to delegated authority, not personal identity. God can grant life through a chosen agent without that agent being God. See for example, John 5:43 “I have come in my Father’s name”. Perhaps even clearer is the following passage: "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:1-3)

When John emphasizes that Jesus is fully God and fully man — especially when he says that the Word, who is clearly God from the beginning, became flesh (John 1:14) — he is writing directly against these early heresies that denied Jesus’ divinity.John also carefully selects signs and discourses that support core doctrines; he does not include every deed of Jesus, but only those that serve to establish correct faith. This is entirely consistent with the ancient practice of apologetic writings, which were intended both to instruct and, importantly, to correct misunderstandings

The problem here is that you are reading a 4th-century doctrinal construct back into 1st-century texts. John does not say 'Jesus is fully God and fully man' - these are later ideas being read into the text.

the word “name” can sometimes refer to authority or role in the Old Testament, the context of Matthew 28:19 clearly goes beyond a mere functional or liturgical formula. Jesus instructs His disciples to baptize in the singular “name” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The singular here is not accidental; it signals that all three persons share a single divine identity, not just unified authority or mission.

A single name governing multiple figures can indicate they are acting under the same authority or within the same relationship with God, not that they are literally the same person. The grammar does not require a conclusion about shared essence - that is an interpretive leap. In Matthew’s own context, Jesus has just said that all authority was given to him, which frames the baptismal formula in terms of unified authority, not ontological identity.

The mistake here is confusing summarized practice with theological denial. Eusebius frequently paraphrases, theologizes, or summarizes biblical texts — something that is extremely common in patristic literature. At no point does he deny that Matthew 28:19 contains the Trinitarian "formula". In fact, and this is crucial, when Eusebius quotes the passage verbatim, he explicitly includes the formula “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” When he omits it, he is clearly paraphrasing or emphasizing a theological point, not preserving an alternative textual tradition.

Occasional paraphrase is common. But Eusebius cites Matthew 28:19 in shortened form dozens of times, often in polemical or explanatory contexts where the full formula would have strengthened his argument, yet he consistently uses “in my name.” So this repeated and patterned omission of the baptismal formula prior to Nicaea is significant. When Eusebius does include the full Trinitarian wording in some later verbatim citations, these are notably after Nicaea, showing a shift from his earlier usage.

 

[Muhammad]

Moreover, baptizing “in the name of Jesus” does not exclude the Father or the Holy Spirit. It simply identifies the baptism as Christian baptism, carried out under the authority of the risen Christ, in contrast to other ritual washings (such as John’s baptism). This understanding is widely recognized in scholarship. Scholars like Larry Hurtado, Gordon Fee, and James D. G. Dunn have consistently shown that the strong Christological focus in Acts is functional and historical, not anti-Trinitarian. Emphasizing Jesus’ authority does not negate a Trinitarian framework.

Additionally, Matthew 28:19 functions as a theological mandate, not as a rigid liturgical script. The New Testament consistently demonstrates liturgical flexibility: the Lord’s Supper is described without a fixed procedural formula, prayers vary widely, and confessions of faith are expressed in multiple forms. Reducing obedience to the mechanical repetition of a specific wording is a liturgical anachronism imposed on the text, not something demanded by the text itself.

The question is not whether Acts or Matthew deny or can be made compatible with trinitarian theology because the concept of trinity did not yet exist; the question is whether Jesus taught such a belief. We can clearly see that baptism is consistently centered on Jesus, not on a triadic formula, in the earliest practice. Explaining this as ‘functional’ does not change the historical observation. Note how Hurtado, Fee, and Dunn consistently argue that this focus was 'functional and devotional', not metaphysical or ontological in later Trinitarian terms. In fact, Dunn is explicit that the earliest Christians did not think in categories such as ‘one being, three persons.’

This line of reasoning is filled with fallacies. The fact that some conservative groups reacted negatively does not mean the biblical text was corrupted. In reality, the backlash came almost exclusively from the KJV-only movement, which does not represent mainstream academic scholarship. This group rejects any manuscript that is not based on the Textus Receptus, a position that is marginal even among conservative evangelicals. Internal disagreement is not the same as a loss or alteration of the core message.

In contrast to these claims, the academic consensus is clear. Bart Ehrman states, “The essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” Bruce Metzger likewise affirms, “No doctrine of the Christian faith rests solely on a disputed text.” Daniel Wallace concludes, “Textual criticism has shown that the New Testament we have today is remarkably stable.”

Whilst I accept your point about the fringe views of the KJV-only movement, the issue is somewhat broader. The fact that there is a well-known and long-standing dispute over the manuscripts behind the King James Version highlights that there was no single, perfectly uniform manuscript tradition. This is directly related to your claim that, 'the Bible is the exact same as primitive versions'. It is also important to highlight that the same passages disputed in the KJV are also disputed in other translations, so the KJV is simply one example here.

Regarding the claim that 'essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants', this is not accurate. We have seen how 1 John 5:7-8 is a later addition. It is absent from all early Greek manuscripts and its removal from later translations means that one of the key passages used to prove the trinitarian doctrine is no longer there. The doctrine of perfect preservation is also affected by this.

Even if we accept the argument that 'essential Christian beliefs are not affected', which is difficult to believe, the question here is not of radical change, but change/distortion in and of itself, which would deny the text its stability and credibility. It is indeed a disturbing truth that orthodox scribes have altered the New Testament text for their own purposes, as per scholars such as Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace. According to Wallace, “we can see evidence of this in hundreds of places.” [“The Original New Testament Has Been Corrupted by Copyists so Badly that It Can’t Be Recovered,” pp.60-61] Likewise Harry Gamble tells us, '...A great deal of early Christian literature was composed for the purpose of advancing a particular viewpoint amid the conflicts of ideas and practices...' [H. Y. Gamble, Books And Readers In The Early Church: A History Of Early Christian Texts, 1995, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, pp. 123-124.]

 

[Muhammad]

There is also a notable irony here: the Qur’an itself underwent textual standardization under Uthman, during which divergent manuscripts were destroyed, and there are known textual variants (such as the Sana’a manuscript and the different qirā’āt). This is not the focus of my argument, but it highlights the inconsistency in applying textual standards.

There is neither irony nor inconsistency here, simply a misrepresentation of facts. Official copies of the Qur'an were made under the supervision of Caliph Uthman رضي الله عنه and other copies/parchments were destroyed because such copies were neither verified nor authorized under the consensus of the Companions of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. These official copies correlated with the earlier official copy made by Abubakr رضي الله عنه (which was based on both written and oral evidence). This shows that no changes were made to the Qur'an, together with the fact that the entire Qur'an was in the possession of the Muslim community before the death of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and it was memorised by a number of Companions. The fact that many of these same Companions were present at the time of Uthman means it is inconceivable that any corruption of the text could occur because it would be immediately recognised and opposed.

With regards to the Qira'at, it is important to point out that the word 'variant' or 'divergent' is a misleading term because 'variant' results from uncertainty, such as what happens when a scribal error occurs and subsequent editors cannot distinguish between the correct wording and the incorrect, so they cite other versions in the margin. We see this frequently in the Bible. On the other hand, the case of the Qur'an differs distinctly because the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم himself taught certain verses in multiple ways. There is no principle of doubt here, no fog or confusion, and the word 'variant' fails to convey this. Instead it is perhaps more accurate to use the term 'multiple readings'. The problem with Orientalists is that they try to view the Qur'an through the same lens as one would view the New Testament. The New Testament has no oral tradition whatsoever that might have been inherited from the earliest centuries; its entire history can only be examined through extant manuscripts, while the Qur'an was transmitted through unbroken oral chains, and its manuscripts were not used as a means for the preservation of the text, by themselves.

On the issue of the San'a manuscripts, Ursula Dreibholz, a conservation expert who worked on the project for eight years (longer than Puin did), who worked full-time in Ṣan'ā' until the end of 1989, completed the restoration of the manuscripts, designed the permanent storage, collated many parchment fragments to identify distinct Quranic manuscripts and directed the Yemeni staff in the same task, said: 'Despite the rumors that have circulated, it is important to emphasize here that no distortion was found in the manuscripts found in the Great Mosque in Sanaa, as the differences were limited to the vowel symbols used in the early Islamic ages' [Ursula Dreibholz (1989). Early Quranic parchments discovered in the Great Mosque in Sanaa. Sana'a: German Archaeological Institute. p.13.]

It is interesting to note, despite the fact that Muslims do not need to rely on the testimony of the manuscripts, that there exist manuscripts from the first century Hijra that cover most if not all of the Qur'an. The Italian orientalist Sergio Noja Noseda, with F. Deroche, studied the Hijazi script manuscripts of the Qur'an written on parchment that belongs to the first century of the Hijra, and he concluded that almost eighty-three percent of the Qur'anic text is available in these manuscripts. Compare this with the absence of any New Testament manuscripts of the first century AD! Note that they did not include in their study the Qur'anic text written in papyri, nor the Hijazi parchments from San'a, nor the ones written in Kufic script. [F. Deroche and S.N.Noseda, eds. Sources de la Transmission Manuscrite du Texte Coranique. 1. Les manuscrits de style hijazi.Volume2. Tome 1. Le manuscrit Or. 2165 (f. 1 à61) de la British Library, London: Fondazione Ferni Noja Noseda, Leda, and British Library, 2001, p. xxvii]

It's good that we revisited this topic because I forgot to mention a few points. A very interesting point is that the Qur’an does not assert things that directly conflict with the Gospels only, but it does sometimes differ from the Old Testament as well. So, assuming there was a large-scale corruption of the New Testament, as Muslims claim, would the same have happened to the Old Testament? The Old Testament has been carefully preserved for millennia, and the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm this.

Therefore, to assume a tahrif (corruption) in the way Muslims claim is purely a matter of faith, because historically, in this case (and in various others, such as the crucifixion and tahrif itself), there is no way to confirm such corruption. Also, note that much of what Muhammad says that contradicts the Old Testament emphasizes Arab identity, the theology he wants to teach, and Islamic morality. I can give examples if you want, because the "intentionality" behind them is very clear.

Indeed both the Old and the New Testaments have been corrupted and there is much evidence to support this, even from non-Muslim scholars and historians. As I said earlier, the Old Testament has not been preserved so carefully because the earliest surviving complete manuscript of the Old Testament dates to about 17 centuries after it was written and not even among the Dead Sea scrolls does one find complete manuscripts of the entire Bible. In addition, there is no certain way of knowing how well the manuscripts were copied in the hundreds of years before the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This means that we cannot know with complete certainty just what the original words of the ancient Israelite authors were.

In terms of theology and identity, the truth is that the Qur'an aims to bring people back to the original teachings of the previous Prophets. The God in the Old Testament is depicted as essentially a tribal god, openly partial to the children of Israel. Such a god could scarcely attract the imagination, far less the adoration, of a non-Israelite population. In contrast, Islam teaches the pure monotheism brought by all the Prophets (as the Old Testament also mentions) and the message of Islam is a universal one which does not pay attention to differences in colour, race or lineage. All people are descended from Adam and superiority of some people over others is measured by faith and piety.

 

[Muhammad]

I will the whole message from this topic here. >Again, there are some misunderstandings I would like to clarify. The New Testament is composed of copies of copies, and this is to be expected—all ancient texts without exception (Plato, Homer, Tacitus, etc.) exist in this way. Plato’s works survive in copies made over 1,200 years later, whereas New Testament manuscripts appear only 50–100 years after the originals, which is historically extremely close. Manuscripts like P52, P66, and P75 are extremely close to the originals, and their content testifies to what Christianity believes today.P52, dating around 125 AD, contains portions of the Gospel of John—the Gospel that most emphasizes the divinity of Jesus—so it already existed at that time. It includes the account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, confirming the crucifixion. P66 (c. 200 AD) contains a large portion of John’s Gospel and describes the crucifixion, the divinity, and the pre-existence of Jesus (“the Word”), among other things. P75 (c. 175 AD) confirms the life, crucifixion, resurrection, and divinity of Jesus, especially since Luke traveled with Paul. Note that P75 is independent of P66.All of these manuscripts predate the supposed “corruptions” you mentioned (bizantine and etc) and already affirm central points of the Christian faith, such as the divinity of Christ. I will clarify further the other missconceptions and technical mistakes of the whole argument further.

Simply referencing early papyri is misleading because a number of important points are conveniently omitted. In the words of New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, ‘94% of our manuscripts are 800 years after the fact. We have only a handful of manuscripts, at best, that can plausibly be dated to the second century. These are all *highly* fragmentary (the oldest is just a scrap with a few verses on it). And even these are decades after the authors were all dead and buried.’

He goes on to explain:
· 'Most early copyists were not as skilled and/or careful as the later scribes
· Most of the textual changes that we find in later manuscripts were first made in these earliest copies (specialists usually maintain that most of our textual alterations were made before the year 300 CE)
· These copies differ from later ones in very significant ways in places (so that it is nice to have so many later manuscripts; but they do not always represent the form of the text that we can find in our earliest manuscripts; what about passages where we don’t have earlier manuscripts?!)
· And, as important, these copies differ significantly, in many places, precisely from one another.'

We can therefore see that the quality of manuscript evidence (including early papyri) is very poor and according to Christian scholars, those earliest manuscripts occurred at the time of most corruption. For instance, D. Parker contends that the most substantial alterations in the text of the Gospels happened in the first hundred and fifty years, describing it as an “initial fluidity followed by stability.” He studied the sayings of Jesus on marriage and divorce and the Lord's Prayer in the Gospels, then concluded, “The main result of this survey is to show that the recovery of a single original saying of Jesus is impossible [. . .] What we have is a collection of interpretive rewritings of a tradition.” [David C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels, p.70]

Kenneth W. Clark concluded in his study on the P75 that this papyrus (early third century) “vividly portrays a fluid state of the text at about A. D. 200.” And that “such a scribal freedom suggests that the Gospel text was little more stable than the oral tradition, and that we may be pursuing the retreating mirage of the “original text.” [Kenneth W. Clark, “The Theological Relevance of Textual Variation in Current Criticism of the Greek New Testament,“ in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Mar., 1966), p.15]

Such 'interpretive rewritings' and poor quality manuscripts cannot 'confirm' any aspect of the life of Jesus.

Regarding the Byzantine texts… First, just with the three manuscripts I mentioned earlier, we already have about two-thirds of John and Luke. These texts were used as primary references to reconstruct the New Testament and already emphasized the resurrection, crucifixion, and divinity of Jesus. When these passages are compared with the Byzantine manuscripts, they show incredible stability, with textual variants amounting to less than 1%. And within that 1%, the differences are mostly grammatical, word order, and minor details. So even if the Byzantine texts are considered the “worst” (which is an exaggeration), the ancient manuscripts demonstrate that they were still remarkably well preserved.

But remember that the earliest manuscripts only represent a fraction of the New Testament, they were subject to the most textual changes and different 'significantly' amongst themselves. This is why New Testament scholars do not believe that these manuscripts, earlier or later, allow us to ‘reconstruct’ the New Testament. William L. Petersen affirmed that the modern critical editions, which are based on a large number of witnesses, are still far from the “Autograph . . . To be brutally frank, we know next to nothing about the shape of the ‘autograph’ gospels; indeed, it is questionable if one can even speak of such a thing. [...] the text in our critical editions today is actually a text which dates from no earlier tha[n] about 180 CE, at the earliest. Our critical editions do not present us with the text that was current in 150, 120 or 100—much less in 80 CE.”

Helmut Koester gives us the big picture of the second century state of the text when he declares, “the second century was completely a period of wild variation.” He put his finger on the malady that explains our failure to keep faith with the originality of the text known from the third century: “The text of the Synoptic Gospels was very unstable during the first and second centuries [. . .] there is no guarantee that the archetypes of the manuscript tradition are identical with the original text of each Gospel. . . . New Testament textual critics have been deluded by the hypothesis that the archetypes of the textual tradition which were fixed ca. 200 CE [. . .] are (almost) identical with the autographs. This cannot be affirmed by any evidence. On the contrary, whatever evidence there is indicates that not only minor, but also substantial revisions of the original texts have occurred during the first hundred years of the transmission.” [Helmut Koester, “The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century,” in William L. Petersen, ed. Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Origins, Recensions, Text, and Transmission, Notre Dame, London: University of Notre Dame, 1989, pp.19-37]

J. K. Elliot, states that “The Alexandrians may have been copying accurately, but the exemplars they were working from were already flawed.”

J. H. Petzer concluded his essay “The papyri and New Testament Textual Criticism, Clarity or Confusion?” by declaring that the huge number of the unearthed papyri discovered throughout the last century did not pave the way straight to the final goal of New Testament textual criticism, for instead of bringing greater clarity, they have brought greater confusion. These old copies added more confusion to the scholars’ perception of the history of the text.

The problem with claims like ‘textual variants amounting to less than 1%’ is that you do not need large percentages to challenge theological claims. A large number of the Church doctrines are apparently based on a few words found in the New Testament. The doctrine of Jesus’ deity is based, for those who believe in it, on only a few scattered words in the New Testament, in dubious contexts. Father Raymond E. Brown, the most prominent American Roman Catholic scholar in the last century, even though he believed that only in “three clear instances” Jesus was called God in the New Testament, admitted that “no one of the instances we have discussed attempts to define Jesus essentially.” So, it is claimed here that there are only a few words that proclaimed Jesus Deity in contexts that are not fundamentally related to the doctrine of clarifying the essence of Jesus.

Let us also not forget that the examples of Mark 16:9–20, John 7:53–8:11 and 1 John 5:7–8 are not trivial spelling differences but substantive variants: they add or remove whole verses or theological statements.

I had to point out this part because it’s a technical error. The UBS evaluates variant readings, not the entire text. For example, Imagine a text with 100,000 words and 1,400 places with variants. The UBS says that in 83.5% of those variants we have high confidence, and in 16.5% the decision is less certain. This does not mean that 16.5% of the text is uncertain—only that a small fraction of variants have a slightly lower level of confidence. And these variants affect less than 1% of the total text, and no Christian doctrine depends on them.

You are right to point this out, but it still misses the larger issue, which is that textual reliability is not measured simply by how many words are in doubt. The real issue is where the uncertainty occurs and what kind of material it affects, as mentioned in the previous point.

 

[Muhammad]

Well, 'shocking'? I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, this is the position of Christian and non-Christian scholars (including the greatest critic of Christianity, who is an atheist, and agrees with this) who know much more than both of us. Remember that the Islamic narrative is a corruption on a very large scale, not just isolated verses that alter doctrines. The tahrif implies that the resurrection, the divinity of Christ, Christ being the Son of God, redemption, and even the apostles’ understanding were systematically (because the manuscripts are independent from each other) and massively altered to the point of literally creating all these doctrines. None of this is related to isolated verses.

Not necessarily. As mentioned earlier, the manuscripts are copies and copies of copies. According to Colwell's genealogical principle: suppose that there are only ten copies of a document and that nine are all copied from one; then the majority can be safely rejected. Or suppose that the nine are copied from a lost manuscript and that this lost manuscript and the other one were both copied from the original; then the vote of the majority would not outweigh that of minority. Considering that most of the changes took place quite early on, the rest of the manuscripts are simply copying those errors. The previous couple of points have already addressed the issue of isolated verses.

And I have already studied the Qur’an and say this with all respect and reverence for your faith, but I was not able to see the miracle of the Qur’an as Muslims claim. In fact, all the miracles that friends told me about (or that I researched) were exaggerations or falsehoods. In reality, the greatest logical improbability ever seen in human history is found in the Bible, where there are about 50 explicit prophecies that refer to Jesus, and all of them were fulfilled literally, word for word. Peter Stoner was a mathematician, astronomer, and science professor, and he calculated the probability of one man fulfilling only 8 prophecies, and the result was 1 in 10¹⁷

It would be great to discuss the miracle of the Qur'an but that is an entirely separate discussion and this one is already too long. What you have presented here are merely subjective views and to avoid repetition and prolonging this thread I'll just move on.

Does the fact that a creed does not mention the Trinity imply that it is an invention?

It's not only about the name - the concept itself is not mentioned.

An event that, if it were as Muslims claim (forged or substituted), would imply that Jesus (or God) literally deceived billions of people throughout history, since this is the foundation of the Christian faith (in addition to being a historical event, of course).

Jesus did not deceive anyone. The events were such that many people thought Jesus had been crucified, though the fact was that God had raised him to Himself. Even if people thought that Jesus had been crucified, this does not logically lead one to conclude that Jesus should be worshipped, especially since this was contradictory to Jesus’ message from God.

But the "Bible is corrupted" is also a idea, I get the idea. But "baselesse allegation" they are not, even more because im showing that those books werent actually corruptd.

The verses of the Qur’an you quoted mention God revealing previous Scriptures, they are not discussing the later corruption of those Scriptures. As this is a different topic I don't think we need to go into detail regarding this.

Great point. From the verses, we can see that Jesus acted according to a planned order; He fulfilled His mission perfectly and at the right time. Jesus was not hiding the message arbitrarily, but revealed it gradually according to human capacity to understand (even His own disciples did not understand everything and only fully grasped it after the resurrection), historical context (there were serious opposition and authorities watching His every move), and the plan of salvation (crucifixion, resurrection, and Pentecost). Imagine something complex that a person has no basis to understand—if you present it all at once, the person will not understand or may even reject it. Study the divine pedagogy in the Bible and see how it is present from the very beginning.

Throughout scripture, whenever it comes to the issue of theology God will always reveal it Himself without leaving any kind of ambiguity such as to require the endeavours and efforts of men to search pertinent verses from dozens of different books each separated by hundreds of years and geographies only to be compiled together into one volume in the span of several thousand years. When it comes to who God is, i.e. Theology, this is always made clear in either a single verse or a few verses. This is seen clearly throughout scripture:

“there is no one like the Lord, our God.” Exodus 8:10

“Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him.” Deuteronomy 4:35

“Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.” Deuteronomy 4:39

And God would always declare and identify who He is in the most explicit manner:

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty ; walk before me and be blameless.” Genesis 17:1

“That night the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”” Genesis 26:24

“I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’ ” Genesis 31:13

“And God said to him, “I am God Almighty ; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.” Genesis 35:11

“I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.” Genesis 46:3

“Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” Exodus 3:6


As we can see, God has never been hesitant or ambiguous about who He is. Theology was never a complicated puzzle beyond the comprehension of people.

In addition to this, Messengers of God are supposed to communicate clearly to the people what God wants them to do. If they do not, how can we expect people to understand and accept the message God is conveying to them? Allah orders the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to deliver the message clearly so that the people may understand and be clear to them. This way, the person would be accountable for rejecting something made clear to him. The message must be clearly communicated to the individual. This is God's way.

it is also possible Muhammad could have encountered a deceptive angel, one that was not truly an angel,

It is illogical to suggest that the pure and upright teachings contained in the Qur'an, including the prohibition of lying against God which is mentioned a number of times, would originate from some kind of deception. See, for example, the following verse:

Who does more wrong than the one who fabricates lies against Allah or claims, “I have received revelations!”—although nothing was revealed to them—or the one who says, “I can reveal the like of Allah’s revelations!”? [6:93]

Deceit does not lead to enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil, and deceitful creatures descend upon those who are like them, not trustworthy and God-fearing individuals. I wonder why you do not apply a similar question to the case of Paul?

Also, can you show me where Paul says that only he knew about the crucifixion? In fact, he states that he is sharing what he received.

When Paul tells his audience that he did not receive it from any man nor was taught it, this seems to imply it is not common knowledge to the general public. [Gal 1:11-12,20; 1 Cor 1:22-23; Col 1:25-26]

Also, remember that forged texts (which you mentioned) were not included in the canon; they were rejected. Regarding John 7:53–8:11, it is well known that this passage does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. Even so, it does not establish any doctrine, change the message, or deny the crucifixion and resurrection—which, if they were false, would undermine the entire Christian faith.

But canon formation was gradual and contested, not an instantaneous filtering of inauthentic material. A book can be recognized as canonical while still undergoing copying changes. Identifying which books belong in the canon is not the same thing as preserving every word of those books without variation. John 7:53–8:11 actually proves the opposite of perfect preservation. It shows that a non-original passage entered the manuscript tradition of a canonical Gospel and remained there for centuries before being identified.