One of the things that I see that has yet to be discussed is the relationship between inspiration (or lack thereof) and corruption. I want to suggest that there is none.
I'll let that thought sink in for a second, for I suspect there are many (perhaps not just Muslims, but Christians too) who would take issue with me regarding that statement. So, let me illustrate by creating a fictitious set of documents and we can see why this might be true.
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To whom you direct that post?!! to muslims? Didn't we agree before that the proper title for this thread should have been (When was the preached message of Jesus corrupted?)
It seems that ,according to your post,all what busy your mind is the issue of textual preservation
Let me paraphrase what you posted:
Let us suppose that once upon a time some men wanted to record the events of
Krishna's life. Each of them took the time to write down their favorite stories about
Krishna.
Loving their Krishna they wrote only the good things they could think of, and some of them even rather exaggerated
Krishna's prowess in combat and his wisdom in leading his people. In their minds they weren't lying, but minor skirmishes were often blown up to be great victories. Nonetheless this was the record they recorded.
Such a record would hardly be considered inspired.
Few would consider it inerrant.
But are they corrupted??
1)
If more than 2000 years later we had copies of copies of copies of those original writings and we were able to reliably determine (by means of the science of textual criticism) what was the most likely version of the text originally written,
I would hold that the text of those stories about Krishna that are preserved and available for us today are not corrupted. They are not corrupted because they correctly preserve what the men originally wrote about Krishna. Whether the stories were true, grandiose exaggerations, or outright lies is not relevant to whether or not the text itself is corrupted.
2)
It might be shown that the work of one of the
Krishna's servants is corrupted. One might find where future generations had altered one of the stories. But if it can be found where 1000 years later someone had added a story, and today we are able to recognize that addition to the story and note that it is an addition to the original, that means we are able to also note what the original was. In that case, while it might be true that the story was corrupted at one time in history, by making note of that alteration, one is still able today to read the story as it was originally written by the author. So, one would have to say that we still have available to us a uncorrupted version of that story today.
3)
There might be cases where in the process of copying by many different people that small changes were made in the text. And if these were continually copied it might become difficult to determine which of many different possible small variations in the text represents the original and which represent the alterations. Then one would in a strict sense have to say that the text was corrupted.
However, that would not necessarily make the text unreliable. If the changes were observed to be relatively minor not effecting the content of the message, one might still feel that the essence of what was written was maintained. Also, with sufficient enough copies with enough history, one might be able to analyze them and the differences between then and work backward to determine when the changes occured and what it was they were changed from. Thus getting one closer to the original text. It might be possible to work back all the way to the original, or it might not. If not, those who were scholarly enough to do this process could indicate the remaining options for the most likely version and rate them in terms of the degree of certainty or uncertainty about each being the original form of the text. Thus those particular passages could be noted and the rest of the composition might be understood to be reliable.
4)
With more than one document to work with, it could be that the some of the writings by some of the men are better preserved than others. In this case it would be important NOT to talk about them all as a group
(i.e, "The Stories of Krishna"), but to discuss each individual book independently of the others
(i.e. "The Story of Krishna according to Mahabharata", "The Story of Krishna according to Bhagavata Purana", "The Story of Krishna according to George" and "The Story of Krishna according to Ringo"). George might be corrupted. But that would not mean that Ringo was.
asserting that because one doesn't like the works of Mahabharata,, Harivamsa, George, and Ringo whether out of personal taste or because it doesn't match the work of the one you really consider to be
the true Krishna that they therefore are neither inspired nor inerrant misses the whole point of whether or not what we have received from them is corrupted or not.
according to your line of reasoning,one could safely accept the story of Krishna and other incarnated gods ;Osiris,Atis etc,their deity,their resurrection etc....as long as only small variations in the errant text that was written by so called disciples of Krishna !!!....
Seeker,If you apply the same criterion ,you applied to the Bible...to all the so called sacred books, you would have dozens of true incarnated savoirs,based on the errant works ,that we accepted as reliable text as long as only small variations in their errant texts.
