When was the Bible corrupted?

[Grace Seeker]

there bagan one of the reasons of Gospel corruption, If john writes


John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

according to you John his personal understanding of the Gospel .


but anyone take a look at Mark 10:17-18,find out How false such statement made by John

Mark 10:17-18
Why do you call me good ?" Jesus answered. "No one is good except God alone.

What John did is not understanding of the True Gospel,

Please, I thought we agreed to use the term Injeel when speaking of that which Muslims understand to be the message that God gave to Jesus. And to use the term "Gospel" when referring to the Christian understanding of the message about Jesus.

It may be that John did not speak truthfully. But it is meaningless to argue over that till we can agree that John actually wrote it. So, are you willing to admit that the line you referred to (John 1:1), that you see as untrue, was indeed a part of the Gospel as recorded by John?

We need the Gospel of Jesus (The inspired word of God)
not the concept of Paul,John etc Regarding God....

Well, we don't have it. The best record we have is that of those who knew and spent time with Jesus. If you accept that we have their record, then your complaint is not with the quality of the preservation of the New Testament books, but with the quality of the writing itself -- in other words you are arguing that Paul, John, etc did not tell the truth regarding God.

 

[back_to_faith]

We can't prove the other to be in error, it is a product of faith and belief.

with all the incredible number of errors, contradictions, and fallacies in Bible,
I have strong, objective reasons to prove the Bible to be in error without using a product of faith and belief,and ignoring what the Quran accuses the Bible.....

 

[Grace Seeker]

with all the incredible number of errors, contradictions, and fallacies in Bible,
I have strong, objective reasons to prove the Bible to be in error without using a product of faith and belief,and ignoring what the Quran accuses the Bible.....

I think this is off topic, but I am willing to give it one go round before asking such discussions be moved to another thread. So... NOT referring to the Qur'an, or any other group's faith documents, what are the reasons that you believe the Bible to be in error?

Now again, I'm looking for this to be about the Bible, not about respective faith positions. In other words, if the Bible says that the moon around the seventh planet of some distant star we have never heard of is supposedly made out of green cheese, then disputing such a statement couldn't be made on the grounds that our moon nor any other we know of is not made out of green cheese. It would have to be made on actual knowledge that this particular moon is not made out of green cheese, which would be hard to do if it talks about a solar system we have never heard of, but nonetheless could be there. This standard is one that you set, but before you attempt to prove things by it, I want you to know that I intend to hold you to that standard. The Bible does indeed make many faith statements, but you have said that you can prove it is in error "without using a product of faith and belief" and even ignoring the Qur'an.

I even have one particular proposition that the Bible claims to have been true in the life of Jesus that I believe you claim is untrue. I would like you to prove, objectively and without reference to the Qur'an, that the Bible is in error with regard to the assertions of all 4 Gospel writers and the recorded testimony of Peter and Paul that Jesus was crucified.

 

[back_to_faith]

Please, I thought we agreed to use the term Injeel when speaking of that which Muslims understand to be the message that God gave to Jesus. And to use the term "Gospel" when referring to the Christian understanding of the message about Jesus.

It may be that John did not speak truthfully. But it is meaningless to argue over that till we can agree that John actually wrote it. So, are you willing to admit that the line you referred to (John 1:1), that you see as untrue, was indeed a part of the Gospel as recorded by John?






Well, we don't have it. The best record we have is that of those who knew and spent time with Jesus. ,.

well,we do have it partly,and mixed with falshoods,due to the hearsay accounts that inspired such writers and their ballant attempts to corrupt the injeel by their gross distortions of the Old Testament,putting false prophecies,statements into the mouth of Jesus(PBUH),
for purposes of indoctrination ,quest for religious legitimacy and status.


again you assert:
The best record we have is that of those who knew and spent time with Jesus.

like who? those who knew and spent time with Jesus,and you have their record?
Paul? John? etc.......
Are you serious?!!!

To sum up the whole thread:

You asked :
When was the Bible corrupted?

If you need a comprehensive answer highlighting the date-time-hour of corruption then you need to find answers to the following:

1-Which date Paul wrote his epistles?
2-Which date the writer of Mark,Luke,Matthew wrote their works?
3-Which date the church voted to the so called canonical-books and burned other so called non canonical ones?
4-what date( The Mark 16:9-20: forgery) was inserted at the end of the so-called "Gospel of Mark?.

5- what date the (1 John 5:7-8 forgery) appeared

"Because there are three who testify in heaven: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; and these three are one; and there are three who testify on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are one." (1 John 5:7-8 KJV).


the answers of such sample Questions,would be exactly some of the answers to the Question

When was the Injeel corrupted?

". . . If any man shall add to these things or delete God shall add unto him the plagues written in this Book."
(Revelation 22:18-19)


"Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from God," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby. (The Noble Quran, 2:79)"

 

[back_to_faith]

I would like you to prove, objectively and without reference to the Qur'an, that the Bible is in error with regard to the assertions of all 4 Gospel writers and the recorded testimony of Peter and Paul that Jesus was crucified.

Great offer from you..

Let's start a thread on matters which I would like to prove objectively,that the writers intentionally erred while writing their narratives...

choose from the following matters :

1-The virgin birth prophecy.

2-The suffering servant prophecy(Isaiah 53).


pick a one ,tell me..and allow me to start a thread on it.

thanx

 

[Grace Seeker]

". . . If any man shall add to these things or delete God shall add unto him the plagues written in this Book."
(Revelation 22:18-19)

First a comment on this passage because so many misunderstand or misapply it. The passage refers not to the entirety of the Bible. It only refers to the Book of Revelation itself.

again you assert:
The best record we have is that of those who knew and spent time with Jesus.

like who? those who knew and spent time with Jesus,and you have their record?
Paul? John? etc.......
Are you serious?!!!

They were the writers you named. And I can't think of a source that was closer to Jesus than John.

To sum up the whole thread:

You asked :
When was the Bible corrupted?

If you need a comprehensive answer highlighting the date-time-hour of corruption then you need to find answers to the following:

1-Which date Paul wrote his epistles?
2-Which date the writer of Mark,Luke,Matthew wrote their works?
3-Which date the church voted to the so called canonical-books and burned other so called non canonical ones?
4-what date( The Mark 16:9-20: forgery) was inserted at the end of the so-called "Gospel of Mark?.

5- what date the (1 John 5:7-8 forgery) appeared

"Because there are three who testify in heaven: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; and these three are one; and there are three who testify on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are one." (1 John 5:7-8 KJV).


the answers of such sample Questions,would be exactly some of the answers to the Question

When was the Injeel corrupted?

This implies that you feel that the corruption took place first in the actually process of putting the words to paper, that the original authors did not properly transmit the Injeel, but something else. (I make that inference from questions #1 & 2.)

Then you also imply continued corruption beyond that in two other forms:
(1) Question #3 implies that the church as a whole authored corruption by its method of selecting what was and what was not considered canonical.
(2) Questions #4 & 5 imply that other individuals intentionally altered the existing texts and that this is yet another form of their corruption.

I might dispute with you the severity of some of these things. I won't argue that things such as what you suggest with regard to long ending of Mark and the glosses such as the the doxology in 1 John have occurred. A larger "corruption" that certainly deserves mentioning is the story of the woman caught in adulter in John 8. But I will also note that these things have long been the subject of textual criticism which seeks to produce the most likely original text. A process very similar to that used to authenticate hadiths is used to authenticate the text. So, just like some hadiths can be more trusted than others, and some can be entirely trusted, so to with passages of the Bible. Does the fact that some hadith can be shown to be not authentic mean that one throws out all of the hadith? By no means. One corrects what can be corrected, lists as suspicous or doubtful that which cannot be authenticated, and declares to be authentic that which can be verified. So, to with the scriptures.

Many times I have read Muslims compare (correctly I think) the Gospels to the Hadith. Well, as you don't throw out all of the Hadith because of a few doubtful stories, neither do we feel a need to throw out all of the Gospel narrative.


Lastly, thank-you for taking the time to go into such depth with me on this topic. I think I better understand now where Muslims come from with their objections. It really isn't in the copying, though that can be seen as problematic. The problem goes much deeper, to the very concepts that the original writers of scripture thought to record. These ideas themselves (whether in the time of Jesus or refering to those who recorded the Torah) are seen as corruptions of the message that Allah gave his prophets.

 

[back_to_faith]

(Many times I have read Muslims compare (correctly I think) the Gospels to the Hadith.)

.

Big difference

1-first no one ever claims that the hadith should be 100% inspired ,while the Gospel is said to be.

2- the tools available in the Hadith studying tools is far superior than those of the NT , eg:we have (al isnad science) which check the narraters and their origin,trustworthy,source etc.... while we have zero of the same tools while trying to study the NT.


(Well, as you don't throw out all of the Hadith because of a few doubtful stories, neither do we feel a need to throw out all of the Gospel narrative).


and no Quranic verse advise anyone to to throw out all of the Gospel narrative....


(Lastly, thank-you for taking the time to go into such depth with me on this topic. I think I better understand now where Muslims come from with their objections. It really isn't in the copying, though that can be seen as problematic. The problem goes much deeper, to the very concepts that the original writers of scripture thought to record. These ideas themselves (whether in the time of Jesus or refering to those who recorded the Torah) are seen as corruptions of the message that Allah gave his prophets)

You are welcome ...and thank you too for your discussion.
and waiting for your reply to my invite to discuss NT issues.

peace

 

[Thanaa]

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?

Well, I know that somewhen around the 1600s ( Ithink! ) the passage/words "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live" (look up medieval british punishments for people like that=interesting...) were changed to "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", so that the Church could wipe out all pagans, old women and village idiots.
I believe-but may be wrong-that it had something to do with King James...beause He was a paranoid weirdo. Im pretty cerain that it was he who had an obsession about witchcraft, and it being used on him, and not another King.

 

[MustafaMc]

Copied from: Re: Are Muslims obligated to read the Bible as I think it is relevant here, too.

Oh, I very much understand that we are talking about different books. Given that we are, I don't think it is wise to use the same name to refer to both of them. As you said the word is Injeel. Also as you said, the Injeel is not the Bible that Christians speak of. Therefore, it is inappropriate for Muslims to speak of the Bible of the Christians being corrupted, based on a comment that we don't have the Injeel. They are different books. Imagine saying that Harry Potter was corrupted because it wasn't the Injeel. Doesn't make any sense does it? So, as the Bible that Christians possess is not intended to be the Injeel that Muslims believe was given to Moses or Jesus, then it is wrong to condemn it for not being something that it does not claim to be. It is a completely different type of record than the Injeel.

I fully agree with you that the Injeel and the 4 NT gospels are not the same thing. We Muslims believe that the Injeel was the revelation given directly to Jesus (as) that he shared with his disciples and other followers while he walked among them. I believe that fragments of the Injeel are captured in the gospels such as the Beatitudes, various parables and prophesy about the coming of the Comforter.

Also, to know that the Bible corrupted the teaching of Jesus, wouldn't you have to have a record of the true Injeel delivered by Jesus to compare it with. Perhaps you are wrong in the assumption that the record of the Bible is not a true record of the mission and teaching of Jesus. Do you have another contemporaneous record of what Jesus' mission and teaching was that Christians are not aware of?

Although I am sure that you believe the Gospel of Barnabas is a Muslim fabrication, we Muslims believe that it may be a more accurate account of Jesus' life and teachings than the 4 NT gospels.

I think that we can agree that the disciples did not preserve (even take notes) what was revealed to Jesus (as) immediately as he spoke. Contrast this to the Quran which was written and memorized immediately as it was being revealed and what had been revealed was recited each year during the month of Ramaddan.

The only portion of the NT that can be claimed to be comparable to the Injeel is the gospels. Acts was written to record the actions of the disciples after Jesus' ascension, the letters to the churches were written by Saul/Paul who apparently never even met Jesus during his life on earth and Revelation was apparently a revelation given to John. It is clear that the gospels are narrative stories written from memory many years after Jesus' ascensionand that they are not the revelation "in toto" given to Jesus (as).

[pie]
Wikipedia
Gospel's Date of Origin
The following are mostly the date ranges given by the late Raymond E. Brown, in his book An Introduction to the New Testament, as representing the general scholarly consensus in 1996
Mark: c. 68–73
Matthew: c. 70–100 as the majority view; some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85
John: c. 90–110. Brown does not give a consensus view for John, but these are dates as propounded by C K Barrett, among others. The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Gospel's Authorship
Mark: The gospel itself is anonymous, but as early as Papias in the early 2nd century, a text was attributed to Mark, a disciple of Peter, who is said to have recorded the Apostle's discourses.

Matthew: Although the document is internally anonymous, the authorship of this Gospel has been traditionally ascribed to Matthew the Evangelist, a tax collector who became an Apostle of Jesus. .... Beginning in the 18th century, however, scholars have increasingly questioned that traditional view, and today the majority agree Matthew did not write the Gospel which bears his name.

Luke: According to this view, Paul's "dear friend Luke the Doctor" (Col 4:14) and "fellow worker" (Phlm 24) makes the most likely candidate for authorship out of all the companions mentioned in Paul's writings. Modern scholarship is divided on these points, with many believing that the author of Luke is unknown.

John: The authorship has been disputed since at least the second century, with mainstream Christianity believing that the author is John the Apostle, son of Zebedee. Modern experts usually consider the author to be an unknown non-eyewitness,....Starting in the 19th century, critical scholarship has further questioned the apostle John's authorship, arguing that the work was written decades after the events it describes.
[/pie]

The dates of origin being many years after Jesus' ascension, the narrative style and the lack of authorship documentation points to the fact that the gospels are not the unadulterated revelation given to Jesus (as). I think that you can agree with this point.

We Muslims can make an analogy between the NT gospels and various hadith recording what Prophet Muhammad (saaws) said and did. Just as there are strong, authentic hadith, so also there are weak and even fabricated hadith attributed to Muhammad (saaws). These hadith were recorded as individual actions and words for a specific situation. There were not collated into a narrative story as were the gospels.

The Quran is the "ver batim" revelation given to Muhammad (saaws) while the NT gospels are not the "ver batim" revelation given to Jesus (as).

Which does bring us back to a question related to this thread -- why would Mohammad even suggest that Muslims believe in this book that is not the Injeel? Or is that your point, Muhammad was telling his people to believe in the Injeel, but was not telling them to read the Bible in order to find that Injeel?

The fact that the NT gospels preserve even fragments of the Injeel points to the fact of Divine revelations being given to previous Prophets - Moses, David, Jesus - of which the Quran is a continuation and termination of the chain. Even Mark 12:29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." is enough for us to believe that ithe Bible contains portions of the Injeel. However, there has been so much added (e.g. letters by Paul) that were not part of the Injeel that it is impossible for the unlearned to discern the fragments of Truth.

 

[MustafaMc]

What I am curious about right now is: Are you saying that the Gospels became corrupted the moment that the writers decided to include more than just this simple Injeel that Jesus gave to his disciples about the Kingdom of God? Are you saying that when they decided to tell about some of Jesus' other sayings and acts: feeding 5000 thousand, healing a blind man, casting out demons, calming a stormy sea, that this decision to tell of these events in the life of Jesus corrupted the Gospels? Are you saying that even if the record they provided was an accurate record of the events in Jesus' life, that simply the fact that they told more than the Injeel was in itself an act of corruption?

GraceSeeker, I think I understand your question. I hope that my previous post will help to clarify our position, but I wanted to also address questions in this specific post.

I want to repeat that I agree with you that the Injeel is not synonymous with the NT gospels; however, I do believe that it is the Divine message that Jesus (as) gave to the disciples.

The corruption has nothing whatsoever to do with the inclusion of Jesus' (as) actions as this just illustrates the narrative nature of the gospels. We believe that the corruption is attributing words to Jesus (as) that we believe he did not actually say. It is difficult to discern what he did and didn't say, but, as has been pointed out, we reject quotes that are directly contrary to the Quran. We also reject all writings by Paul because he did not even follow Jesus (as) while he was on earth.

So to address the thread title, "When was the Bible corrupted?" I believe that the gospels were corrupted with additions, deletions and modifications to what was revealed through Jesus (as) from the very beginning.

 

[Basirah]

May I ask Muslims who attack the Bible (which is fine with me) why they do not apply the same critical thinking to the Quran, when reading, which the academic community certainly has done.

 

[جوري]

Your question was answered adequately in the refutation section, under 'can you prove the Quran has been Altered'--thus I find it some what of a conundrum this incessant need to malinger, and peddle the same Question on every thread--
Have you indeed devised a method to infiltrate every Muslim's head and now fully cognizant of thoughts each employs in 'critical thinking' as far as the Quran or 3aqeeda are concerned? Or you just enjoy patronizing members a la mode of a mimus polyglotktos and courtesy of the two excerpts you've read from your orientalists brochures; which you like to hawk for 'scholarly treatise'?
ya reyt ya fali7 t'7el 3ana!

Aslaam only 3la ahel islaam!

 

[Grace Seeker]

thank you too for your discussion.
and waiting for your reply to my invite to discuss NT issues.

peace

I already made a suggestion earlier, perhaps you missed it:

I even have one particular proposition that the Bible claims to have been true in the life of Jesus that I believe you claim is untrue. I would like you to prove, objectively and without reference to the Qur'an, that the Bible is in error with regard to the assertions of all 4 Gospel writers and the recorded testimony of Peter and Paul that Jesus was crucified.

Just send me a PM when you post it, as it probably should be dealt with in another thread so that we can leave this one on topic.
(And, also, so that we can stay on topic, I hope no one feels obliged to address Basirah's trolling comment above.)

 

[MustafaMc]

A process very similar to that used to authenticate hadiths is used to authenticate the text. So, just like some hadiths can be more trusted than others, and some can be entirely trusted, so to with passages of the Bible. Does the fact that some hadith can be shown to be not authentic mean that one throws out all of the hadith? By no means. One corrects what can be corrected, lists as suspicous or doubtful that which cannot be authenticated, and declares to be authentic that which can be verified. So, to with the scriptures.

Many times I have read Muslims compare (correctly I think) the Gospels to the Hadith. Well, as you don't throw out all of the Hadith because of a few doubtful stories, neither do we feel a need to throw out all of the Gospel narrative.

I agree. You seem to have a clear understanding of the Muslim perspective.

Lastly, thank-you for taking the time to go into such depth with me on this topic. I think I better understand now where Muslims come from with their objections. It really isn't in the copying, though that can be seen as problematic. The problem goes much deeper, to the very concepts that the original writers of scripture thought to record. These ideas themselves (whether in the time of Jesus or refering to those who recorded the Torah) are seen as corruptions of the message that Allah gave his prophets.

Thank you for your personal integrity to honestly try and understand our perspective.

I have never heard from a Christian that the NT gospels are ver batim a revelation spoken by Jesus. Perhaps, from this perspective it is unfair for Muslims to criticize the Bible because it doesn't fit the model of the Quranic revelation.

I understand that Christians believe the NT authors were directly inspired by God to write what they did and that the compilers of the Holy Bible in the 4th century were Divinely guided as to which of the many writings to include and which to exclude. Although Christians don't make the outright claim that the NT authors were prophets, they are de facto prophets and messengers because they are claimed to have received direct revelations from God/Jesus.

The concept of prophethood and receiving divine revelations is one of extreme importance to Muslims. Perhaps you can understand why we accept the revelation (Injeel) to Jesus (as) as authentic, but at the same time reject a Divine origin for the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as the letters from Paul.

I think that you can understand why I would equate Jesus with Muhammad (saaws) and equate the disciples of Jesus (Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, etc) with the companions of Muhammad (Abu Bakr, Ali, Omar, Othman, etc). I also roughly equate Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts with hadith compiled by Bukhari, Muslim, Dawood, and Tirmidhi. However, there is no Christian equivalent to the Quran which we Muslims believe is the message revealed ver batim through Prophet Muhammad (saaws). According to our belief, the message revealed through Jesus (as), the Injeel, doesn't exist in toto today and perhaps it never even existed at all in written form.

P.S. I hope that I have not offended you or other Christians by the words I have written. If so, please PM me to let me know.

 

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/peace;

I hope that I have not offended you or other Christians by the words I have written..

I want to add something...hope it won't offend anyone.

I read about Imam Bukhari ( may Allah be pleased with him ) that he did his wadu/abolution & offered 2 rakat extra salat before writing each hadith.

I wonder , if any of the Bible writers did the same ..i.e. took the noble task so seriously that they cleaned themselves before starting writing & asked God's help in writing down the holy words correctly.

Once Imam Bukhari travelled ( it was a long journey & most probably he walked all the way ) to collect hadith from a person.

When he reached there , he saw the person cheated an animal .......to catch the goat or camel , he showed the animal his hand pretending foods are there but the hand was empty & when the animal came ..he did not give him food.

After watching this , Imam Bukhari left the place without collecting the hadith. He thought a person who can cheat animal can also cheat me.

I m curious to know if any Bible writer was that careful while composing Biblical verses.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Although I am sure that you believe the Gospel of Barnabas is a Muslim fabrication, we Muslims believe that it may be a more accurate account of Jesus' life and teachings than the 4 NT gospels.

I don't know who wrote this supposed Gospel of Barnabas, so whether the writer was Muslim or not is not something I can't say. I can see why Muslims might like its content. I cannot see why Muslims tend to view it as authentic when the oldest extant copies weren't even written till a century after Columbus, add to that that they exist only in Italian and Spanish. So, though it is impossible to say who did it, the book shows itself to be a forgery, and not just an ancient forgery but a relatively modern forgery at that. An example of this is easily seen in the Old Testament quotations found in it. They do not reflect use of either the Greek Septuagint that was used by the other Gospel writers, or the Hebrew Masoretic text that one might have used if originally writing in Aramaic -- these were the two sources of the Tanakh available in the first century. Rather when the Gospel of Barnabas quotes the Old Testament it shows dependence on the Latin Vulgate, a text that was not even in existence until the 5th century.

In addition, some things in the book just don't make any sense no matter what one's faith perspective is. For instance the writing continually refers to Jesus not just by his name, but also with the title Christ as if Jesus Christ were his first and last names. But Christ is in reality simply a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah; yet the book has Jesus the Christ claim that he is not the Messiah. So it is self-contradictory.

Quite honestly, when a Muslim tells me that the Gospel of John can't be accepted because of its corruption and then quotes the Gospel of Barnabas, to me, they just prove themselves be nothing more than an enthusiast of a double-think corrupted mindset; it is hard for me to accept them as a serious or knowledgable scholar not just of the New Testament, but of any ancient manuscripts. Now, MustafaMc, I know you to be a more critical and honest thinker than that so, other than wishful thinking, what possible documentary evidence could lead you to conclude that the Gospel of Barnabas "may be a more accurate account of Jesus' life and teachings than the 4 NT gospels"?

 

[MustafaMc]

Quite honestly, when a Muslim tells me that the Gospel of John can't be accepted because of its corruption and then quotes the Gospel of Barnabas, to me, they just prove themselves be nothing more than an enthusiast of a double-think corrupted mindset; it is hard for me to accept them as a serious or knowledgable scholar not just of the New Testament, but of any ancient manuscripts. Now, MustafaMc, I know you to be a more critical and honest thinker than that so, other than wishful thinking, what possible documentary evidence could lead you to conclude that the Gospel of Barnabas "may be a more accurate account of Jesus' life and teachings than the 4 NT gospels"?

You put forth a good argument. I have no documentary evidence to support my claim that it may be more accurate than the NT gospels. It has been some time since I read the book, but I remember it being more consistent with my beliefs that I hold to be True. I also remember from reading the introduction/preface that it did not come from a Muslim country nor was there an obvious connection with a Muslim. However, I am not saying that there was no Muslim authorship because as you noted the author is unknown.

Perhaps, you would care to comment on the rest of the post or did that one sentence completely discredit me?

 

[Grace Seeker]

Perhaps, you would care to comment on the rest of the post or did that one sentence completely discredit me?

It probably should. kay:

Actually, that one sentence caught my attention yesterday just because of (for me, at least) the riduculousness of all the attention given to that supposed-Gospel. But what I really wanted to comment on was the rest of that post and your next one following it. I just hadn't had the time to give them the attention and serious thought they deserved. The Gospel of Barnabas was something that (if you'll pardon me for characterizing it, not you, like this) I felt I could swat away like a pesky fly. But your post, unlike the Gospel of Barnabas, is actually worthy of attention.

 

[ummzayd]

I think this is off topic, but I am willing to give it one go round before asking such discussions be moved to another thread. So... NOT referring to the Qur'an, or any other group's faith documents, what are the reasons that you believe the Bible to be in error?

Greetings of peace to you

one doesn't have to read far into the bible to find errors. Genesis states that God created light and divided the light from the darkness and called the light 'day' and the darkness 'night'.

And a few days later He created the sun.

well ahem. kind of a glaring error right there.

as for the NT (most Christians want to wash their hands of the OT while also keeping it in their 'bible') how about the Sign of Jonah, Matthew 12:40, where Jesus (pbuh) supposedly prophesies his death and resurrection:

'for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth'.

unfortunately according to the NT Jesus (pbuh) was placed in the tomb on Friday and raised some time before Sunday morning.

so that is glaringly inaccurate. Either Jesus pbuh was wrong, or the writer who is supposedly reporting his words is wrong. my own theory is that Jesus pbuh may have mentioned 'the sign of Jonah', and either the writer of that book, or a later copyist, decided to add the explanation - and put the words about 3 days & 3 nights in Jesus' mouth. highly risky, highly unethical and untrustworthy - which for me sums up the attitude of the writers/copyists/care-takers of NT scripture. Not people to be relied upon at all.

Those are two reasons why I regard the bible as full of error, unreliable, corrupted...etc. etc. I have many more, if you would like to hear them?

peace

 

[MustafaMc]

It probably should. kay:

Actually, that one sentence caught my attention yesterday just because of (for me, at least) the riduculousness of all the attention given to that supposed-Gospel. But what I really wanted to comment on was the rest of that post and your next one following it. I just hadn't had the time to give them the attention and serious thought they deserved. The Gospel of Barnabas was something that (if you'll pardon me for characterizing it, not you, like this) I felt I could swat away like a pesky fly. But your post, unlike the Gospel of Barnabas, is actually worthy of attention.

Although I am no scholar of ancient texts such that I can counter your well researched points about the authenticity of this book, I am a man of faith and I accept as true what is in agreement with my "gold standard" the Quran and I reject what is in disagreement with it. I was rereading Barnabas last night and came across this passage that may be of interest to Muslims.

Gospel of Barnabas 52

"The judgement day of God will be so dreadful that verily I say unto you, the reprobates would sooner choose ten hells than go to hear God speak in wrath against them. Against whom all things created will witness. Verily I say unto you, that not alone shall the reprobates fear, but the saints and the elect of God, so that Abraham, shall not trust his righteousness, and Job shall have no confidence in his innocence. And what say I? Even the messenger of God shall fear, for that God to make known his majesty, shall deprive his messenger of memory, so that he shall have no remembrancehow that God had given him all things. Verily I say unto you that, speaking from the heart, I tremble because by the world I shall be called God, and for this I shall have to render an account. As God liveth, in whose presence my soul standeth, I am a mortal man as other men are, for although God has placed me as a prophet over the house of Israel for the health of the feeble and the correction of sinners, I am the servant of God, and of this ye are witness, how I speak against those wicked men who after my departure from the world shall annul the truth of my gospel by the operation of Satan. But I shall return towards the end, and with me shall come Enoch and Elijah, and we will testify against the wicked, whose end shall be accursed." And having thus spoken, Jesus shed tears, whereat his disciples wept aloud, and lifted their voices saying: "Pardon, O Lord God, and have mercy on thy innocent servant." Jesus answered "Amen, Amen."

As GraceSeeker has clearly pointed out, I can't vouch for the authenticity of the Gospel of Barnabas as I have no documentary evidence that it traces back to the 1st century.