Sunday, January 5, 2014

James White: Is the New Testament Reliable?

When Muslims hear about textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts, they assume that this somehow confirms their claim that the New Testament has been corrupted. This assumption, however, is grounded in complete ignorance (as James White easily demonstrates). The truth of the matter is that we have lots of textual variants because we have lots of manuscripts. And these manuscripts are precisely what textual critics use in order to establish the wording of the original writings.

Contrast this with the Muslim approach to Qur'anic variants. When textual differences arose among the early editions of the Qur'an, Caliph Uthman gathered the manuscripts together and burned them, in order to cover up the disagreements. He then distributed his new, official version of the Qur'an! (One can only imagine what Muslims would say if early Christians had burned all of our manuscripts. Would they not say that this is clear proof of a conspiracy to corrupt the text?)


(Click here to learn about changes to the Qur'an.)

4 comments:

sla said...

"Uthman gathered the manuscripts together and burned them, in order to cover up the disagreements"

COVER UP ? , unfortunately for u no scholar says soo . Contrary to this claim , nearly all mainly western scholars say Uthmanic ascension was sincere and can be traced by to Prophet .

David Wood said...

"Uthmanic ascension"???

Let's pretend we should take anything in your comment seriously.

You just contradicted your prophet.

Muhammad told his followers that if they want to learn the Qur'an, they should go to four people. The first on his list was Ibn Masud.

But Ibn Masud rejected Surah 1, Surah 113, and Surah 114. (He said that they are Muslim prayers, not part of the Qur'an.)

So if the "ascension" (LOL!) really went back to Muhammad, these Surahs wouldn't be in the Qu'ran. But they are in the Qur'an. So you actually believe in Uthman, not in Muhammad!

Unknown said...

Excellent piece. An intelligent and factual presentation by Dr white not your typical whitewashed and emotion laden brainwashed defence by the followers of allah and mohammmed.

Unknown said...

Brilliant mr White..!

I've seen many of his debates. & to my opinion, I think so far, he's the only person that could make imam Shabir Ally gave up in debate... Keep up the good work. God bless u...