Is the New Testament or Qur'an a Better Successor to the Hebrew Bible? Dr. Jonathan McLatchie vs. Bashir Vania

Here is my latest debate, with Islamic scholar Bashir Vania, on whether the New Testament or Qur'an is a better successor to the Old Testament. This debate was recorded at South African Theological Seminary in January. Enjoy!

Are the New Testament Gospels Based On Eyewitness Testimony? Jonathan McLatchie vs. Yusuf Ismail

Last month, I participated in a public moderated debate with Muslim apologist Yusuf Ismail, a criminal defence attorney from South Africa. The debate took place in Durban, South Africa, and was hosted by the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI). I have now uploaded the full recording (see embedded video above). Enjoy!

What is the Significance of Easter in Christianity? Why is It the Most Important Date in the Christian Calendar?

In this video, we discuss the importance and significance of Easter in Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus would only make sense if Jesus died on the cross as the New Testament records and teaches. The only place where the Qur'an deals with the crucifixion of Jesus is in surah 4:157 where it claims they did not crucify Jesus or kill him. The major problem with this text is that it is notoriously vague and unclear, and is subject to many conflicting interpretations. The New Testament on the other hand, came from the first century A.D., and contains eyewitness testimony. This is why all scholars who study Jesus go to the New Testament. It is the earliest accounts we have for Jesus. The Qur'an on the other hand, came 600 years later, was written in a different country, written by a writer or writers who were not eyewitnesses to he life and words of Jesus. The Qur'an was composed in a land far removed from the land that Jesus and the apostles ministered and preached in. The Qur'an was also written in another language, foreign to first century Christians, and is filled with stories that come from apocryphal and historically worthless and dubious sources. Therefore, all who want to learn about the historical Jesus should go to the New Testament.

Were the Stories About Jesus Passed on Reliably? A Response to Abu Zakariya

In previous posts, I have been reviewing a book by Muslim polemicist/apologist Abu Zakariya (in particular, chapter 5 of the book). So far, we have seen that Zakariya's objections to the gospels as inspired Scripture and eyewitness testimony, and to Messianic prophecy, have fallen far short of convincing. Here are links to my three previous rebuttals to Zakariya:

Were the Gospels Written Under Divine Inspiration?

Was the Crucifixion of Jesus Foretold in the Old Testament?

Are the Gospels Based on Eyewitness Testimony?

In this fourth installment, I am going to interact with Zakariya's fourth wave of attack, which is against the premise that the stories about Jesus were passed on reliably.

A Note About Differences and Reconcilable Variations

Before I begin to assess Abu Zakariya's arguments, first a word about the implications of variations between the gospel accounts. In eyewitness testimony, it is not at all surprising that there would exist variations in minor detail while maintaining consistency about the core narrative. The existence of variations does not in itself entail that the narrative does not derive from the testimony of eyewitnesses, or that the core events did not happen. By pushing for the existence of actual (as opposed to apparent) discrepancies between the gospel accounts, at best the skeptic can cause us to revise our understanding of inspiration or inerrancy. It does not necessarily call into question the truth of Christianity, a proposition which rests on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

What minor variations do often suggest, however, is independence between accounts. In his book Horae Evangelicae or The Internal Evidence of the Gospel History, Rev T.R. Birks pioneered a category of argument, a somewhat less dramatic cousin of undesigned coincidences, called reconcilable variations. What is a reconcilable variation? It is when you have two accounts of the same event, or at least two accounts that appear to cross over the same territory at some point, and at first blush they seem so divergent that it's almost awkward; but then, on further thought, they turn out to be reconcilable in some natural fashion after all. When two accounts appear at first so divergent that one is not sure they can be reconciled, that is significant evidence for their independence. When they turn out, upon closer inspection or upon learning more information, to be reconcilable without forcing after all, one has almost certainly independent accounts that dovetail. Thus, identifying plausible harmonizations for apparent discrepancies between the gospels has not only the effect of neutralizing the objection to the gospels' veracity, but also it can, by establishing independence, provide positive evidence for their truth.

Are the Gospels Based on Eyewitness Testimony? A Response to Abu Zakariya

In previous posts, I have been reviewing a book by Muslim polemicist/apologist Abu Zakariya (in particular, chapter 5 of the book). So far, we have seen that Zakariya's objections to the gospels as inspired Scripture and to Messianic prophecy have fallen far short of convincing. Here are links to my two previous rebuttals to Zakariya:

Were the Gospels Written Under Divine Inspiration?

Was the Crucifixion of Jesus Foretold in the Old Testament?

In this third installment, I am going to be reviewing Zakariya's third wave of attack, which is against the gospels as eyewitness testimony.

The External Attestation of Authorship

Zakariya begins,

When we scrutinise the Gospel authors in the light of their identities and content and date of their writings, we will find that they are not credible eyewitnesses to the crucifixion. To begin with, it's important to recognise that the Gospels themselves are, strictly speaking, anonymous. While today in the New Testament you see the headings "The Gospel according to..." at the start of each of the Gospels, it's important to note that none of the authors identify themselves by name within the texts. They were quoted anonymously by Church Fathers in the first half of the second century (i.e. 100-150 CE) and the names by which they are currently known appeared suddenly around the year 180 CE, nearly 150 years after Jesus. We find this in the writings of early church apologists such as Justin Martyr who was writing in the middle of the second century. Justin quotes from the gospels on numerous occasions, but the striking ting is that he does not call the Gospels by their names. Instead, he regularly calls them "Memoirs of the Apostles." He does not say that he thinks the disciples themselves wrote the books, only that these books preserve their "memoirs" (meaning, their recollections of the life and teachings of Jesus). These are some of the reasons that have led scholars to believe that the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were assigned to the Gospels long after they were first authored.

Were the Gospels Written Under Divine Inspiration? A Response to Abu Zakariya

This past weekend I attended an Islamic exhibition at the city library in Newcastle, England. The subject of the exhibition was the Islamic perspective on Jesus. During the course of the day, I was given a copy of a new book by Muslim apologist/polemicist Abu Zakariya. The book is entitled Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah. I have now had the opportunity to read through the book, and so I thought it fitting for me to write a detailed review of some of the material and argumentation presented in the book. Although Zakariya, to his credit, pursues more depth in his discussion than most Muslim treatments of this subject (although that isn't very hard to do), the book still engages in a significant level of mangling of the Biblical text. Over the course of this and subsequent blog posts, I want to interact with some of the central claims of Abu Zakariya's book, since I thought it a good opportunity to explore some popular fallacies of thought that occur when people study the Scriptures. I will not be interacting with the book in order, but dipping into various parts of the book that I took a particular interest in. Readers will recognize that I have addressed much of the material in various blog posts and talks/interviews/debates before. Nonetheless, it is always valuable to repeat material and so I will be reiterating some material I have touched on in the past, and perhaps on occasion delving into more detail than I did previously -- but a lot of what I want to write about I have not covered before in my writings. If Abu Zakariya is interested in a public engagement regarding his book (in the form of a moderated debate), I will be only too happy to oblige.

One chapter I found to be particularly interesting in the book was chapter 5, in which Zakariya makes a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible -- namely, the Qur'an's claim in Surah 4:157 that Jesus did not die by crucifixion. In this and subsequent articles, I aim to examine how well he does in this undertaking.

Six Bad Habits of New Testament Scholars (and how to avoid them): Dr. Lydia McGrew

Here is the recording of Saturday's Apologetics Academy webinar featuring analytic philosopher Dr. Lydia McGrew (you can find her website here). Her subject was "Six Bad Habits of New Testament Scholars (and how to avoid them)". I regret that some people seem to be rather upset that I have sided with Lydia in regards to this topic over Michael Licona, Craig Evans, et al. I have even lost Facebook friends as a result. May I emphasize that this is scholarship and there is no ill-intent towards any of the people whose views I and Lydia depart from. If you put scholarly argumentation into the public realm, then you need to learn not to take it personally when others disagree and publicly voice their dissent. I invite you to watch the webinar for yourself and make up your own mind.:

Is the New Testament the Word of God? Luis Dizon vs. Ijaz Ahmed

Here is the first debate that Luis Dizon engaged in with Ijaz Ahmad in Toronto, Canada on August 12, 2016 at the TARIC Center.

Has the New Testament Been Substantially Edited Since It Was First Penned?

This is one of the most frequently-asked questions I encounter when attempting to explain to people the cumulative evidence which stands in support and corroboration of the Christian worldview. I probably actually get this question more frequently from the Muslim/Islamic community than I do from atheists, agnostics and other non-believers. The reason for this is not hard to see. The Qur’an not only claims that the gospels and the torah are revealed Scripture, but claims that the Qur’an and the Bible are consistent with one another (e.g. Surah 2:75; Surah 5:49; Surah 32:23; Surah 17:55). But any cursory reading of these books quickly reveals that this is not the case. And it is not merely on minor details that the Qur’an and Bible differ, but on close-to-all of their assertions. For example, the Qur’an (Surah 4:157) explicitly denies that Jesus was even crucified, though this is the core doctrine of the Christian faith. The Qur’an also explicitly denies the Triune character of God (Surah 4:171), though there is no evidence that Muhammad understood what this doctrine was, and it is substantially misrepresented in the pages of the Qur’an (e.g. Surah 2:116, 5:72-76, 5:119, 6:101, 19:35). The Qur’an also teaches that Muhammad is predicted in the Christian and Jewish Scriptures (Surah 61:6), though Muhammad is no where to be found in any of the Christian Scriptures.

Modern Muslims attempt to evade this dilemma by arguing that the Christian Scriptures were consistent with the Qur’an, in their original form, but that they have been substantially edited and re-written in the centuries thereafter. But this argument fails for at least two reasons. First, the Qur’an refers the Christians and the Jews back to their own Scriptures for confirmation of the message revealed by Islam (see my recent article here for a more detailed discussion). There is absolutely no suggestion in the Qur’an or Hadith literature, at least to my knowledge, that the Bible was regarded as having been edited in such a radical fashion.  Certainly this process of editing cannot have taken place after the Qur’an was written (we have entire copies of the New Testament which pre-date the Qur’an by hundreds of years, such as the Codex Sinaiticus). But what about before?

Daniel Wallace on Islam and New Testament Manuscripts

Muslims believe in an original "Gospel" that was corrupted over time. Since this Gospel was still available when Muhammad was preaching in Arabia (see Qur'an 5:47 and 7:157), it must have been copied and transmitted for several centuries (the first century through the seventh century).

However, according to Dr. Daniel Wallace (executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts), there isn't a single ancient New Testament manuscript anywhere on the planet that presents an Islamic view of Jesus.

Hence, Muslims who believe in an original Gospel that supports Islam are doing so against the uniform testimony of manuscript evidence.

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.)

The Gospel of John (Visual Bible)

The Gospel of John is the fourth of the canonical Gospels. This 2003 film version is a word-for-word adaptation from the Good News Bible.

Daniel Wallace: Early New Testament Manuscripts Discovered

Muslims claim that the Bible has been corrupted. If Muslims are correct, we would expect earlier manuscripts to conflict significantly with later manuscripts. Alas! No matter how early we go in the manuscript tradition (even back to the first century, it now seems!), all we ever find is confirmation of the Bible we have today.

Daniel B. Wallace is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. He recently made an interesting announcement about some new discoveries.

DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY--On 1 February 2012, I debated Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill on whether we have the wording of the original New Testament today. This was our third such debate, and it was before a crowd of more than 1000 people. I mentioned that seven New Testament papyri had recently been discovered—six of them probably from the second century and one of them probably from the first. These fragments will be published in about a year.

These fragments now increase our holdings as follows: we have as many as eighteen New Testament manuscripts from the second century and one from the first. Altogether, more than 43% of all New Testament verses are found in these manuscripts. But the most interesting thing is the first-century fragment.

It was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers. He said he was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century. If this is true, it would be the oldest fragment of the New Testament known to exist. Up until now, no one has discovered any first-century manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest manuscript of the New Testament has been P52, a small fragment from John’s Gospel, dated to the first half of the second century. It was discovered in 1934.

Not only this, but the first-century fragment is from Mark’s Gospel. Before the discovery of this fragment, the oldest manuscript that had Mark in it was P45, from the early third century (c. AD 200–250). This new fragment would predate that by 100 to 150 years.

How do these manuscripts change what we believe the original New Testament to say? We will have to wait until they are published next year, but for now we can most likely say this: As with all the previously published New Testament papyri (127 of them, published in the last 116 years), not a single new reading has commended itself as authentic. Instead, the papyri function to confirm what New Testament scholars have already thought was the original wording or, in some cases, to confirm an alternate reading—but one that is already found in the manuscripts. As an illustration: Suppose a papyrus had the word “the Lord” in one verse while all other manuscripts had the word “Jesus.” New Testament scholars would not adopt, and have not adopted, such a reading as authentic, precisely because we have such abundant evidence for the original wording in other manuscripts. But if an early papyrus had in another place “Simon” instead of “Peter,” and “Simon” was also found in other early and reliable manuscripts, it might persuade scholars that “Simon” is the authentic reading. In other words, the papyri have confirmed various readings as authentic in the past 116 years, but have not introduced new authentic readings. The original New Testament text is found somewhere in the manuscripts that have been known for quite some time.

These new papyri will no doubt continue that trend. But, if this Mark fragment is confirmed as from the first century, what a thrill it will be to have a manuscript that is dated within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection! (Source)

James White: Can We Trust the New Testament Documents?

James White vs. Abdullah Kunde: "The New Testament or the Qur'an?"

The Bible, the Qur'an, and the Impact of Textual Change

As we've seen in recent posts, the text of the New Testament is on much firmer ground than the text of the Qur'an. While Christians in the third century had temporary disagreements on minor books of the New Testament (e.g. 3 John), we find disagreements among Muhammad's closest followers as to which books should be included in the Qur'an. Moreover, we find that individual verses, sections of Surahs, and entire Surahs are missing from the Qur'an. Beyond this, when Christians are confronted with textual variants, we are able to investigate these variants using the principles of textual criticism, along with our manuscript tradition. Muslims, on the other hand, systematically destroyed their manuscript tradition, which means that textual critics can't investigate the significant variants at all. Further, as Nabeel pointed out, universal corruption of the Qur'an was possible, since all copies of the Qur'an were at one point in the hands of Uthman. That is, at one point in Islamic history, a human being had the power to make changes in all future editions of the Qur'an. Universal corruption was never possible in Christianity, however, since no Christian ever had all manuscripts of the New Testament.

Thus, Muslims who claim that the textual transmission of the New Testament is somehow inferior to that of the Qur'an simply don't know what they're talking about. Nevertheless, there is an even more important point here, which Nabeel alluded to in his last post. Textual variants don't have the same implications in Christianity as they do in Islam. Allow me to explain.

The core of the Christian message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is primarily a message about Jesus' death, resurrection, and deity. Notice, however, that all three of these issues are a matter of historical investigation. Jesus' death by crucifixion was a historical event. His resurrection from the dead was a historical event. His claims to divinity were historical events. The core of Christianity, then, is open to historical investigation. Even more significant is the fact that this core of Christianity is independent of whether the New Testament was perfectly preserved or even inspired. To put the matter differently, Christianity is true if certain historical events occurred. To know that these events occurred, we need reliable records of what happened in the first century. To know that Christianity is true, then, we simply need to know that the New Testament is historically reliable when it reports Jesus' death, resurrection appearances, and claims to deity. While Christians still believe in inspiration, it is important that we recognize that inspiration is not essential to this historical core.

So what's the significance of textual variants in Christianity? These variants are only significant if they cast doubt on Jesus' death, resurrection, and deity. Do any textual variants do this? Not at all. I challenge Muslims to find a manuscript that does not present Jesus as the risen Lord. Our manuscripts are completely consistent on the core of Christianity, and we have numerous early witnesses who testify to the historical core of the Christian message. (Note that our belief does not rest on the word of a single person, as in Islam). We may conclude that textual variants do not affect the truth of Christianity.

Is the situation the same in Islam? Hardly. Muhammad claimed that he received the Qur'an from the angel Gabriel. According to Surah 15:9 (supposedly given to Muhammad by Gabriel), God would perfectly preserve the Qur'an. Do Muslim records of missing verses, missing sections of Surahs, and missing Surahs affect the truth of this claim? Absolutely. Does the fact that Muhammad's most reliable followers couldn't even agree on the correct number of Surahs affect this claim? Absolutely. Does the fact that Aisha's goat ate the Verse of Stoning and the Verse of Suckling affect this claim? Absolutely.

Thus, textual variants falsify Surah 15:9, and this shows that Muhammad did not receive this verse from God. And if Muhammad did not receive this verse from God, why should we believe that he received any of the Qur'an from God? When we add to all of this the fact that Muhammad claimed, on at least one occasion, that he had delivered a revelation from the devil, that his first impression of his revelations was that they were demonic in origin, and that he was admittedly the victim of black magic, do we have a problem here? Undoubtedly.

To show that Christianity is false, Muslims need to show that the core of the Christian Gospel was completely corrupted, and they just can't do this. To show that Islam is false, Christians simply need to show that Allah didn't perfectly preserve the Qur'an, and what could be easier than this? Of course, Muslims will continue, in spite of the evidence, to proclaim that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved, just as they will continue, in spite of the evidence, to proclaim that Jesus never died on the cross, rose from the dead, or claimed to be divine. But this simply shows that Muslims have very little concern for truth. The facts speak for themselves.

James White Responds to Abdullah (Six Parts)

Here James responds to "Abdullah of the UK." Since Abdullah makes a number of errors that are very common among Muslim apologists, these videos are an excellent introduction to Muslim claims about the text of the New Testament.

PART ONE:


PART TWO:


PART THREE:


PART FOUR:


PART FIVE:


PART SIX: