Ibn Warraq Rebuttal Blog: How the Bible got corrupted

How the Bible got corrupted

Torah

The Pentateuch (the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) was a composite work in which one could discern the hand of four different writers usually referred to by the four letters of J, E P and D. These five books were written about a 1000 years after Prophet Moses peace be upon him. The unknown authors of these works must have worked on them some point between c. 520 and 400 B.C. the latter date being most probable. As the unknown editor interwoven these sources, he tried to save their contents and have the best several worlds and creations.

Psalms

Prophet David lived around 1000 B.C. but we know that the Psalms were put together much later in the post-exilic period, that is after 539 B.C. The Book of Psalms consists of five collections of hymns, mostly written for use in the second temple (the temple of Zerubbabel). Through the writings of Prophet David could be here and there in the Psalms, However most of the psalms were post exilian. Probably mist of the Psalms should not be attributed to Prophet David. Most of them are praising some highly idealized monarch, and seem to be honoring one of the other of the Hasmanean Kings in 142-63 B.C. The form of the psalms and their use in worship services originated with Pagan nations surrounding Israel: Assyria, Babylon, Canaan and Egypt. The Jewish psalms were written during the various monarchies, prior to the exile of 586 BCE. The unknown persons who edited the Psalms tended to attribute to David all psalms which were written during the era of the Monarchy, regardless of their actual authorship. A few of the psalms can be dated because they with specific historical events. Actual authorship is mostly unknown.

Gospels

The four Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John) were not written by the actual disciples of Prophet Jesus. As a matter of fact, they were written by unknown people that the Church assigned them to. It seems unlikely that any of the alleged sayings of Prophet Jesus peace be upon him were spoken by a historical figure. Scholars are now saying that most of what the Gospels are saying are compilations of “traditions” cherished by the early Christians rather than historical annals. Mark, Matthew and Luke seem to be synoptic gospels, meaning that they had a common source, most probably the three Q documents that made up these gospels. Another problem is Paul’s letters. The problem they pose is that non of them have allusions to Mary the mother of Jesus, may Allah be pleased with her, or to the Virgin birth or to Jesus place of birth, no John the Baptist, Judas or Peters denial. Paul’s letters were all written before the Gospels at around 50-60 CE. What could’ve happened is that the Gospels were written to reflect Paul’s ideology. However most of the material in the Gospels are absent in the Pauline documents.

New Testament scholars date the Gospel of Mark to about 70 AD. However G.A. Wells maintains that it was written in 90 AD when “ Palestinan Christianity had been overwhelmed by Jewish war with Rome and the gentile Christians who then first linked Jesus with Pilate and first gave his life altogether a real historical setting, could have had only very imperfect knowledge of what really happened in Palestine in 30AD.

Other New Testament writings:

Even in antiquity people like Origen and Eusebius raised doubts about the authenticity of other books in the New Testament such as Hebrews, James, John 2 & 3, Peter 2, Jude, and Revelation. Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of James calling it worthless and an "epistle of straw" and questioned Jude, Hebrews and the Apocalypse in Revelation. Nevertheless, all New Testament writings came well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus from unknown authors (with the possible exception of Paul, although still after the alleged death).

Epistles of Paul: Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, there occurs not a single instance in all of Paul's writings that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.

Epistle of James: Although the epistle identifies a James as the letter writer, but which James? Many claim him as the gospel disciple but the gospels mention several different James. Which one? Or maybe this James has nothing to do with any of the gospel James. Perhaps this writer comes from any one of innumerable James outside the gospels. James served as a common name in the first centuries and we simply have no way to tell who this James refers to. More to the point, the Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account.

Epistles of John: The epistles of John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation appear so different in style and content that they could hardly have the same author. Some suggest that these writings of John come from the work of a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed a "John" or they came from the work of church fathers who aimed to further the interests of the Church. Or they could have simply come from people also named John (a very common name). No one knows. Also note that nowhere in the body of the three epistles of "John" does it mention a John. In any case, the epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay accounts.

Epistles of Peter: Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright forgery (for some examples, see the introduction to 2 Peter in the full edition of The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985. In short, no one has any way of determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an unknown author also named Peter (a common name) or from someone trying to further the aims of the Church.

Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no other stretched claims or eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus and needs no mention of them here for this deliberation.

As for the existence of original New Testament documents, none exist. No book of the New Testament survives in the original autograph copy. What we have then come from copies, and copies of copies, of questionalbe originals (if the stories came piecemeal over time, as it appears it has, then there may never have existed an original). The earliest copies we have got written more than a century later than the autographs, and these exist on fragments of papyrus. [Pritchard; Graham] According to Hugh Schonfield, "It would be impossible to find any manuscript of the New Testament older than the late third century, and we actually have copies from the fourth and fifth. [Schonfield]

What others say about the Gospels

Christians repeatedly state that the Gospels are eyewitness acconts and written by the actual disciples of Jesus. They go on to say that many scholars and historians agree with them. Really? As seen above, the Gospels are not historical information about Jesus. Here we have quotes from respectable scholars about the Gospels who agree with the Holy Quran that the Christians follow nothing but conjecture:

The gospels are not eyewitness accounts

-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School

The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They're not biographies.

-Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University (in the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, aired in 1998)

The narrative conventions and world outlook of the gospel prohibit our using it as a historical record of that year.

-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 54)

The bottom line is we really don't know for sure who wrote the Gospels.

-Jerome Neyrey, of the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. in "The Four Gospels," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)

Most scholars have come to acknowledge, was done not by the Apostles but by their anonymous followers (or their followers' followers). Each presented a somewhat different picture of Jesus' life. The earliest appeared to have been written some 40 years after his Crucifixion.

-David Van Biema, "The Gospel Truth?" (Time, April 8, 1996)

So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that "we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus."

-Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926

The Synoptic Gospels employ techniques that we today associate with fiction.

-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)

The letter of Jude also is considered too late to have been written by the attested author-- "the brother of James" and, thus, of Jesus. The letter, believed written early in the second century.