Islam - The Summit of Religious Evolution — Page 29
29 None of the original manuscripts of the New Testament have survived, nor, presumably any direct copies of the original manuscripts. "What we have are copies of copies. Into these copies crept errors; moreover additions and "corrections" were sometimes made by the copyists, for the Bible of the early church was the Old Testament, and it was not imperative to copy gospels and epistles - still uncannonized- exactly word for word. . . . . No manuscript can be better than that from which it was copied. . . (18 How did these families, or types of text, arise? It is quite obvious that errors, corrections and additions made in Rome would be perpetuated in manuscripts copied at Rome, and not at Alexandria or Antioch or Caesarea. Each religious center in the Church would preserve and add to its own peculiar readings and gradually the texts in and around the various leading communities took on their own characteristics. Moreover, when the bishops and scholars edited New Testament texts for local use by copying from the various manuscripts in their own communities, the character of the text in these communities became fixed. . . 19 It is also clear from the above evidence that the New Testament texts have been through numerous human interpolations and as such can, in no sense, be regarded as God's original word. One final observation on this subject: Due to human improvements and refinements to Biblical text, it is now riddled with internal inconsistencies and scientific and historic errors. Science itself is the art of understanding and rationalizing natural laws. This basic understanding of laws enables the understanding of natural phenomenon. It is thus impossible for God to reveal or inspire a message for mankind, which contradicts His own laws. There is inconsistency even in Jesus' genealogy in the gospels according to Matthew and Luke. On these two subjects, M. Beaucalli in The Bible, The Quran and Science states: Today, it is impossible not to admit the existence of scientific errors in the Bible. In view of all that the Biblical exegetes have taught us concerning the way in which the Judeo- Christian books were composed, how is it possible for these not to contain errors? We may therefore agree with Jean Guitto when he says: "The scientific errors in the Bible are the errors of mankind, for long ago man was like a child, as yet ignorant of science. 20 The two genealogies contained in Matthew's and Luke's Gospels give rise to problems of verisimilitude, and conformity with scientific data, and hence to authenticity. These problems are a source of great embarrassment to Christian commentators because the latter refuse to see in them what is very obviously the product of human imagination. The authors of the Sacerdotal text of Genesis, Sixth century B. C. , had already been inspired by imagination for their genealogies of the first men. It again inspired Matthew and Luke for the data they did not take from the Old Testament. 21 One must straight away note that the male genealogies have absolutely no relevance to Jesus. Were one to give a genealogy to Mary's only son, who was without a biological father, it would have to be the genealogy of his mother Mary. 22 The books of the New Testament are shrouded by controversy because their original texts are not available. What remains today are fragments of Greek and Latin translations which