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Altering the Bible - part one

by Mr. TrrueIslam

"Do you then hope that they would believe in you, and a party from
among them (Jews) indeed used to hear the world of Allah, then
altered it after they had understood it, and they know this. "Holy
Qur'an 2:75.

The Holy Qur'an accuses the Jews of altering the scriptures of God.
Far from being Islamic "anti-Semitism," this fact is a matter of
recorded history. John N. Hayes, professor of Old Testament at
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, in this book "An
Introduction to Old Testament Study", observes,

"Rabbinical references provide evidence that the pre-Masoretic
scribes not only guarded and preserved the text but at time WENT SO
FAR AS TO ALTER THE TEXT ITSELF." (33)

Toy, in Judaism and Christianity, says also,

Transcripts were copied and recopied by scribes who not only
sometimes made errors in the letters of the words, but permitted
themselves to introduce new material into the text."

The alterations made by the Jewish scribes, called tiqqune sopherim
or "emendations of the scribes," were not random or casual but were
calculated with a specific goal. Hayes observes:

"Manyof the changes assumed seem to have the purpose of making the
text more theologically acceptable by changing expressions which seem
to lack proper reverence. Some examples." Gen 18:22 originally read'
YHWH still stood before Abraham rather than `Abraham still stood
before YHWH', II Sam 20:1 read `to his gods' rather than `to his
tents'; Ez 18: 17 read `my God's nose' rather than `their nose'; and
Job 32:3 read `they condemned God' rather than `they condemned Job'"
(34)

These "emendations of the scribes" were made to conceal the true
reality God. As shown, the God of the Old Testament was a so-called
anthropomorphic God-a Man. The Jewish scribes corrupted the
scripture in an attempt to hide the fact. E.O. James, in The Concept
of Deity observes that,

"In post exilic Judaism…efforts were made by the scribes to remove
some of the more crude anthropomorphism's or to paraphrase and
SPIRTUALIZE them. Thus, in the Targums the finger of God of Ex viii.
19 was rendered `this is a plague from before Yahweh' and when he was
said to abide in, come to, or depart from a place, the phrase was
made to read `God caused his presence (shekinto) to abide there, and
the like, just as seeing God, or God manifesting Himself to man, was
interpreted as the `the glory (yekara) of God.' When the earlier
anthropomorphism's were retained (e.g. in references to God having
eyes, ears, hands and feet) the terms `memra,'meaning the `divine
self manifestation,' was introduced as a reverend circumlocution for
God as active in the affairs of men. (35)"

Robert Dentan, in "The Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel bares
witness that

"In later times…older texts were changed to modify or eliminate some
of the cruder passages (of anthropomorphism)." (36)