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Originally Posted by Net2004
The facts that these manuscripts existed at least two hundred years before Muhammad founded Islam means that the only Holy Book in the hands of the Christians at Muhammad's time consisted of the same Old and New Testaments we have today.
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The vast quantity of manuscripts prior to 650 AD, in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic (the Armenian and Georgian mss are later) is undoubtedly a factor. In addition there is the mass of citations in the enormous volume of patristic texts by that stage - some hundred volumes of the Patrologia Graeca alone.
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islamicawareness response:
Given all of the historical and textual data regarding the formation of the New Testament canon that has been discussed so far, it is not difficult to notice the sheer lunacy of the above claim. Based on surviving manuscript evidence, given that the first "complete" Greek New Testament is dated approximately 800–900 years after the birth of Jesus and 200–300 years after the birth of Muhammad, it is mystifying as to why the missionary has chosen to mention three Greek Uncial Manuscripts of uncertain composition and provenance that do not contain anything like the same Old/New Testaments that are found in modern printed editions of the (Protestant) Bible in the 21st century CE, let alone the 7th century CE!
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If we leave aside the hysteria, and the curious hatred of missionaries, the factual claim seems to be somewhat hard to define. Is the Moslem polemicist asserting that Protestant bibles of the 21st century are not based on the great codices of the 4-5th centuries? If so, a look at Nestle-Aland will enlighten him otherwise. What does he mean by "surviving manuscript evidence" -- evidence of what?
The statement that the first "complete" Greek NT is dated to 800-900 AD requires some explanation. What is being said here? Why are the earlier mss not "complete"? Which ms is here referred to?
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Furthermore, perhaps unknowingly to the missionary, his conclusion implicitly assumes that Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus are textually and canonically the same, and, that they functioned as exemplars (a manuscript from which another manuscript has been copied) for every single Greek New Testament manuscript in existence since that period – both absurd, illogical suggestions.
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Is the Moslem polemicist asserting that unless mss are identical in every respect, they do not contain the same text? If so, perhaps he would enlighten us on which texts precisely from antiquity have been documented as passing this test. Note that the Koran does not pass it, since the relevant studies have not been done as far as I know.
Why are we supposed to believe that every Greek ms is a descendant of these three?
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Nevertheless, as there are only a few extant manuscripts which are speculatively thought to have contained the "complete" Bible before the fourth/fifth century CE, let us analyse perhaps the earliest of these manuscripts, the celebrated Codex Vaticanus (c. 350 CE), which is considered by many Biblical scholars to be the single most important manuscript of the Bible. In 1995, P. B. Payne, a teacher of New Testament Greek at the University of Cambridge, wrote a paper on the variants in Codex Vaticanus.[76] In the course of his study he discovered numerous double-dots (named umlauts) and subsequent analysis by him revealed that the umlaut was utilised by the scribe as a text-critical note, indicating that he was aware of the presence of a variant reading; that is, the scribe was making critical decisions as to which text he copied and in doing so provided a very rudimentary textual apparatus. A subsequent study[77] by P. B. Payne and P. Canart, Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Professor of Codicology and Greek Palaeography and President of the International Greek Palaeography Committee, who has spent more than four decades analysing the codex, revealed the full scope of the text-critical notation discovered within Vaticanus: there were approximately 765 dots resembling a dieresis or umlaut and analysis revealed that almost all of these umlauts appeared next to a line that was known to have a textual-variant that differed significantly from other manuscripts of the fourth century CE.[78] A thorough examination of Payne's thesis has been conducted by J. E. Miller,[79]teaching pastor at Trinity Bible Church, Texas, who has also shown, that in all probability, there are in fact over 750 text-critical markers (umlauts) contained within Codex Vaticanus – appearing on almost every page of the New Testament.[80] (snip)
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The relevance of all this seems unclear.
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What does the text-critical notation found in Codex Vaticanus have to do with the nature of canon? Confusing though it may seem, E. J. Epp, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Literature at Case Western Reserve University, while discussing the issue of textual variants and canonicity raises an important point - which manuscript is canonical?
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This appears to initiate an argument that a text is not preserved unless all the mss agree. This is the same point as earlier, and receives the same response; point to an ancient text which passes the test. If none do, then we have no ancient texts. If any do, then the NT does. Either way the statements are meaningless.
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Finally, to raise the question to its highest level and broadest range, what can "canonical" mean when each of our 5,300 Greek New Testament manuscripts and perhaps 9,000 versional manuscripts, as well as every one now lost, was considered authoritative - and therefore canonical - in worship and instruction in one or more of the thousands upon thousands of individual churches when no two manuscripts are exactly alike?
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Whatever is the relevance of this to the question? Insinuated here is a quite irrelevant theological point, asserting that no collection of books can be agreed to hold a shared status unless all copies are identical. To which the obvious response is... "prove it."
(I have snipped further, very verbose and equally irrelevant comment here)
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Thus, based on surviving Greek manuscript evidence, knowing that the conception of the canon was not a dogmatic issue whereby all parts of the text were regarded as equally necessary, the missionaries and apologists are unable to muster even a meagre amount of documentary evidence to support their claim of a widespread "church-wide" accepted canon by the fourth century CE, or indeed throughout any period of Christian history.
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Do we decide whether the church had a canon based on medieval logic chopping? Or do we go to the sources and find out? What do the ancients say? Do they say this? Or do they simply regard these sorts of issues as part of living in an imperfect world.
No doubt someone else can produce some canons of councils listing the books of the bible. There is the
Decretum Gelasianum, now I think of it.
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The Christian apologist J. R. White, ... says "... Certainly we do know what the Bible looked like in 630; we have plenty of manuscript evidence to be able to determine that..." No evidence is proffered.
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We need hardly ask what qualifications this Moslem polemicist has to discuss the history of the bible, after that.
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... let us focus on the primary documentary evidence (i.e., Greek manuscripts) and start with a very simple calculation: as of May 1988, of the more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts extant, only approximately 4% (218 manuscripts) date from before the 7th century CE.[89] One should not seek to attach the appellative "plenty" to a numerical figure of slightly over 4% – it is grossly misleading and entirely inaccurate (similar claims discussed here).
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The author of these words has no knowledge of manuscripts or textual criticism, we see here. As we all know, classical scholars would kill their own mothers for 10 manuscripts - of any classical work - before 650 AD (there are probably this many of Homer; not otherwise). As a rule they must make do with none earlier than the 9th or later. 218 is an extraordinary figure, compared to any other ancient text.
But what is the relevance of this? If we have 218 mss prior to Mohammed, we know what they say. The discussion is over. It would be over with 10 mss. It would be over with one, or even zero, given the citations in patristic literature.
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Let us now tabulate actual combinations of majuscule and minuscule Greek New Testament manuscripts as well as the New Testament papyri ...A quick glance at Lists I & II enables one to categorise the apologist's argument as wholly specious.
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The logic of all this escapes me.
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Epp concludes with the following cautionary note: "We end, then, with a note of caution about claims for a regular and consistent combinations or grouping of writings in manuscripts, especially the earlier ones, for – as noted in the lists above – a vast array of groupings are present." How the apologist was able to decipher with certainty what the Bible looked like in a specific year, namely 630 CE (i.e., 1,375 years ago), and then erroneously claim that there is "plenty of manuscript evidence" in support of this assertion is preposterous;
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To which we respond, "why?" and ask whatever the quotation supposedly from Epp has to do with the issue.
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With respect to the actual combinations of biblical books found in minuscule, majuscule and papyri Greek New Testament manuscripts, we can therefore conclude that the decrees made at various synods and council meetings regarding the extent of the New Testament canon (especially with regard to the twenty-seven book canon) and the practical actualisation of their announcements (i.e., actual manuscripts) seem not to be mechanically related.[96]
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Here we see confusion between the concept of canon and the concept of manuscript contents. We do not establish what the canon is from what is between two boards, although they are related. I doubt Epp would be happy to see his words used to endorse so silly a proposition as the one above.
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any comments on the islamicawareness teams response? how accurate is it?
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It is deeply ignorant. This kind of Moslem polemic relies on the fact that no critical text has ever been made of the Koran, and, in its absence, of extremely positive claims by Moslems who certainly do not know what they claim, that the text of the Koran in every copy ever made is the same. In the absence of the research, no-one alive can know this. But with that background, they feel able to make demands that no text on earth could satisfy. The remedy is to point out the errors but to torpedo the strategy of keeping the text of the Koran off the table.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
01-16-2009, 02:15 PM
the ot and nt available in muhammad's time is the same nt and ot we have today?
