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Tonight features a follow up debate to Qadiani Nabeel Qureishi’s debate with the erudite, Dr. Shabir Ally, on the topic of Tawhid and the Trinity.
See the Facebook Event’s page here. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube, via this link. At present, I intend to do a live review of the debate as it happens, as I did with the previous debate between Dr. Shabir and Nabeel.
and Allah knows best.
Ravi Zacharias of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries is being called upon by the public to respond to allegations of manufacturing his theological and academic qualifications. Touted as a “Dr” who is alleged to be a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, UK, Ravi Zacharias is facing claims of being a fraudster. Popular YouTuber FriendlyBanjo attempted to verify the academic qualifications of Mr. Zacharias and found them to be absolutely false. In a damning video, showing clear manipulation of academic credentials and falsifying biographical details, the inter-faith community is calling on Mr. Zacharias to tender his resignation, and return monies stolen under false pretenses. Mr. Zacharias is the founder of an international evangelical ministry which attempts to spread the “Gospel” worldwide, specifically targeting Atheists and Muslims. An acclaimed author and international speaker, Mr. Zacharias is now being labeled as an Ergun Caner 2.0, a complete and total fraudster who attempted to pass of honorary degrees as having been academically qualified.
Questions are now also being asked about monies collected under these false pretenses, which are said to have been used in the publication and promotion of the Qadiani Nabeel Qureishi’s latest publication, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus”. Written in a similar style to Ravi Zacharias’s biography, as well as funded and promoted by Ravi’s Ministry, many are now asking if Nabeel’s biography also contains similar embellishments as have now been indicated in his mentor’s manufactured biography. As pictured above, Nabeel closely works with Ravi and is featured heavily in RZIM’s Toronto tour on September 12th of this year. Many faithful believers assumed that Mr. Ravi’s theological and academic qualifications were accurate given his popularity in evangelical circles, today that assumption is causing many to regret donating thousands of dollars to a fraudster on par with internationally condemned Ergun Caner who also falsified academic and theological qualifications, as well as having been accused of manufacturing his biography in exchange for monies, academic positions and paid speaking engagements.
It remains to be seen whether or not these allegations will be clarified by Mr. Ravi Zacharias, or by those profiting from monies donated under false pretenses, such as Nabeel Qureishi. See the shocking video below:
and God knows best.
Question:
When discussing whether Christ was God or a man with Christians, they often explain his “defects” as being due to his human nature. For example, they say if he was hungry, it was due to his human nature, or cursing the fig tree and praying to God, was due to his human nature. What would be your response to this?
Answer:
Assuming that this question refers to interactions with Trinitarian Christians, it is actually a heresy to explain Jesus’s actions exclusively in light of his human nature. In Trinitarianism, Jesus is considered to be both God and man, with his divine nature and his human nature being eternally united, otherwise known as the hypostatic union. In the centuries when the Trinitarian creed was being developed, a popular heresy which existed at that time was to separate these two natures. This was known as Nestorianism. Thus, the Nestorians believed that there were two natures, a divine and human but that they were not joined together in a union.
Trinitarians describe this union as Jesus being one person with two unified natures, sometimes referred to as “fully God and fully man”. Meaning, at all times, he – Christ, was both fully God and fully man. Let’s take the example of Jesus’s crucifixion. If we ask, did the all powerful God suffer, a Christian would say no, as a divine being cannot suffer. Only the human nature suffered. This is the heresy of Nestorianism. They are disuniting the natures, and isolating the human nature from the divine nature. We must remind these Trinitarians of their beliefs, if the human nature suffered, then the divine nature must also have suffered as these natures are eternally united. Modern Trinitarians often use the heresy of Nestorianism when defending the Trinity, without realising it.
Another popular example is Jesus praying. Many Trinitarians would claim that the human nature was praying. This is incorrect, both the divine and the human natures were praying to God, the human nature is eternally united with the divine, at no point can one nature be disunited from the other. When Jesus was hungry, the human nature hungered. This is what Trinitarians claim when we inquire of Jesus’s cursing of the fig tree. Yet, they are once again isolating one of the two natures. We must remind them, both the divine and the human nature hungered, these natures cannot be separated under any circumstances unless one is willing to declare themselves apostates from Trinitarianism and believers in the heresy of Nestorianism. As Dr. James White says in his book, The Forgotten Trinity:
“Instead, the doctrine is misunderstood as well as ignored. It is so misunderstood that a majority of Christians, when asked, give incorrect and at times downright heretical definitions of the Trinity.” – White, James R. (1998-11-01). Forgotten Trinity, The (p. 16). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Interestingly, despite this book claiming to be a defense of the Trinitarian doctrine, Dr. White himself also appeals to the heresy of Nestorianism. In seeking to explain the dual nature of Christ, he says:
“Crucifixion is only meaningful with reference to his human nature (you cannot crucify the divine nature). When Paul speaks of the crucifixion of the Lord of glory, he is speaking of Christ as one person with two natures.” – White, James R. (1998-11-01). Forgotten Trinity, The (p. 160). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In the space of two sentences, a person writing on the very topic of understanding the Trinity, appeals to and accepts Nestorianism. He begins by saying that the crucifixion can only be meaningful in regard to the human nature, yet in the next sentence he states that Paul teaches that the crucifixion is of the person of Christ, the person with two natures. Such a level of confusion and contradiction is rampant throughout Trinitarian teachings. I have previously written about another Trinitarian book that sought to explain the Trinity, which you can read here.
It is interesting that John 14:26 claims that the Spirit would come to explain all things necessary for salvation and to make these things easy to understand, yet all Trinitarians would gladly proclaim that the Trinity is a divine mystery which cannot be understood and that the communication between the two natures (communicatio idiomatum) is a divine mystery. Surely then, the Trinity is not a doctrine of God, and it is something that both Christian scholars and laymen alike, find extreme difficulty in accepting and believing, and it is unfortunate that while they condemn Nestorianism as a heresy, they openly appeal to it in trying to explain Trinitarianism.
and Allah knows best.
Br. Ayaz Ud Din debates a very popular topic with Reverend David Bruno later today in Birmingham (UK). The event is free to attend. It should be recorded and once we do acquire the recording we’ll post it.
and God knows best.
Recently, Jay Smith was approached in Hyde Park by Br. Paul and was questioned regarding a popular polemical claim regarding God’s power. His claim is that the Christian God is so powerful, that this God can become a man. I have explained in detail why this is an ontologically weak argument. He was then asked by Br. Paul, can the Christian God become Satan? Unfortunately, Jay refused to reply.
Surprisingly, Smith’s friend and admirer, Sam Shamoun found Jay’s claim to be quite heretical. Sam publicly denied the claim that the Christian God can and will do anything. In his publicly damning refutation of Jay Smith, Sam used the Bible to prove his point, he said:
For example, the true God in the Holy Bible plainly and emphatically claims that there are certain things that are impossible for him to do due to his holy and immutable nature:
“for the gifts and the calling of God are IRREVOCABLE.” Romans 11:29 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
” in the hope of eternal life that God, who NEVER lies, promised before the ages began—” Titus 1:2 NRSV
“if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he CANNOT deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13 NRSV
“In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the UNCHANGEABLE character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath, so that through two UNCHANGEABLE things, in which it is IMPOSSIBLE that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us. ” Hebrews 6:17-18 NRSV
“No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God CANNOT be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.” James 1:13 NRSV
Sam Shamoun’s refutation of Jay Smith’s heretical teachings about Christ raises an interesting question. If Jay Smith and Sam Shamoun, who have studied for decades about Christianity, and who have worked in polemics for several decades together, can claim that the other is teaching heretical beliefs about God – then who’s the real Christian between them?
Is Sam Shamoun wrong and Jay Smith correct?
Is Jay Smith wrong and Sam Shamoun correct?
Which Christ is the real Christ?
Will the true Christian please stand up?
and God knows best.
You can view this debate for yourself to see Jay Smith’s arguments get pulled apart by Yusuf Ismail. Jay does not only get branded as inconsistent by Yusuf but also as dishonest. I’ve made a few points on this debate below to serve as a review and rebuke of some sort. There’s nothing positive to be said about Jay Smith’s scholarship, that’s for sure. This man seems determined to lead Christians down an unpleasant road.
Listen to Yusuf Ismail’s opening statement, his arguments and his comments towards Jay Smith. If that makes you want to expose your ears to the yapping of Jay Smith then here’s the full debate. Yusuf’s OS is quite lively – definitely will get a few pulses racing so if you’re of a disposition where you really could do without an increased heart beat this one just is not for you. However, read the points below.
The Biblical and Quranic approach to Peace and Violence – Yusuf’s Opening Statement
Jay Smith is disingenuous and inconsistent in this debate. What’s new? This is not new for Jay Smith. It’s this type of inconsistency and disingenuous argumentation that drives away the more thoughtful and astute Christians away from Christian apologists.
Question:
Muslims often claim that the New Testament was corrupted very early on, is there any proof of this?
Answer:
The Qur’an in Surah 2, Ayah 79 mentions that a people from among the People of the Book forged writings and claimed these writings to be from God:
So woe to those who write the “scripture” with their own hands, then say, “This is from Allah,” in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.
In this case, people were forging writings and claiming them to be scripture from God. As per the question being asked, we do have extremely early evidence from Paul (or someone writing in his name), claiming that letters and teachings bearing his name were being falsified by heretics during his lifetime. We read this in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4:
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
Therefore, Muslims are not making this claim without evidence. This is a Biblically based belief, from one of Christianity’s earliest sources. I hope that this answers your question.
and Allah knows best.
Question:
If the command was given to burn unauthorized copies of the Qur’an, why do so many early manuscripts exist?
Answer:
This narration must firstly be taken into its historical context. There were generally two types of writing material being used at that time. Papyrus and Vellum (Parchment). Papyrus is a plant based material, which is very delicate. In other words, it can be difficult to preserve and it is damaged somewhat easily. However, it was cheap to produce and attain. This type of material could not be washed or rubbed so that the writing on it could be changed. To the contrary, parchment (vellum) which is animal skin is very robust and it can be washed over or rubbed to have the writing changed. It is also very expensive and at that time, some may say difficult to procure (acquire). In this context, the command to burn, would have meant to burn what could not be changed, which is why we find a number of manuscripts (made with animal skin) with changes, and why papyrus based manuscripts are extremely rare. Therefore, in terms of the historical context of the writing material of that time period, it would make sense that you burn the cheap, mass produced material which could not be changed and you do not burn the expensive, difficult to acquire writing material which could be changed.
Similarly, we have to take into consideration the fact that this narration presupposes that the command be carried out by those who knew how to read. If the command was absolute, then any person who possessed any type of writing in their household, handed down through family tradition or given in trade, would have to destroy all the writing they possessed. However, this would not make sense. Only a person who knew how to read, and in this case, could read the writing of the Qur’an, would know what to burn. Most people at that time would not be able to read, and so we cannot expect that the command meant that every person, whether literate or illiterate, burn their entire libraries when they did not understand what they were burning in the first place. In this way, many manuscripts would have survived. It is not simply a case of burning everything and anything. These narrations do exist within a historical period and we must understand these narrations in light of their historicity.
If we take for an example, the command of a general on a battlefield who says, “kill everyone!” Does he mean to say that his own soldiers should kill each other and himself? Or, if you’re at a restaurant and order something from the menu, that it means you have ordered for everyone? Statements have to be taken into context and we must be careful about taking them absolutely literally, especially when we do not understand the customs and practises of the time period in which they are said to have taken place within.
and Allah knows best.
Question:
What makes a manuscript authoritative for Christians and Muslims?
Answer:
The question we need to ask ourselves is, what makes a manuscript inherently, or innately authoritative? What is it, what is the criteria we use to determine the authority of a manuscript? Most of the manuscripts that both Christians and Muslims possess, are from unknown scribes. We do not know why they wrote what they wrote, what their level of skills were, for whom they wrote, what their intentions were, what their levels of education were. The only attribute which makes a manuscript authoritative by any criteria of measurement, is that it exists. We cannot assess manuscripts which do not exist, so we are left to examine what remains to this day (extant, still surviving). Does this make the manuscript authoritative though? Naturally, for something to be authoritative, we need to know where it was produced and from whom it was produced. Consider then, the case of a man who goes to a pawn shop to trade a letter he claimed was written to his grandmother by a famous celebrity during her lifetime.
Both the grandmother and the celebrity are dead, and we have very few, if any surviving artifacts from this celebrity. So, how can we validate this letter? We may never be able to do so. The same issues arise with manuscripts. Something’s existence, does not necessitate its authenticity. Many great libraries were sacked and destroyed during the medieval period, with many great codices and manuscripts lost during these tragedies. The fact that something exists, does not mean it is important or authoritative. There are, quite literally, 1001 reasons for any given manuscript to survive to our day. The fact that a particular manuscript happens to survive, does not give it authority. I’ve yet to see anyone, whether a textual critic or otherwise, argue for the authority of unknown documents, based on anything other than the reasoning that they “just happen to exist”. I’m reminded at this point of Lion Vaganay’s, “An Introduction to New Testament textual Criticism,” where he speaks on three false principles that beginners make when giving authority to manuscripts:
Three Defective Principles
In order to choose the correct reading from amongst the different variants, it used to be customary, and indeed it too often still is customary, to appeal to the number, the age and the general character of the witnesses; these are three criteria which, whether taken singly or together, are insufficient to justify a choice of reading.
The Number of Witnesses
A hundred manuscripts which are copies one of another continue but one authority, whereas two independent manuscripts should be reckoned as two. Moreover, even when faced with a real majority, care must be taken not to assume automatically that the majority is right without further examination. All copies do not have the same value. It is the question of the nature of the text which is important, not the quantity of its representatives. Non numerantur sed ponderantur, ‘A fault may be copied as many times as you like, you will never make a correct reading out of it’ (Collomp 1931, p.35). The beginner is naturally inclined to find safety in numbers and needs to be on his guard against this trap. Universal suffrage has no place on textual criticism.
It is, of course, true that the presence of a large number of documents can sometimes be a useful signpost but it can never be adequate on its own for drawing firm conclusions. As will be seen, copies have to be considered as representatives of a group and not as separate witnesses. That immediately weakens any argument based on their number. But there is more to it than that: even when the main manuscript groups agree on a variant, it is still essential to check whether there is not a divergent reading attested by any of the other documents of authority; for it is a simple fact that the original reading may be found in only a few scattered documents while what the majority contain is an early correction.
The Age of the Witnesses
There is no better a guide. A codex of the sixth century may be the copy of a good second century manuscript which has been lost but which was a first-hand copy of the original. A fourth-century codex could be a poor copy of a defective third-century manuscript with a dozen intermediaries separating it from the original. It would therefore be wrong to trust the latter more than the former. Important lessons can be learnt from recent discoveries. For example, there is a reading (1 Peter 2:20) which hitherto was known only from the relatively late uncial (.044) and some miniscules (including 1729, tenth century) and which has now been found in a papyrus (P72) from the beginning of he fourth century, which had previously gone uncontested are now in question. The authority which tends to be attributed to an early codex rests on a foundation which is sometimes deceptive: its nearness to the original. The factors which carry more weight are the number of witnesses, and more especially the quality of the copies made between the original and the manuscript in question. In a word, it is the age of the text and not the age of the manuscript which must be considered, for there are relatively recent manuscripts with a very early text and early manuscripts with a corrupted text.
Of course, the age of a witness is never to be completely overlooked. It would be right to be wary of a variant which does not emerge until the fifteenth or sixteenth century, for example, and to pay more attention to a variant in a papyrus from around AD 200. But, once again, it would be wrong to be hypnotised by the papyri and the uncials. There are miniscules which date from before the uncials. There are even miniscules whose text is better than that of some papyri or uncials. – p. 62.
The process which makes a manuscript authoritative without means of identifying the scribe’s authority is quite a difficult one, and not one underwhich all textual critics agree on, taking information from an unknown source in Islamic scholarship is something which is rejected. In conclusion, something’s existence does not make it authoritative, each manuscript must be judged on its own qualities and both faiths have differing approaches to manuscripts of unknown origin. What works for the New Testament, does not work for the Qur’an, and we should be wary of this difference when we discuss the manuscript histories of either of these works.
and God knows best.
Introduction
Given all the buzz about manuscripts regarding both the scriptures of the Muslims and Christians, I thought it’d be best to write something simple to explain the differences in approach that the Islamic and Christian faiths use when understanding their scriptures. This isn’t meant to be a highly technical article, but by the end of this post you’ll understand why manuscripts are important and to whom they are important.
The main difference in understanding manuscripts in both these faiths can be summed up in one term, “textus receptus vs textus criticus”. Textus receptus refers to the passing of scripture from generation to generation, until present day. Hence the term, “received text”. Textus criticus refers to a reconstructed version of scripture, based on the best manuscript witnesses that are extant (still surviving to our times). Hence the term, “critical text”.
Textus Receptus or Textus Criticus?
Christians today no longer depend on their textus receptus, they opt for textus criticus. In essence, they believe that their scriptural tradition internationally, that their Churches internationally, that for over 2000 years, their collective world of Christendom was unable to accurately preserve the New Testament. We can assign the shift in thinking from textus receptus to textus criticus sometime during the 16th century, when we had Erasmus’s, Cisneros’s and Stephanus’s critical Greek editions of the New Testament. This movement agreed on the principle that the Latin Vulgate, despite being the primary New Testament for centuries, did not accurately represent the “original” readings that the earlier Greek manuscripts contained. Therefore, Christians had to “recover” and “reconstruct” their scripture from the earlier Greek manuscripts, as opposed to relying on the traditional view of depending on the Latin Vulgate which was a translation of some of the Greek, the primary language of the New Testament.
There are however Christians who do disagree with this view that the entire world of Christendom failed to preserve the New Testament, and that the Church tradition did preserve their scripture. This is a minor group known as KJV-Onlyists. It has taken over 500 years for Christendom to propagate the shift from textus receptus to textus criticus. Thus, to modern Christians, manuscripts are extremely important to reconstructing the original words of the New Testament. The problem here is that we have no original manuscripts (autographs) and at best, the critical text of the New Testament today is an approximated “prototype” (vorlage) of the manuscripts, that may have been written in between 200 – 500 CE. In other words, the critical text of the New Testament does not go back to the original manuscripts (autographs) but they can be traced back to a “prototype” from which they may have been copied from at a later date, usually known as an “archetypal text”.
This view of textus criticus is not accepted in Islam. We believe that our scholastic tradition has preserved the Qur’an in its entirety. This is because in Islam, we did not translate the Qur’an from Arabic to English and then only used the English for 1400 years, while forgetting the Arabic and failing to preserve the Arabic Qur’an. We have kept the primary language of the Qur’an alive as well (fusha Arabic), and we’ve kept two separate traditions alive for over 1400 years: Hifz al Qur’an (memorization of the Qur’an) and ‘Ilm al Rasm al Mushaf (the science of the writing of the Qur’an). In essence, Muslims have kept reciting the Qur’an, memorizing it in its entirety, specializing in learning its language, specialized in learning its recital for over 1400 years, to this very day. We’ve also kept the tradition of writing the Qur’an and writing it with the most advanced Arabic styles of calligraphy. These two traditions mean that the Muslims in China are reciting the same Qur’an, in the same way, as the Muslims in the Caribbean, and that they have been doing so for centuries. The fact that Muslims have an entire month each year dedicated to the reciting of the Qur’an, and that we must recite it at a minimum 5 times a day, ensures that the Qur’an is being preserved everyday, all day. The same cannot be said for the New Testament.
This means, that while Christians have great reasons to doubt the preservation of their scripture and have to rely on reconstructing it, us Muslims do not share this problem. We have no reason to doubt our traditions of preservation as we have means to authenticating them. The Christians do not. As mentioned in other articles, we know who our reciters are and where they came from, what their characters were like and what their beliefs were. They are not unknown and we do not take knowledge from unknown persons. Today one would find many Christian scholars trying to search for a “Jesus oral tradition”. They’re trying to find some oral tradition that can link the manuscripts to credible persons who are historically viable to give their manuscripts authority, so that they could validate their reconstructed text. Muslims do not need to find an oral tradition to do so, as ours still exists to this day through our sanad of reciters (Qurra) and memorizers (Huffaz), which must authorize (provide an ijaza) students before they can teach the Qur’an to others. These mechanisms are inherent to the Islamic scriptural tradition, but they are alien to the Christian scriptural tradition.
The Need for Manuscripts
What Christians are doing today, like Jay Smith, Keith Small, Andy Bannister, Samuel Green and Spencer, is trying to get Muslims to reject textus receptus and to create a textus criticus. In essence, they need Muslims to have the same level of doubt about the Qur’an as they do, with the New Testament. Yet, as mentioned previously, our faith’s mechanisms in regard to preserving, teaching and sharing scripture are far more advanced that those of Christianity’s. Thus, when Christians point out that manuscripts have some variants or some differences, they are trying to force Muslims to reject our scriptural tradition. However, we are not in the same position as Christianity. We have no need to reject our scriptural tradition, but Christians do, since their collective world of Christianity was unable to preserve their scriptural tradition as Muslims have. The problem with using manuscripts from unknown authors, from unknown sources is quite obvious. What would happen if Christians found a manuscript of John 1 from the 1st century CE that excluded the Johannine Prologue? By their standards, they would have to give this manuscript authority and remove the prologue from their modern Bibles.
However, Christians are not consistent. They will instead claim that Church tradition has mentioned the prologue as being scripture and thus they will find some excuse to remove authority from that manuscript, despite rejecting their scriptural tradition for the critical method. In other words, Christians seriously doubt the preservation of their scripture and demand that Muslims use their critical methods on the Qur’an, when they themselves do not apply these critical methods consistently. Consider then, the example of the Shepherd of Hermas which is included in our earliest collection of the New Testament from the 4th century CE, Codex Sinaiticus. An entire book is excluded from the modern critical texts because Church tradition did not consider it scripture, yet the critical texts are not supposed to be based on tradition, but on the critical method. If Christians were consistent, they’d have to place the Shepherd of Hermas in their modern day critical edition. Yet, when missionaries see that some obscure manuscript, found in some obscure place may or may not have a different spelling of a word in the Qur’an, they demand that we accept that the Qur’an has changed.
That is strange reasoning. Who wrote this manuscript? We don’t know. What was their level of education? We don’t know. Why did they write it? We don’t know. So, on what basis do we accept an unknowable. unverifiable text, over 1400 years of verifiable, known tradition from chains of historic transmission? There are a hundred and one reasons why a manuscript can contain a variation. The person writing may have been using regional orthography (representation of letters and words) than a standardized style of writing. The scribe may have been using the manuscript to practise writing. The scribe could have been writing while someone was reciting (usually known as an amanuensis) and made an error in haste. The scribe could have been copying the shapes of the letters without knowing what the letters on the manuscript meant, thus if they made an error they would not have known that they changed a word. These are all common reasons that Christian textual critics point out for rejecting the variants found in many New Testament manuscripts.
In other words, Christians themselves reject the notion that all manuscripts are authoritative and for them manuscripts need to be authoritative because their scriptural tradition internationally was unable to preserve their scripture from its earliest days to the present day. This problem is not present in Islam and so we have no need to depend on, unverifiable manuscripts. We don’t need to authorize texts that are historically without authority. Christians have that need, it’s a necessity because their scriptural tradition was insufficient, Islam does not have this problem. So when Christians point out a variant that a scribe may or may not have made in writing the Qur’an, that means nothing to do the Muslim as it is a lone witness, versus a living tradition of witnesses in continuous verification over 1400+ years through daily, monthly and yearly memorization and recitation. However, if there is a variant in a New Testament manuscript, this is a problem for Christianity as not only do they accept that their scriptural tradition needs to be abandoned, they now need to reconstruct what their scripture may or may not have looked like and so they try to attack the Qur’an out of jealousy. While Muslims can be certain about the Qur’an, a Christian simply cannot be certain about anything in the New Testament.
Conclusion
One of the divine signs of Islam is the promise in Qur’an 15:9, which reads:
“Indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur’an and indeed, We will be its guardian.”
From the very start of Islam, the Qur’an was commanded to be recited. It was memorized, taught, recited daily. If God wanted a scripture to be preserved, then the best way to preserve it among humans would have been through continuous and daily recitation. In Islam, we find this with the 5 daily prayers in which the Qur’an must be recited. God included an entire month of the year dedicated to reciting the Qur’an in mass congregation, Ramadhan. God made it compulsory for each community to have a hafiz (memorizer) who needed to know the Qur’an by memory. God made it compulsory for each Muslim to individually carry the responsibility of knowing several chapters (Surahs) of the Qur’an. The God of Islam, it would seem through divine wisdom, knew what was needed for the Qur’an to be preserved among its followers. The same cannot be said about the New Testament or the Graeco-Roman Post-Hasmonaean Jewish Syncretic deity that Christians worship. This deity did not make the New Testament central to the lives of the early Christians. There was no need to memorize what Jesus said and taught, there was no need to recite what God revealed daily, monthly or even yearly. There was no command to preserve the language in which the scripture was given.
There was no need to preserve the New Testament. One must wonder, if there is a God and He wanted us to know Him, wouldn’t He have raised a community of people devoted to the preservation of His scripture? This is what we find in the religion of Islam, but it is not something we can find in the religion of Christianity. Interestingly, this rejection of textus receptus for textus criticus raises a very disturbing problem. If the collective world of Christendom, could not preserve their scripture for over 2000 years and they needed to reconstruct their scripture, what else has their religious tradition failed to preserve? What if their traditional teachings about the Trinity are wrong and need to be recovered. What if their traditional beliefs about Jesus dying for their sins are wrong and need to be recovered? What if…? Islam does not carry with it, such uncertainty, only Christianity can and does. For me, that’s a problem.
and Allah knows best.
Calling Christians 
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