Epistle of Barnabas:

The Epistle of Barnabas was for a time on the fringe of the canon. Clement of Alexandria regarded it as of sufficient importance to write a commentary on it in his Hypotyposes, now lost. Origen calls it 'catholic', a term that he elsewhere applies to 1 Peter and 1 John. It stands after the New Testament in the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible.[31]



Shepherd of Hermas:

The Shepherd of Hermas was used as Scripture by Irenaeus, Tertullian (before his conversion to Montanism), Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, though according to Origen it was not generally read in church. The Muratorian Canon reflects the esteem in which the work was held at the time that list was compiled, but according to the unknown compiler, it might be read but not proclaimed as Scripture in church.[32]

Furthermore, Clement of Alexandria had a very 'open' canon, i.e., he did not mind using the materials of pagans, 'heretics' and other Christian literature.[33] It is worthwhile reminding here that we have already seen different set of books in Ethiopic and Coptic Church.



Church Tradition & Manuscripts

As much as there is a variation is the canons of the Bible as well as in its 'inspiration', it is reflected in the manuscripts too. Below is some material taken from The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Under Text, NT. Interestingly enough, this section starts with The Problem. Many Christian apologists prefer to brush this well-known problem under the carpet as if it does not exist!



THE PROBLEM. The NT is now known, whole or in part, in nearly five thousand Greek MSS alone. Every one of these handwritten copics differ from every other one. In addition to these Greek MSS, the NT has been preserved in more than ten thousand MSS of the early versions and in thousands of quotations of the Church Fathers. These MSS of the versions and quotations of the Church Fathers differ from one another just as widely as do the Greek MSS. Only a fraction of this great mass of material has been fully collated and carefully studied. Until this task is completed, the uncertainty regarding the text of the NT will remain.

It has been estimated that these MSS and quotations differ among themselves between 150,000 and 250,000 times. The actual figure is, perhaps, much higher. A study of 150 Greek MSS of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings. It is true, of course, that the addition of the readings from another 150 MSS of Luke would not add another 30,000 readings to the list. But each MS studied does add substantially to the list of variants. It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.

Many thousands of these different readings are variants in orthography or grammar or style and however effect upon the meaning of the text. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text. It is true that not one of these variant readings affects the substance of Christian dogma. It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally. It may not, e.g., affect the substance of Christian dogma to accept the reading "Jacob the father of Joseph, and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed) the father of Jesus who is called 'Christ'" (Matt. 1:16), as does the Sinaitic Syriac; but it gives rise to a theological problem.

It has been said that the great majority of the variant readings in the text of the NT arose before the books of the NT were canonized and that after those books were canonized, they were very carefully copied because they were scripture. This, however, is far from being the case.

It is true, of course, that many variants arose in the very earliest period. There is no reason to suppose, e.g., that the first person who ever made a copy of the autograph of thc Gospel of Luke did not change his copy to conform to the particular tradition with which he was familiar. But he was under no compulsion to do so. Once the Gospel of Luke had become scripture, however, the picture was changed completely. Then the copyist was under compulsion to change his copy, to correct it. Because it was scripture, it had to be right.[34]

After reading all this, does not the Muslim position of the corruption of the Bible hold water? And of course, again which Bible manuscript is inspired?

Now we all know that none of the variants that are there in the Bible have a chain of narration or isnad. So it is very hard to say which one or ones is the true reading and the other the bogus one. So, futher on we read:

Many thousands of the variants which are found in the MSS of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of careless handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons (even though they may not affect the substance of Christian dogma). It is because the books of the NT are religious books, sacred books, canonical books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading. His interest was not in the "original reading but in the "true reading." This is precisely the attitude toward the NT which prevailed from the earliest times to the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the invention of printing. The thousands of Greek MSS, MSS of the versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers provide the source for our knowledge of the earliest or original text of the NT and of the history of the transmission of that text before the invention of printing.[34]

Now if you do not know what the "original reading" is, then there is no point talking about 'believing' in what is supposed to be the 'original' reading. So, this is the great Christian Church tradition which can not even produce two identical manuscripts! Furthermore on 'original' reading one can say that since there are no original manuscripts, there is not point talking about 'original' reading at all. This search for 'original' reading would be a mere guess work. Indeed the Acts of Apostles has earned the notoriety for the variant readings.

In fact no book of the NT gives evidence of so much verbal variation as does the Acts of Apostles. Besides the text represented in the oldest uncial Greek MSS, begin with the Codex Vaticanus, often called the Neutral Text and dating back to the second century AD, there is evidence either of a consistent alternative text equally old, or of a series of early miscellaneous variants, to which the name Western text is traditionally applied. The ancient authorities of the Western Text of Acts include only one Greek (or rather bilingual Greek and Latin) uncial MS, Codex Bezae of the fifth or sixth century. But the variants often have striking content and strong early support from Latin writers and Latin NT MSS. It now appears that while both the Neutral and Western texts were in circulation, the former is the more likely of the two to represent the original.[35]

Apart from the notorious variation, we also have the problem of which text is the original text. Since we do not know which one is original, the guess work in pressed into service. This is one such example of guess work. And how come guess work leads to truth?

We have already seen that the there is no original document of the Bible available to us to verify its inerrancy doctrine. Concerning the New Testament documents The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible confirms that:

The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and persihable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities.[36]

So, the Qur'an in this aspect is far more better placed than the Bible with all the Qiraa'a associated with it clearly listed with detailed chain of narrations going back to the Companions of the Prophet(P) who in turn learnt the Qur'an from the Prophet(P) himself.



Church Tradition & The Six 'Disputed' Books

As we have seen above that the books of Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude and Revelation had quite a dubious history of the entry into the canon, it is time that we have a cursory glance over their comparatively recent history.

Zwingli, at the Berne disputation of 1528, denied that Revelation was a book of the New Testament.[37]

Martin Luther condemned the Epistle of James as worthless, an 'epistle of straw.' Furthermore, he denigrated Jude, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse (Revelation). He did not omit them from his German Bible, but drew a line in the table of contents, putting them on a lower level than the rest of the New Testament. In Prefaces to each of these books, Luther explains his doubts as to their apostolic as well as canonical authority.[38]

The reformer known as Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt (1480-1541) divided the New Testament into three ranks of differing dignity. On the lowest level are the seven disputed books of James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse (Revelation).[39]

Oecolampadius in 1531 under Wurttemberg Confession declared that while all 27 books should be received, the Apocalypse (Revelation), James, Jude, 2 Peter 2 and 3 John should not be compared to the rest of the books.[40]

Early in his career, Erasmus (d. 1536) doubted that Paul was the author of Hebrews, and James of the epistle bearing the name. He also questioned the authorship of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. The style of Revelation precludes it from being written by the author of the Fourth Gospel.[41]

The same four books are labeled 'Apocrypha' in a Bible from Hamburg in 1596. In Sweden, beginning in 1618, the Gustavus Adolphus Bible labels the four dubious books as 'Apocryphal New Testament.' This arrangement lasted for more than a century.[42]



Conclusions

With all the gory details of the Church history and the Bible are out, with no clear cut indication of the Bible and its 'inspiration', why would any Muslim even bother to read it? And above all why should a Christian missionaries would push such a dubious set of scriptures down the throat of Muslims? And above all why call it injil?

'Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, the well known Companion of the Prophet(P), is reported to have said:

Do not ask the ahl al-kitab about anything (in tafsir), for they cannot guide you and are themselves in error....[43]

If Christianity has got the biographies of the people who transmitted their New Testament or Old Testament as well as their traditions, it would compete with the Islamic science of hadith. Alas, with no isnad, who is going to believe in their Bible and what is in it? And as the illustrious teacher of Imaam Bukhari had said:

"The isnad is part of the religion: had it not been for the isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked."

The lack of isnad and people drawing different Canons of the Bible seem to be the problem of people saying whatever they wished. Any one would claim anything and the Bible canon seems to reflect precisely that.

And look how bogus the missionary argument turned out to be!



A Few Questions

As Muslims we are obliged to ask:

1. Which Bible or the books are inspired? Is it the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Ethiopic, Coptic or the Syriac? Please remember that they contain different number of books. It is just not the "oh! those are different translations".
2. How can we trust the Church tradition when she herself cannot produce a reliable bunch of books worth calling a Bible?
3. Why should we trust the Church which cannot even produce a set of manuscripts throughout the centuries which can be relied on instead of the guess work to find which reading is the original?
4. How do we know that Jesus said what is there in the Bible as there is no way of confirm how his words got transmitted? This is one of the major argument of Islamic traditionalists against the Older scriptures which deal with Israa'iliyat stuff. And they were rejected outright for very obvious reasons.

And if Christian missionaries cannot answer these question, there is no point calling the Bible as a reliable document. Therefore, an unreliable document is worth not calling a 'Scripture'.



References

[1] Suhaib Hasan, An Introduction To The Science Of Hadith, 1995, Darussalam Publishers, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, pp. 11.

[2] Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, 1993, Open Court Publishing, pp.104-105.

[3] W Montgomery Watt, What is Islam?, 1968, Longman, Green and Co. Ltd., pp. 124-125.

[4] Henry Malter, Saadia Gaon: His Life And Works, 1921, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, pp. 39-40.

[5] Alfred Guillaume, The Legacy Of Islam, 1931, Oxford, pp. ix.

[6] Bruce M Metzger & Michael D Coogan (Ed.), Oxford Companion To The Bible, 1993, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, pp. 79 (Under 'Bible').

[7] ibid.

[8] ibid.

[9] ibid.

[10] Bruce M Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, 1997, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 225.

[11] Metzger, Oxford Companion To The Bible, Op.Cit, pp. 79.

[12] Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, Op.Cit, pp. 227-228.

[13] ibid., pp. 219.

[14] ibid., pp. 220.

[15] The Catholic Encyclopedia Online Edition.

[16] Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, Op.Cit, pp. 43.

[17] ibid., pp. 49.

[18] ibid., pp. 49.

[19] ibid., pp. 50.

[20] ibid., pp. 51.

[21] ibid., pp. 55-56.

[22] ibid., pp. 58-59.

[23] ibid., pp. 62-63.

[24] ibid., pp. 67.

[25] ibid., pp. 71-72.

[26] ibid., pp. 72-73.

[27] ibid., pp. 305-315.

[28] The Catholic Encyclopedia Online Edition.

[29] Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, Op.Cit, pp. 187-188.

[30] ibid., pp. 188.

[31] ibid..

[32] ibid..

[33] Ibid. pp.130-135.

[34] George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).

[35] George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1, pp. 41 (Under Acts of the Apostles).

[36] Ibid., pp. 599 (Under Text, NT).

[37] Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, Op.Cit, pp. 273.

[38] Ibid. pp. 243.

[39] Ibid. pp. 241-242.

[40] Ibid. pp. 244.

[41] Ibid. pp. 241.

[42] Ibid. pp. 244-245.

[43] Ahmad von Denffer, 'Ulum al-Qur'an, 1994, The Islamic Foundation, pp. 134.