The New Testament: Errancy versus Inerrancy

The article "Biblical Inspiration" & Modern Day Textual Criticism, by 'Abdullah David, has recently been updated on the Islamic-Awareness.org website. I'd certainly classify this article as a "Must Read" for anyone interested in comparative religion, the history of the Biblical text or even the Qur'anic view of the Bible (which, as Muslims, we all need to be informed about). This article focuses in on, as Christian authors seldom do, some of the problems facing those trying to authenticate the text of the New Testament. It includes a valuable discussion of the Evangelical Protestant doctrine of "Biblical Inerrancy", which rather ironically admits that the New Testament text in use today contains errors. This is because even though advocates of this precarious doctrine insist that scripture was inerrant when originally written under the influence of inspiration, they also admit "there may be errors in the Scriptures as we now possess them" and that inerrancy is "only for the original autographic text". As "Biblical Inspiration" & Modern Day Textual Criticism demonstrates, since even Christians admit that they don't have the "original autographs", what's the point in insisting that they're infallible? Likewise, where is the proof that the New Testament manuscripts of today are faithfully transmitted representatives of the alleged "original autographs"? These are tough questions, since not only are there wide and significant variations (1, 2, 3, 4) in the early Greek manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament (1, 2, 3), but there's a significant gap of time between the dates of the earliest known manuscripts and the lives of Jesus', 'alayhi as-salam, followers.

'Abdullah David addresses the issue of this problematic time gap, which is rightly referred to as a large "stumbling block", head-on and presents some of the issues that surround "the history of the text before AD 200". Anyone familiar with Evangelical polemical defenses of the New Testament should be aware that they often place considerable emphasis on the sheer number of early Greek New Testament manuscripts in order to shore up their flimsy case. In spite of their efforts, however, they're never able to overcome the significant gap of time between the oldest manuscripts and the time in which Jesus, peace be upon him, and his followers actually lived. Thus not only do they not have the original autographs, but they don't even have anything even closely resembling an authentic chain of transmission back to the original authors (who remain largely anonymous). Unsurprisingly, long before the modern methods of textual criticism, Muslim scholars regularly pointed out that the various books of the New Testament are completely without an authentic riwayah (i.e. chain of transmission), in contrast to the Qur'an and authentic hadith literature, thus they are essentially hearsay and carry no weight as evidence. This is certainly valid criticism, since no one should have to base their salvation on questionably transmitted texts written by anonymous authors. Since Almighty God is a loving and merciful God who wants His creatures to know the truth and have surety of faith, that's simply not the way He works. Even the Evangelicals seemingly recognize this since their scholars have toiled for centuries to close the gap between the so-called "original autographs" and the manuscripts that exist today...but to no avail.

It is of great significance that experts in the field inform us that "the most serious textual corruptions occur in the first century of the text being transmitted", since in regards to the New Testament, the "oldest known archetypes are separated from the autographs by more than a century". As with their claims about the "original autographs", I have to agree with the statement that the "critics of the NT writings have been surprisingly naive in this respect".

In light of all this, I strongly encourage everyone to take the time to do a detailed reading of "Biblical Inspiration" & Modern Day Textual Criticism, by 'Abdullah David.