Is the New Testament Preserved in the Writings of the Early Church Fathers?

There's a widespread misconception amongst Christians that, in spite of the relative dearth of early manuscript evidence, the text of the New Testament can be almost completely constructed from quotations found in the writings of the Early Church Fathers (i.e. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Eusebius et al). Indeed, a quick Googling using "new testament quotations writings early church fathers" as key words provides a whole host of sites ([1][2][3][4][5][6]) which make this rather vacuous claim. However, the following article from the Islamic-Awareness.org site makes it patently clear that this is not the case:

Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes),
The Patristic Citations Of The Ante-Nicene Church Fathers
And The Search For Eleven Missing Verses Of The New Testament
by 'Abdullah David & M S M Saifullah

Keep in mind that the authors, seemingly for the sake of brevity, actually tread rather easily on this topic. They explain why in saying this: "It must be noted that it is not our aim to show whether or not Dalrymple was correct in his assessment that a particular verse was cited/alluded by a Church Father. The enormous project of verifying whether a Church Father actually cited/alluded to a verse in the New Testament is still being undertaken today. Modern studies on the issue of Patristic citations of the New Testament, specifically those of the apostolic fathers, will be briefly discussed in the next section."

Indeed, a critical stance in regards to the questions of authenticity which plague the manuscripts of the writings of the Early Church Fathers, documents whose authenticity Sir David Dalrymple seems to have just taken for granted, and whether they themselves suffered pious manipulation over the centuries is certainly called for. Maybe the team at Islamic-Awareness.org will provide us more details on that at a later date...wa Allahu 'alim. As it stands right now, the New Testament does not constitute sound enough evidence to justify one abandoning pure Abrahamic monotheism for un-Semitic and Greek-influenced Trinitarianism...as if even a soundly preserved and authentic text would ever justify that!

Deen on...