Izhar – Ul – Haq Part 3

Further Lardner said on page 170 of the same volume:
Irenaeus wrote that matthew wrote his Gospel for the Jews in their language at the time when Paul and Peter were preaching in Rome.

Further he said on page 574 of the same volume:
There are statements of Origen, first written by Eusebius, that Matthew gave the Gospel to the Jews in the Hebrew language; secondly that Matthew wrote his Gospel first for the Hebrews; thirdly that Matthew wrote the Gospel for the Hebrews who were waiting the birth of a man who was promised to the progeny of Abraham and David.

Again he said on page 95 of volume 4 that Eusebius had written that Matthew, after his sermons to the Hebrews who were deciding to go to other communities, wrote his Gospel in their language and gave it to them. And on page 174 of the same volume he says that Cyril said that Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew language.

And on page 187 of the same volume he said:
Epiphanius writes that Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew language.

He is unique in using this language in writing the New Testament.

Further on page 439 he wrote:
Jerome wrote that Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew language for believing Jews in a Jewish land. He did not combine the truth of the Gospel with the law.

Again on page 441 he said:
Jeromenoted in his list of historians that Matthew wrote his Gospel for believing Jews in the Hebrew script in the land of Jews. It is not yet proved that it was translated into Greek, neither is the name of its translator known. Besides, it must be noted that the copy of his Hebrew Gospel which was collected by Pamphilus with great labour is still present in the library of Syria. I obtaineda copy of this Gospel with the help of the assistants in the district of ”Barya”. They also had this version with them.

Further he writes on page 501 of the same volume:
Augustine said that out of the four Evangelists, only Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language while the others wrote theirs in Greek.
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And on page 538 of the same volume he said:
Chrysostom writes that it is said that Matthew wrote his Evangel on the request of believing Jews in the Hebrew language.

And on page 1371 of volume 5 he writes:
isidore said that only Matthew out of the four evangelists wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language while others wrote theirs in Greek.

Horne said in volume 4 of his commentary that:
Bellarmine, Grotius, Causabon, Walton,Tomline, Cue, Hammond, Mill, Harwood, Owen, Calmet, Michaelis, Irenaeus, Origen,Cyril, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome and other ancient and modem writers have followed the view of Papias that this Gospel was written in the Hebrew language.

And by 'other' he refers to Gregory Nazianzen, Abed, The ophylactus,
Euthymius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Augustine and many others who have been named by Watson and Lardner in their books.

D’Oyly and Richard Mant's commentary contains The following:
There was great controversy in the past over the question of the language in which this Gospel was originally written, but many of the ancient writers determined that Matthew had written his Gospel in the Hebrew language and this is therefore now an established point of view.

The compilers of Henry and Scott's commentary said:
The disappearance of the Hebrew version was due to the fact that the Ebionites, who disbelieved the divinity of Christ, made changes in this version. Then after the fall of Jerusalem it disappeared.

Some writers think:
The Nazarenes or the Jewish proselytesaltered the Hebrew Gospels, andthe Ebionites discarded many sentences from it. Eusebius quoted Irenaeus saying that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrewlanguage.

Reussobserved in his Histoire de l’ Evangile:
Anyone who says that Matthew wrote his Gospelin Greek is wrong because Eusebius in his history and many other theologians of Christianity explicitly mentioned that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language, and not in Greek.

Norton has written a voluminous book in which he proved that the Pentateuch is not a genuine book and not the one written by Moses. He acknowledged the Evangel after admitting the presence of many distortions in the Gospels.
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This is why he is not very popular among the Christians. Since he is a Christian and has quoted many of the ancient writers, it is quite in order to quote at least one passage from him.

He writes on page 45 of his book printed in1837 in Boston in a marginal note:
People believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language, because all the ancient writers referring to this subject are all unanimous on this point. I leave aside the writers who are not considered authentic, and Iassert that Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius and Jerome admitted the fact that this Gospel was written in Hebrew. There is none among the ancients who say anything contrary to this.

This is a great witness, indeed, because they, too, were as much prejudiced religiously as the people of modern times. Had there been any room for any doubt in what the ancients said, their opponents led by their prejudices, would have said that the Greek Gospel was the original Gospel and not a translation.

We should not reject this ancient and unanimous witness, especially when it does not deprive us of anything. It is therefore necessary that we maintain the belief that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language. Up to this day I could not find any objection calling for research on this subject.

On the contrary I have found
valuable witnesses among the ancients to the effect that the Hebrew version of this Gospel, be it genuine or distorted, was with the Christians who were of Jewish race.

The above statements unambiguously prove that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the He brew language and in Hebrew script. The ancient writers are unanimous on this point. Their opinion in this matter is final as was acknowledged by D’Oyly and Richard Mant. They also admitted that the Hebrew version was in existence up to the time of Jerome. It is also clear from the above that the name of its translator is not yet known. Horne, in spite of admitting the above opinion, said that it is most probable that Matthew wrote it in two languages, in Hebrew and in Greek. This is unacceptable because he has not produced any authority for his assumption.

The opinion of the ancients is also strengthened by the fact that Matthew was one of the Apostles who was an eye-witness of Christ’s life and a direct listener to him. Now had he been the author of the present Gospel there must have been an indication somewhere in the Gospel that he is relating his won observations. He would have used the first person somewhere in the Gospel for himself as was the practice of the ancients. The Apostles used the first person for themselves which is evident from the letters that are included in the New Testament, indicating that they are written by them.

Have you not seen the writings of Luke. He wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts up to chapter 19, through what he heard from others. He uses the first person when referring to himself. For instance when he accompanies Paul on his journeys and writes those circumstances in chapter 20 he refers to himself in the first person. If anyone refutes this by referring to the Pentateuch and the Gospel of John, we would simply say that these two books are of doubtful authenticity [2] as we have shown in the first part of this book.

The obvious cannot be denied unless there is a strong argument against it. We also understand from the statement of the compilers of Henry and Scott that this Gospel, in the early period of Christianity, was not considered to be authentic. In that period the Christians were in the habit of changing the texts of their sacred books, (as we have seen earlier).
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Now when the original text could not be saved from distortions, how can one believe that a translation whose author is not even known can have remained unchanged?  Faustus, the celebrated scholar of the Manichaeans, said: The Gospel which is ascribed to Matthew is not his writing.

Professor Germain said:
The whole of this Gospel is false. This Gospel was with the Marcionites but the first two chapters were missing from it. They think that these two chapters were added to it later. The Ebionites are of the same opinion. The Unitarian scholarsand Father William have rejected both these chapters.

Omission No. 17
Matthew 2:23 contains:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene.

The words, ”which was spoken by the Prophets” in the above is one of the Famous errors of this Gospel, because it is not found in any of the known books of the Prophets. We would say what the Catholic scholars have said in this matter, that this was present in the books of the Prophets but the Jews, out of their enmity to the Christians, removed all those passages. This is another example of omission; that a certain sect should destroy holy books simply for personal reason.

Manfred, a Catholic scholar, wrote a book called The Questions of the Question printed in London in 1843, in which he said:
The books which contained this description (quoted by Matthew) have been destroyed, because in any of the present books of the Prophets we do not find the statement that Jesus would be called ‘Nazarene.’

Chrysostom said in volume 9 of his book:
Many books of the Prophets have disappeared not because the Jews carelessly lost them, but rather because out of their dishonesty and perversion they burnt these books to ashes. This statement is very near to the truth.
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We must keep in mind what Justin said in his polemic against Trypho:
The Jews excluded many books from the old Testament so that the New Testament would appear not to conform with the Old Testament. This shows that many books have been destroyed.

The above leads us to conclude firstly, that the Jews have destroyed many books of the Prophets and secondly, that it was easy to distort holy texts in the past. We have seen that by their burning these books they completely obliterated their existence. In view of their dishonest attitude towards their holy books it is just possible that they might have changed the texts of their books which they thought could be helpful to the Muslims.

Omission No. 18
Matthew 10:11 contains:
And Josiah begat Jeconiah and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

This shows that Jeconiah and his brothers are the sons of Josiah and that they were born at the time of their exile to Babylon. All the information given here is erroneous.

Firstly because Jeconiah is the son of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, that is, he is the grandson of Josiah and not his son. Secondly Jeconiah had no brothers. His father, however had three brothers. Thirdly because Jeconiah was not born at the time of exile to Babylon, he was eighteen years old at the time of exile.

Adam Clarke said:
Calmethas suggested that the eleventh verse should be read thus: ‘Josiah Begat Jehoiakim and his brethren and Jehoiakim begat Jechoniah about the time they were carried to Babylon.’

The above implies that Calmet has suggested the addition of the name Of Jehoiakim in the verse, in other words this name has been omitted from this verse. Even then the third objection remains unanswered.

We have produced almost a hundred examples of distortions in the form of Alterations additions and omissions in the above three sections. There are many more examples of such distortions in the Bible which we have not produced here to avoid making the present work unnecessarily long. This much is more than enough to prove the presence of distortion in the Bible in all the three forms: alteration, addition, and omission.
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[1] The current English and Urdu translations also contain this word, while the old English version does not have it.

[2] That is if they claim that Moses has not used 6cfirst person for himself

in the Pentateuch, we would say that on the basis of sound arguments we do not acknowledge that the present Torah was written by Moses.

 
Refutation of Misleading Protestant
Statements Regarding the Authenticity of the Bible
First Contention
Observations of Non-Christian Scholars
Observations of Heretical Christian Scholars
Observations of Christians Theologians
Second Contention
The Fourth Answer
Third Contention
Fourth Contention
Historicity of the Bible
The Fifth Contention
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At the beginning of this section we should point out that misleading statements are often made by the Protestant scholars to misguide the general reader with regard to the authenticity of the Christian text. We intend to provide our readers with answers to five out of many such attempts to mislead.

First Contention
Protestant scholars sometimes try to convince people that the claim of distortion in the Bible is made only by the Muslims and that no such claim is made by anyone else. The fact is that the ancient and later writers of both the Jews and the Christians have claimed the presence of distortions in the Bible more frequently than the Muslims. Before producing witnesses to prove our claim we must mention particularly two terms which are frequently used in their books about the history of the holy books. The two words are ‘errata’, and ‘various readings’ (variations in reading).

Horne said on page 325 of vol. 2:
The best difference between ‘errata’, an error of a copier, and ‘various readings’, a variation in the text, is that described by Michaelis who said, ‘When there is difference between two or more descriptions only one of them can be true; the rest will be either deliberate distortion or an error of the copier. It is really difficult to separate right from wrong. If there remains any doubt, it is called variation of the text, and when we are certain that the copier has written it wrong we call it ’errata.’

In short there is no great difference between the two terms. A variation in the text is nothing but distortion according to generally accepted terminology. Now any admission to the presence of such variations would obviously be an admission to the presence of distortion. According to the findings of Mill the number or such variations in the text of the Biblc is thirty thousand, and according to Gricsbach it is one hundred and lifty thousand and according to Sholtz the number of such variations is in numerablc and unknown.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica under the entry, “Scripture”, in vol. 19 includes the statement of Wettstein that the number of such variations in the Bible is one million. With the above in mind, we now proceed to reproduce the opinions of many varied authentic sources regarding this matter.

Observations of Non-Christian Scholars
Celsus was a great pagan scholar of the second century who wrote a book refuting Christianity.

A famous German scholar Eichhorn reproduced the following statement of Celsus:
The Christians have changed their Gospels three or four times to the extent that the contents of the Gospels have become distorted.
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This is clear evidence coming from a non-Christian scholar, confirming the deliberate distortions made in the Gospels. There are people in European countries who do not believe in prophet-hood and divine revelation. If we were to try and collect their statements with regard to the distortions it would require a separate volume. We confine ourselves to the presentation of only two. Anyone curious to know more should refer to their books which are easily available all over the world.

One of their scholars, Parker said:
The Protestants claim that the Old and the New Testaments have been preserved and protected from the slightest damage through an eternal and everlasting miracle, but this claim is not strong enough to stand against the great army of variations present in the Bible. The number of these is not less than thirty thousand.

He seems to have based his remark on Mill’s findings. He avoided other statements which describe this number as being up to one million.

The author of Ecce Homo printed in London in 1813 said in the supplement to his book:
This is the list of the books which are ascribed to Jesus by the ancient
Christians. Some of them are attributed to the Disciples and other follower”:

The Books of Jesus
The books that are ascribed to Jesus are seven in number.
1. The letter that was written to Achars, King of Odessia.
2. .Epistle of Peter and Paul.
3. The book of Parables and Sermons.
4. The Psalms, a collection of his cryptic teachings to the disciples and
followers.
5. The book of Jugglery and Magic.
6. The book of Jesus and Mary.
7. The Epistle that fell from heaven in the 6th century AD.
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The Books of Mary
The books that are ascribed to Mary are eight in number.
1. Her letter to lgnatius.
2. Her letter to Siciliane.
3. The Book of Mary.
4. The biography of Mary and her Sayings.
5. The book of Christ’s miracles.
6. The book of questions put to her by the elders and the young.
7. The book of Solomon’s ring.

The Books of Peter
The books ascribed to Peter are eleven in number.
1. The Gospel of Peter.
2. The Acts of Peter.
3. The Revelation of Peter I.
4. The Revelation of Peter 11.
5. His Epistle to Clement.
6. The discourse of Peter and Epian.
7. The Teaching of Peter.
8. The Sermon of Peter.
9. The Mode of Peter’s Prayer.
10. The book of Peter’s travels.
11. The book of Peter’s inferences.
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The Books of John
The books ascribed to John are nine.
1. 1.The Acts of John.
2. 2.The Gospel of John.
3. The book of John's travels.
4. The sayings of John.
5. His Epistle to Andrew.
6. The book of Mary's death.
7. The story of Christ and his descent from the cross.
8. The Apocryphon of John.
9. The Book of John's prayers.

The Books of Andrew
The books ascribed to Andrew are two.
1. The Gospel of Andrew.
2. The Acts of Andrew.

The Books of Matthew
The books ascribed to Matthew are two.
1. The Gospel of Childhood.
2. The Mode of Matthew’s Prayers.
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The Books of Philip
There are two books ascribed to Philip.
1. The Gospel of Philip.
2. The Acts of Philip.
There is also the Gospel of Bartholomew, ascribed to the Disciple Bartholomew.

The Books of Thomas
The books that are ascribed to Thomas are five.
1. The Gospel of Thomas.
2. The Acts of Thomas.
3. The Gospel of Christ’s childhood.
4. The book of Thomas's travels.
5. The book of Thomas’s revelation.

The Books of James
The books ascribed to James are three.
1. The Gospel of James.
2. The book of James.
3. The book of of James's travels.
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The Books of Matthias
There are three books ascribed to Matthias who is said to have been admitted among the disciples.
1. The Gospel of Matthias.
2. The traditions of Matthias.
3. The acts of Matthias

The Books of Mark
The books that are a scribed to Mark are three.
1. The Gospel of Egyptians.
2. The Prayers of Mark.
3. The Book of Pishan Barhas.

The Books of Barnabas
Barnabas was a disciple of the Apostles, a descendant of Levi. His name
was Joseph, and was called Barnabas because he sold his farm gave the money to the Apostles for preaching. The word signifies ‘son of guidance’.

There are two books ascribed to Barnabas.
1. The Gospel of Barnabas.
2. The Epistle of Barnabas.
The Gospel of The odotion is ascribed to The odotion
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The Books of Paul
The number of books ascribed to Paul, apart from those included in the New Testament, is fifteen.
1. The Acts of Paul.
2. The Acts of Thecla.
3. The Epistle to the Laodiceans.
4. The Third Epistle to the Thessalonians.
5. The Third Epistle to the Corinthians.
6. The Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul and his reply to them.
7. His Epistle to the lonians and their reply to him.
8. The Apocalypse of Paul.
9. The Second Revelation of Paul.
10. The Vision of Paul.
11. The Ascent of Paul.
12. The Gospel of Paul.
13. The Sermon of Paul.
14. The book of Spells of Serpents.
15. The book of Acts of Peter and Paul.

The author of Ecce Homo also said:
When the falsity of the Gospels, the Revelations, and the Epistles is so evident, how can it be ascertained that the genuine books are those which are acknowledged by the Protestants, especially with the fact in mind that even these books also had many alterations and additions before the invention of printing machines. The difficulties are really serious.

Observations of Heretical Christian Scholars
The Christian sect of the Ebionites belongs to the time of Paul and flourished in the first century. The Ebionites strongly opposed Paul and considered him an apostate. Although they acknowledged the Gospel of Matthew they claimed that the present Gospel, attributed to Matthew by the followers of Paul, is quite different from the original Gospel. They also claimed that the first two chapters of the Gospel did not belong to it. According to them these two chapters and many other verses of this Gospel were later additions.
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The famous historian Bell said with regard to these people:
This sect acknowledged only the Pentateuch of the Old Testament and despised the names of David, Solomon, Jeremiah and Hezekiel. They accepted only the Gospel of Matthew from the New Testament but they changed even this Gospel in many places and excluded its first two chapters.

Similarly the Marcionites were one of the ancient sects of Christianity.
They rejected all the books of the Old Testament and denied their being divinely revealed. Likewise they disacknowledged all the books of the New Testament except the Gospel of Luke and the ten epistles of Paul. This gospel, too, was considered by them to he different from the one we know today.

The historian Bell said:
This sect used to reject all the books of the Old Testament and only accepted the Gospel of Luke from the New Testament and even of this Gospel they used to reject the first two chapters. They also accepted the ten epistles of Paul but rejected many parts that they did not like in these letters.

Lardner showed in volume 8 of his commentary with regard to alterations made by this sect that they rejected many parts of the Gospel of Luke. The parts of Luke’s Gospel which were distorted or omitted by this sect are the first two chapters, the event of the Christ’s baptism by John, the genealogy of Jesus in chapter 3, the tempting of Jesus by Satan, his entry into the temple, his reading the book of isaiah in chapter 4, verses 30, 31, 32, 49, 50 and 51 of chapter 11, the words “but the sign of Jonas, the prophet,” verses 6, 8 and 20 of chapter 12, verses 1-6 of chapter 13, verses 11-32 of chapter 15, verses 31. 32 and 33 of chapter 18, verses 28-46 of chapter 19, verses 9-18 of chapter 20, verses 8, 21 and 23 of chapter 21, verses 16, 35, 36, 37, 50, 51 of chapter 22, verse 43 of chapter 23, and verses 26 and 28 from chapter 24. The above details were given by Epiphanius.

Dr. Mill added that they also omitted verses 38 and 39 of chapter 4. In volume 3 of his commentary Lardner quotes, through Augustine, the words of Faustus, a great scholar of the Manichaeans in the fourth century: Faustus says: I totally refute the things that your forefathers have deceitfully added in the New Testament, marring its beauty, because it is an established fact that the New Testament was neither written by Christ nor by his Disciples.

The author is an unknown person, who has attributed his work to the Disciples fearing that people would not accept him as an eye-witness of these accounts. Thus he defamed the Disciples by writing books that are full of errors and contradictions.

It can be said without fear of denial that the above scholar, even though he belongs to a heretical sect, is absolutely correct in his above three claims. We have already reproduced Norton’s opinion regarding the falsity of the Pentateuch and his claim that the present Gospel of Matthew is not in fact the original book written by him, but only a translation which has itself been altered and distorted.
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The above is enough to have an idea of the views of non-Christian scholars and those of Christians who are considered heretics by the majority of other Christians.

Observations of Christian Theologians
We reproduce below the opinions and statements of celebrated and widely trusted scholars and theologians of the Christian world.

Observation No. 1: Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke said on page 369 of vol. 5 of his commentary:
It is customary that the number of the writers on the lives of great men has always been large. The same is true of Jesus and the Apostles; that is to say the number of narrators of their lives is also great but many of the statements they make are erroneous. They used to write fictional events as if they were facts. They also made mistakes, deliberate or accidental, in other descriptions, especially the historians of the land where Luke wrote his Gospel. For this reason the Holy Spirit imparted appropriate knowledge to Luke so that the faithful might know the true accounts.

This gives us to understand that prior to Luke’s Gospel there were many false gospels present replete with errors and mistakes. The above statement is a plain admission of the dishonesty of their authors. His words that they made deliberate or accidental mistakes is enough evidence of this fact.

Observation No. 2: The Apostle Paul
In his Epistle to the Galatians Paul said:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 124[1]
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124[1] Gal.1:5,6.
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The above statement of Paul brings out three important facts, firstly that there was a gospel called the Gospel of Christ in the time of apostles; secondly that there was another gospel that was different and contrary to the Gospel of Christ; and thirdly that there were some people who wanted to distort and change the Gospel of Christ, even in the time of Paul, not to speak of subsequent periods when there was nothing left of this Gospel but its name.

Adam Clarke under his comments on the above verse said in vol. 6 of his commentary:
It is established that many minor gospels had become common in the early centuries of Christianity. The abundance of such false and incorrect accounts led Luke to write his Gospel. We read about more than seventy such gospels. Some parts of these gospels are still in existence and available. Many such gospels were collected and published in three volumes by Fabricius. Some describe the obligatory nature of the laws of Moses, the validity of circumcision and imperativeness of the Gospel.

The above implies that many spurious gospels were present before the compilation of the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s letter to Galatians. It also proves that Paul referred to a properly compiled Gospel and not to the meanings that he had conceived in his mind, as sometimes is contended by the Protestants.

Observation No. 3: The Gospel of Christ
The fact that a gospel called the Gospel of Christ existed in the time of the Apostles is certainly true and was also testified to by Eichhorn and many other German scholars. Similarly scholars like Leclerc, Grabe, Michael, Lessing, Niemeyer and Marsh also agree with this opinion.

Observation No. 4: Another Statement of Paul
In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians Paul said:
But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles deceitful workers, trans-forming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 125[2] The above statement of Paul is a clear admission of the fact that there were many false apostles present in his time.
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125[2]II Cor. 11:12.13.
125[3].I John 4: 1.
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Adam Clarke under his comments of this verse said:
They falsely claimed to be the Apostles of Christ while in fact they were not apostles. They used to deliver sermons and take pains in worship but they aimed at nothing but their personal interests.

We read the following in the First Epistle of John:
Beloved, believes not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 126[3] John too joined Paul in admitting the presence of false prophets in their time.

Adam Clarke made the following comments on this verse:
In the past every teacher used to claim that he received inspiration from the Holy Ghost, because every true prophet received inspiration. The word ’spirit’ at this place signifies the man claiming that he was under the effect of the spirit. Put them therefore to test. Such preachers should be examined with arguments. His phrase ‘many false prophets’ refers to those who were not inspired by the Holy Ghost especially from among the Jews. The above is enough to show that there were many false claimants to prophethood at that time.

Observation No. 5: The Pentateuch
In addition to the five known books of the Pentateuch there are six more books that are similarly attributed to Moses.

These are:
1. The Book of Revelation.
2. The Small Book of Genesis.
3. The Book of Ascension.
4. The Book of Mysteries.
5. The Book of Testaments
6. The Book of Confession.
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125[4] Plato, the famous Greek philosopher and the teacher of Aristotle. His book Democracy and Politics are famous (430 ? 347 BC).
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The second of the above books existed in the fourth century in Hebrew and Jerome and Cedrenus quoted from it in their books Origen said:
Paul copied from this book in his letter to the Galatians 5:6. Its translation existed up to the sixteenth century. The Council of Trent declared it false in that century and it continued to be considered so from that time on.

It is surprising that they can acknowledge a certain book as authentic revelation and then, after using it for centuries, suddenly stop liking it and declare it to be false. The holy books are treated by them just like political decisions, being changed at their whim. The third of the above books was similarly acknowledged by the ancients.

Lardner said on page 521 of the second volume of his commentary: Origen claims that Judah copied verse 9 of his letter from this book.

This book is also considered as false like all other books in the list, but it is strange that passages borrowed from these books and inserted into the present book still continue to be considered as revealed.

Horne said:
It is thought that these false books were forged quite near the beginning of Christianity. This scholar has blamed the people of the first century for this forgery.

Observation No. 6: Mosheim’s Admission
The historian Mosheim said on page 65 in vol. 1 of his History printed in 1832 under his description of the scholars of the second century:
Among the followers of Plato127[4] and Pythagoras 128[5] it was considered not only admissible but also creditable to tell a lie and deceive others in the cause of truth.
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128[5]. Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher known as the father of mathematics.
128[6] Sultan Bayazid of Turkey, son of the famous caliph Mohammad, the conqueror (reigned from 1482 to 1512 AD)-
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As is understood from the ancient books, the first to indulge in this practice were the Jews of Egypt, in the time before Christ. This unholy act was later on borrowed by the Christians, a fact which is clear from the many books that were falsely attributed to great personalities.

We can understand from this why a great number of false books were written and falsely attributed to others in the name of, and in the cause of, truth and religion.

Observation No. 7: Watson and Eusebius
Eusebius said in chapter 18 of the fourth volume of his History:
Justin the Martyr related many of the prophecies of Christ and claimed that the Jews excluded them from the Holy Scriptures.

Watson also said on page 32 vol. 2 of his book:
I have no trace of doubt about the passages that Justin quoted in his polemic against a Jew, that, in the time of Justin and Irenaeus, they were part of the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible, while today they no longer exist. Especially the text that Justin claimed was part of the Book of Jeremiah. Sylbergius in his annotation of Justin, and Dr. Grabe in his annotation of Irenaeus, pointed out that this prophecy was before Peter when he wrote the text of chapter 4 verse 6 of his epistle.

Horne said on page 62 of the fourth volume of his commentary:
Justin proved that Ezra said to the people, ”The Passover is the feast of our Lord, the Saviour. If you keep the Lord superior to the Passover and keep your faith in him, the earth will flourish forever. If you do not hear and do not keep faith in him you will be ridiculed by other nations.”

The above statements are enough to prove that Justin blamed the Jews for excluding many of the prophecies about Jesus from the Holly Books, and that this claim is also supported by other scholars. These prophecies were part of the holy books at the time of Irenaeus and Justin while they are no longer there today. According to Watson the distortion of the holy books is proved because of the additions in the Hebrew and Greek versions.
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128[7] A comparison of Deuteronomy 33:2, in the Urdu version printed in 1958 with any other translation prior to it will sufficiently prove this claim.
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Observation No. 8: Lardner
Lardner observed on page 124 of the fifth volume of his commentary:
At the time when Anastasius reigned in Constantinople he ruled that the Holy Gospels were not correct since their authors were not known so they were corrected a second time.

The above implies that up to the time of the above emperor the authenticity of the Gospels was doubted, otherwise he would not have ordered them to be corrected on the ground that their authors were not known. He believed them to be inspired books and therefore tried to remove the contradictions found in them. This also disproves the claim of the Protestants that no ruler or king of any time ever intruded in to the affairs of the Church.

Observation No. 9
It has been pointed out earlier in this book that Augustine and other ancient Christians used to blame the Jews for distorting the Pentateuch in order to invalidate the Greek translation, because of their enmity towards the Christians. Hales and Kennicott also supported this view. Hales proved the authenticity of the Samaritan version with irrefutable arguments. Kennicott said that the Jews made deliberate alterations to the Pentateuch and opposed the view that the Samaritans changed it.

Observation No. 10
Kennicott proved the authenticity of the Samaritan translation and many scholars have said that his arguments are infallible and correct. They believe that the Jews changed it out of their enmity towards the Samaritans.

Observation No. 11
We have already pointed out earlier that Adam Clarke openly admitted that the historical books of the Old Testament had been changed in many places and that it would be useless to try to find any explanation for the changes.
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Observation No.12
We have shown earlier in this book that Adam CIarke adopted the view that the Jews changed the Hebrew and the Greek texts at chapter 64 verse 2 of the Book of Isaiah and that such distortions are also found at some other places.

Observation No. 13
As we have pointed out earlier Horne admitted that twelve verses in the books of the Old Testament were changed by the Jews.

Observation No. 14
We have shown earlier that the Catholic Church is unanimously agreed on the authenticity of the seven apocryphal books we listed. My also acknowledge the Latin translation as being inspired and genuine.

Protestant theologians, on the other hand, claim that those books have been distorted and should be rejected. They also claim that the Latin translation underwent innumerable alterations and additions and from the fifth to the fifteenth century and that the copiers of this translation took great liberties with it. They in inserted many sentences from one book of the Old Testament into another and included the marginal notes in the main text of the book.

Observation No. 15
As has been already stated, Adam Clarke, following the example of Kennicott, adopted the opinion that in the time of Josephus the Jews intended to “enhance the beauty of the books by including spurious prayers, new episodes and songs”. For example from the Book of Esther, the episode relating to wine, women and truth was added to the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, now known as the First Book or Ezra. The song of the three children was added to the Book of Daniel and there are many more examples.

These alterations, additions and other changes in the sacred books, made in the name of refinement, are enough to show that such changes were not objectionable to the Jews. They made as many changes as they liked as is clear in the light of the statement we quoted in observation No. 6 above which allowed them religiously to make changes in the sacred books for the cause of the truth.
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Observation No. 16
We have already cited the statement of Adam Clarke with regard to the live books of the Pentateuch where he admitted that the majority of Christian scholars think that the Samaritan Version of the Pentateuch is the most correct of all the versions.

Observation No. 17
It has been already shown that the supplement which is found at the end of the book of Job of the Latin translation is false and spurious according to the Protestants, while, in fact, it was written before Christ, was a part of this translation in the time of the Apostles and was held to be genuine by the ancients.

Observation No. 18
We have already quoted the statement of Chrysostom witnessing that the Jews had lost or destroyed many books out of their dishonesty and carelessness and that some of them were destroyed and burnt by them. This view is upheld and acknow-ledged by the Catholics.

Observation No. 19
Horne said in the second volume of his commentary with regard to the Greek translation:
This translation is very old. It was considered authentic and was very popular among the ancient Christians. It was recited in the churches of both groups. The Christian elders, both Latins and Greeks, all copied from this version. Every subsequent translation acknowledged by the Christian Churches, save the Syrian version, has been prepared from this version. For example, the Arabic, the Armenian, the Ethiopian, and the old Italian and Latin translations, which were in vogue before Jerome. And this is the only translation which is taught up to this day in Greek and Eastern Churches.

Further he said:
According to our opinion, this was translated in 285 or 286 BC.
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He also added:
It is an obvious argument, proving the great popularity of this translation, that the authors of the New Testament quoted many sentences from this it. The Christian elders of the past, with the exception of Jerome, had no knowledge of the Hebrew language. In copying the texts, they followed only the people who wrote the books with inspiration. Although they enjoyed the status of great renovators of Christianity they did not know Hebrew which is the basic source of all the sacred books. They put their trust in this translation and acquired deep knowledge of it. The Greek Church held it as a sacred book and had great esteem for it.

Again he said:
This translation continued to be recited in the Greek and Latin churches and was referred to for authenticity. It was also greatly trusted by the Jews and they recited it in their synagogues. Later, when the Christians started to derive their arguments against the Jews from this translation, the Jews commenced their criticism against it and said that it was not in accordance with the Hebrew version and that many verses from this translation had been removed at the beginning of the second century. They adopted Aquila's translation in its place.

As this translation remained in vogue among the Jews up to the end of the first century and was equally used by the Christians, there were many copies of it.

This translation too, was corrupted by the copiers and scribes by the inclusion of marginal notes and explanatory remarks in the main text. Ward, the great scholar of the Catholics, remarked in his book printed in 1841 (page 18): ”The heretics of the East have distorted it.”

The above statement of a great Protestant scholar is enough to confirm that the Jews deliberately changed the Pentateuch and that they distorted it out of their enmity towards the Christian faith, as is admitted by him in his statement.

This leaves no room for denial. The same is admitted by Catholic scholars. This implies that both the Protestants and the Catholics have admitted the presence of deliberate distortion’s in the Pentateuch. Now, in the light of the above admission, we may be allowed to ask what there is to assure us that the Jews might have not changed the Hebrew version which was with them especially when it was not known to the Christian world.

When the above translation, which continued to be in vogue up to the fourth century and was recited in all the Eastern and Western churches, was so daringly changed without fear of censure from other people or punishment from God what was there to stop them from changing the Hebrew version when they had nothing to fear?

It makes no difference if this distortion was made by the Jews out of their animosity to the Christian faith, which is the view of Adam Clarke and Horne, in spite of all his partiality, and which is also acknowledged by Augustine, or due to their enmity towards the Samaritans as was decided by Kennicott, or because of their antagonism towards each other.
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Deliberate manipulation also occurred at the hands of believing Christians simply out of opposition to other Christians who, in their opinion, were not correct. They did it only to spread the “truth”. They had religious permission to modify the sacred texts for religious reasons.

The Witness of a Jewish Scholar Converted to Islam
A Jewish scholar embraced Islam in the period of Sultan Bayazid of Turkey.129[6] He was given the Islamic name Abode’s-Salam. He wrote a booklet named Risalatu’l-Hidayah (The Book of Guidance) repudiating the Jews.

In the third section of this book he said:
The most celebrated of all the commentaries on the Pentateuch (Torah) is the one known as the Talmud, which was written in the period of Ptolemy who reigned sometime after the period of Nebuchadnezzar. This commentary contains the following story. It happened that once Ptolemy asked some Jewish scholars to bring the Pentateuch into his presence. The scholars were frightened, because the king disbelieved in some of its injunctions. Seventy scholars gathered together, and what they did was change those things that he did not believe in. Now when they admit to having done this, how can one trust a single verse of such a book?

In the presence of the statement of the Catholic scholar who said that the heretics of the East changed the translation which was in vogue in the churches of the East and the West and was followed by the Catholic churches up to as late as 1500, as is pointed out by Horne, the Catholics cannot save themselves from the accusation of the Protestants that they, the Catholics, have changed the Latin translation which was in vogue in their Church. Do the Catholics have any way to refute this claim?

Observation No. 20
The Rees Encyclopaedia, under the entry of ‘Bible’ in vol. 4, contains this statement:
Presenting the arguments in favour of those versions of the Old Testament that were written from 1000 to 1400, he said that all the versions written in the seventh and the eighth centuries had been destroyed by the order of the Jewish Council because they were contrary to their own versions. In view of this event Watson also said that the versions which were compiled six hundred years ago are not available and the versions written seven hundred or eight hundred years ago, do not exist al all.
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This admission coming from Dr. Kennicott, the most trusted author in respect of the books of the Old Testament, should be noted. We are quite sure of the fact that the extirpation of the early versions under the orders of the Jewish Council must have happened two years after the appearance of the Holy Prophet Muhammad.

This implies that even at the time of the appearance of the Holy Prophet their sacred books were in a condition, and the environment such, to allow distortions and alterations to be made in them. In fact it was always possible prior to the invention of the printing press. Even after the appearance of printing machines, they made alterations in the text of their books, for we have shown earlier in this chapter that Luther’s translation was changed by his followers. 130[7]

Observation No. 21
Horsley said in his commentary (vol. 3, page 282) in his introduction to the book of Joshua:
It is quite definite and beyond all doubt that the sacred text has been distorted. It is evident from the incompatibilities found in various versions. Only one out of many contradicting statements can be true. It is almost certain that sometimes the worst kind of descriptions have been included in the printed text. I could not find any argument to support the claim that the distortions found in the single book of Joshua exceed the distortions found in all the books of the Old Testament.

He also said on page 275 of the same volume:
It is absolutely true that the copies of the Hebrew version possessed by the people after the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, or even a little before it, were more defective than the ones that appeared after the correction of Ezra.
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Observation No. 22
Watson said on page 283 of volume 3 of his book:
Origen complained about these differences and tried to attribute them to various causes like the negligence of the copiers, and the carelessness and illintention of the scribes.

Observation No. 23
Adam Clarke, in the introduction to the first volume of his commentary, said:
There were innumerable versions of the Latin translation before Jerome some of which contained serious distortions and had passages alarmingly contradictory with each other, as Jerome had been proclaiming.

Observation No. 24
Ward admitted on pages 17 and 18 of his book printed in 1841:
Dr. Humphrey has pointed out on page l78 of his book that the whims of the Jews have so much distorted the books of the Old Testament that it is easily noticed by readers. He added that the predictions concerning Christ were totally eliminated by the Jews.

Observation No. 25
Philip Guadagnolo, a priest, wrote a book named Khaylat in refutation of the book written by Ahmad Sharif son of Zain’ul-‘Abidin Isfahani printed in 1649.

He observed in part 6:
Great distortion is found in the Chaldean version, particularly in the book of Solomon Rabbi Aquila, known as Onqelos, who copied the whole of the Pentateuch. Similarly the Rabbi son of Uziel copied the Book of Joshua, the Book of Judges, the Books of Kings, the Book of Isaiah and those of other Prophets. And Rabbi Joseph, the blind, copied, the Psalms and the Books of Job, Ruth, Esther and Solomon. All these copiers distorted the text of these books. We Christians preserved them, so that the blame for distortion must be laid at the door of the Jews, though we do not believe those false descriptions.
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Observation No. 26
Horne said on page 68 of volume 1 of his book:
We must acknowledge that there are verses Present in the Pentateuch which are later additions.

Further on page 445 of volume 2 he observed:
There is a lesser number of distorted places in the Hebrew version. This number is nine as we have already pointed out.

Observation No. 27
A petition was submitted to King James I complaining that the psalms included in the book of prayer were incompatible with those found in the Hebrew version. They are different from the Hebrew version in having additions, omissions and alterations in not less than two hundred places.

Observation No. 28
Carlyle remarked:
The English translators have distorted the sense, obscured the truth, misguided the ignorant and confused the simple text of the books. They prefer darkness to light and falsehood to the truth.

Observation No. 29
Broughton, one of the members of the Church council, suggested that there should be a new translation. According to him, the current translation was full of errors. He declared before the Church that the famous English translator had distorted the text in as many as eight thousand four hundred and eighty places, that he was responsible for making people convert to other faiths, and that he deserved eternal Punishment in the fires of Hell.

Observations nos. 27, 28 and 29 have been borrowed from Ward’s book which contains many more such statements.
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Observation No. 30: Horne's View Of Biblical Distortion
Horne explained causes for the presence of the various readings found in the books of the Bible in chapter eight of volume 2 of his book.

The First Cause:
He said that there are basically four causes of distortion, which are as follows:
As a result of the copier’s mistake or oversight which includes the following possibilities:
(1) The copier wrote by dictation and at places where he could not understand it properly neglectfully recorded it according to his own understanding.

(2) The similarity of the Hebrew and Greek letters confused the copier and he wrote the one in place of the other.

(3) The copier might have mistaken the signs written above the letters for the letters themselves and included them in the text or misunderstood the text and wrongly made corrections in it.

(4) In the process of writing, the copier realised his error quite late in the process. He did not wish to cancel what he had written and now included what had been omitted without changing what he had already written.

(5) The copier forgot to write something and then, realising what had happened, he included what he had omitted earlier, shifting the passage from one place to another.

(6) The copier overlooked the line he was writing and wrote the next line in its place thus omitting a portion from the text.

(7) The copier misunderstood an abbreviation and elucidated it according to his own understanding.

(8) The main cause of the presence of various readings is the ignorance and carelessness of the copiers who also inserted the marginal notes into the main text through their ignorance.
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The Second Cause
The second cause of the variation in readings was the shortcomings and deficiencies of the original copy from which the copier prepared a new copy. This too, might have occurred in many forms. For instance, the signs of the letters might not have been completely legible and could not therefore be recorded or the letters of one page might have soaked through the page and become imprinted on another page and then have been taken as part of that page.

Sometimes all omitted sentence was written in the margin without any sign and the copier, not knowing where to write it, included it in a wrong place making the text inconsistent.

The Third Cause:
The third cause of various readings of the texts is the correction of certain words based on the assumptions of the copier. This also might have happened in many ways. Sometimes the copier misunderstood the correct text as being defective or grammatically incorrect while it was not wrong being rather the mistake of the author himself. Sometimes the copier not only corrected the text grammatically but also refined its language or omitted words that he thought were not needed or excluded one or more synonyms that, in his opinion, had no distinct meanings to convey.

The most frequent occurrence is of additions in the text caused by mixing the text with the sentences written against them in the margin. This kind of distortion is particularly noted in case of the Gospels and also accounts for the abundance of additions found in the epistles of Paul, so that the passages he borrowed from the Old Testament might accord with the Latin translation. Some people amended the whole New Testament to correspond with the Latin translation.

The Fourth Cause:
Self-indulgence and egotism have been a main cause of these deliberate distortions, no matter whether the one responsible for them belonged to the faithful or to the heretics. No one has been so much reproached and disapprobated as Marcion among the past heretics. It has also been confirmed that some deliberate changes in the text were made by those belonging to the faithful. Later on, these alterations were accepted as preferable either because they supported some commonly believed conception or because they helped remove some objection.
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Horne provided many specific examples of all the above four causes which we leave to avoid prolongation. Some examples of the distortions made by the faithful, however, will be of interest and we include some of them here.

(1) Luke chapter 22 verse 43 131[8] was deliberately omitted, as the faithful thought it to be against Christ’s divinity to be strengthened by an angel.

(2) The words “before they came together” have been omitted from Matthew 1:18, 132[9] and the words, “her first born son” 133[10] have been excluded from chapter 1 verse 25 of the same Gospel, in order to remove any possible doubt about the Virginity of Mary.

(3) The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15 verse 5 contained the word ‘twelve’ 134[11] which was changed to ‘eleven’ to free Paul from the accusation of having made a false statement, as Judas Iscariot had died before it.

(4) Some words have been omitted from the Gospel of Mark chapter 13 verse 32.135[12] Some priests also rejected them as they thought they supported Arian thought.

(5) Some words have been added to Luke 1:35 in its Syrian, Greek and Ethiopian translations. 136[13] Words have also been added in 131[8] This verse contains the event of Christ’s visit to the Mount of Olives the night before his crucifixion where he is described! as having been strengthened by angel. the copies of many priests in order to refute the Eutychian sect who denied the deistic nature of Christ.
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132[9] This verse contains: “As his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” (Matt. 1:18)
133[10] “And knew her not till she had brought forth her first born son.” (Matt. 1:25). These words still exist in the King James Version.
134[11]. This has been discussed in detail under the error No. 97. The word twelve still exists in the King James version.
134[12] 1t contains, “But of that day and that how knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the father.” (Mark, 13:32). This verse refutes the doctrine of trinity which was also rejected by the Arians.
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In short, Horne specified the presence of all the possible forms of distortions in the texts of the sacred books. The above specific examples prove the fact that the texts of the biblical books have been changed through additions, omissions and deliberate alterations by the faithful as well as by heretics.

Similarly we may not be wrong if we claim that Christians, who were deeply committed to the trinity and not willing to ignore it for their interest, might have changed some passages after the appearance of Islam simply because they were in accordance with Islamic teachings as they had done before against different sects of Christianity.

Second Contention
The Witness of Christ and his Apostles
Another subterfuge frequently employed by the Christians in their attempt to uphold their claim of unsullied Divine Revelation for the Bible is their claim that Christ testified to the truth of the books of the Old Testament and, if they had truly been distorted by the Jews, Christ would have blamed them for it.

The First Answer
As an answer to this misconception we may be allowed first to point out that the authenticity of the Old and the New Testament has never been proved through a constant chain of reliable reporters, a fact which we discussed earlier in this book in sufficient detail. Therefore all these books, in our opinion, are dubious and uncertain and thus any quotation from these books is not acceptable unless it can be proved through undeniable sources that a particular statement really was made by Christ because it is always possible that the verse in question may be a later addition added by the ‘faithful’ at the end of the second century or in the third century in order to refute the Ebionites, Marcionites or the Manichaeans.
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136[13] It contains, ”And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow the; therefore also that Holy thing that will be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). As this verse also speaks against the doctrine of trinity, it might have been change for this reason.
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Or these additions might have been included later on because they supported some commonly held belief. These sects had rejected all, or at least most, of the books of the Old Testament as we showed when mentioning the Marcionites earlier.

Bell stated in his history with regard to the belief of the Marcionites:
This sect believed in the existence of two gods, one, the creator of good, and the other, the creator of evil. They believed that the books of the Old Testament were given by the God of evil. They all disbelieve the New Testament.

Lardner said in this regard on page 486 of vol. 8 of his commentary:
This sect claims that the God of the Jews is not the father of Jesus, and that Jesus was sent to abolish the law of Moses, since it was against the Evangel.

He also said in vol. 3 of his commentary with regard to the Manichaeans:
The historians are in complete agreement that the Manichaeans never believed in the books of the Old Testament. It is written in the Acts of Archelaus that it was their belief that Satan deceived the Prophets of the Jews. It was Satan that spoke with them in the name of God. They derived their argument for this belief from John. 10:8 where Christ says, “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers.”

The Second Answer:
Even if we put aside the question of its being an addition, the claim does not prove the truth of all the books, because the statement docs not specify the number and names of the books of the Old Testament. In this case there is no way to ascertain that the books which were in vogue among the Jews were thirty nine in number, as is acknowledged by the Protestants of our time or forty-six as is acknowledged by the Catholics and in any case these books include the Book of Daniel which was not acknowledged as authentic by the Jews contemporary with Christ.

They do not even accept Daniel as a Prophet, except Josephus, the historian, who said in his book:
We do not have thousands of books containing contradictory material, we have only twenty-two which talk of past events and are considered by us as inspiration. The first five of these are the books of Moses which describe the events from the beginning of the creation to the death of Moses and there are thirteen other books that were written by other Prophets, describing the period after the death of Moses to the time of Ardashir. The remaining four books consist of prayers and eulogies.
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The above witness does not in any way prove the truth of the current books. According to Josephus the total number of books is seventeen excluding the five books of the Pentateuch, while according to the Protestants there are thirty-four books and the Catholics believe that there are forty-one books other than the Pentateuch. No one knows which of the books were included in the seventeen books, because this historian ascribed two more books to Ezekiel other than his famous book. It seems quite logical to believe that these two books, which are now extinct, were included in the seventeen books in his time.

Apart from this, it has been already shown that Chrysostom and other Catholic scholars admitted that the Jews had destroyed many sacred books, some being tom up and other burnt, out of their perversion, The books of the Old Testament that we are going to enumerate are the part of the Old Testament which cannot be denied by any of the Catholic and the Protestant scholar in view of the arguments that follow. It is therefore possible that some of these books might have been included in the seventeen books referred to by Josephus.

The Missing Books of the Old Testament.
The following books, which we find mentioned in the books of the present Old Testament, have disappeared from it:
(1) The Book of the Wars of the Lord:
This book is mentioned in Numbers 21:14 and has been discussed by us earlier in this book. Henry and Scott’s commentary has this statement:
Presumably this book was written by Moses for the guidance of Joshua and described the demarcation of the land of Moab. 137[1]

(2) The Book of Jasher:
This book is mentioned in Joshua 10:13. We have discussed it earlier. It is also mentioned in II Samuel, 1:18.
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137[1]. This land was to the East of the Dead Sea.
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(3-5) There were three books of the Prophet Solomon, the first contained one thousand and five Psalms, the second described the history of the creation, and the third consisted of three thousand Proverbs. We find this last book mentioned in I Kings, 138[2] Some of these Proverbs are still in existence.

Adam Clarke under his comments on I Kings 4:32 said:
The Proverbs currently attributed to Solomon, are nine hundred or nine hundred and twenty-three, and if we accept the claim of some scholars that the first nine chapters of the book are not from Solomon the number is reduced to only about six hundred and fifty. Psalm 127 in which the name of Solomon appears is not from Solomon, it being rightly claimed by some scholars that it was written by the Prophet David for the guidance of his son, Solomon.

He further said with regard to the history of creation:
Scholars are very much aggrieved at the disappea-rance of the history of the world’s creation.

(1) The Book of the Manner of the Kingdom:
This was written by Samuel as mentioned in I Samuel 10:25:
Then Samuel told the People the manner of the Kingdom, and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord.

(7) The History of Samuel the Seer.

(8) The History of the Prophet Nathan.

(9) The Book of Gad the Seer.

All the above three books are mentioned in I Chroni-cles. 139[3]
Adam Clarke remarked on page 1522 of Vol. 2 of his book that these books were extinct.

(10) The Book of Shemaiah, the Prophet

(11) The Book of Iddo, the Seer:
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138[2] “And he spoke three thousand Proverbs.” I Kings 4:32
139[3] “They are written in the book of Samuel the Seer, and in the book of Nathan Prophet, and in the book of Gad the Seer.” I Chronicles 29:29.
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Both the above books are mentioned in ll Chronicles 12:15.140[4]
(12) The prophecy of Ahijah.

(13) The Visions of Iddo the Seer.
These two books are mentioned in II Chronicles 9:29.141[5] The book of Nathan and Iddo are also mentioned in this verse.

Adam Clarke said on page 1539 of vol. 2 of his book:
All these books have become non-existent.

(14) The Book of Jehu the son of Hanani
This is mentioned in II Chronicles 20:34.142[6] Adam Clarke said on page 561 of vol. 2 of his book:
This book has been completely lost, though it existed in the time of compilation of the Second Book of Kings.

(15) The Book of Isaiah the Prophet
This book consisted of complete accounts of Uzziah. It is mentioned in ll Chronicles 26:22.143[7]

(16) The Book of Visions of Isaiah:
This contained complete accounts of Hezekiah and is mentioned in II Chronicles 32:32.144[8]
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140[4] “Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer.”
141[5] “The acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the Seer.” (II Chr. 9:29)
142[6] “Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Jehu the son of Hanani, who is mentioned in the book of the Kings of Israel.” This also implies that the book of Jehu was included in the book of Kings.
143[7] ”The rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz, write.”
144[8] “The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold, they are written to the vision of Isaiah the Prophet.”
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(17) The Lamentation of Jeremiah:
This consisted of Jeremiah’s lamentation for Josiah that is described in II Chronicles 35:25. 145[9]

(18) The Book of Chronicles:
This is mentioned in Nehemiah 12: 23.146[10] Adam Clarke said on page 1676 of volume 2 of his book:
This book is not included in the present books. This is another book which does not exist today.

(19) The Book of Covenant of Moses:
We find it mentioned in Exodus 24:7. 147[11]

(20) The Book of the Acts of Solomon:
The mention of this book appears in I Kings, 11:14. We already know that Josephus ascribed two more books to Ezekiel in addition to his famous book. Josephus is a trusted name among the Christians.

This takes the total number of the missing books to twenty-two. The Protestants have no way of refuting the existence of these books. Thomas Inglis said in his book in Urdu entitled, Mira’atus Sidk (The Mirror of the Truth) printed in 1856.

There is unanimous agreement on the fact that the number of the books that have been lost or have disappe-ared from the sacred books is not less than twenty. 148[12]
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145[9] “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah .... behold they are written in the
Lamentations.”
146[10] “The son of Levi, the chief of the fathers were written in the book of
Chronicles.”
147[11] “And he took the book of covenant and read in the audience.”
148[12] We may be allowed to add here that a number of prophecies recorded by the evangelists have been mentioned in Islamic literature and are not found in the present books. It is fair to assume that they might have been in some of the missing books listed above. It is not certain that the five books of Moses described by Josephus were the same books as the present Pentateuch. There are indications that they were not in fact the same.
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The Third Answer
As a third answer to the false Christian claim regarding the witness of Christ and his Apostles for the truth of the sacred books, we may point out that; even if we acknowledge the presence of the current books during the lifetime of Christ and that Christ did indeed witness to the truth of these books, this only confirms the existence of these books at that time, without confirming the truth of their attribution to their authors and without verifying the truth of each and every passage contained by them. Even if Christ and his Apostles did report something from these books it would not necessarily signify their absolute truth.

However, in the case of Jesus, it would clearly have shown that a particular injunction of those books was from God, given that his statement could be proved to be really his through an unbroken chain of reporters. This is not a contention posited only by the Muslims, for the Protestants also have adopted this opinion.

Paley, the great scholar of the Protestants observed in chapter 3 of his book printed in London in 1850:
There is no doubt that our Saviour confirmed that the Pentateuch was the Book of God. It is improbable that its origin and existence could be without God.

Especially because the Jews, who were expert in religious matters and beginners in other matters like war and peace, did firmly adhere to monotheism. Their concept of God and His attributes is remarkable compared to other peoples who were committed to innumerable Gods. It is also certain that our Saviour acknowledged the prophethood of the most of the copiers of the Old Testament.

It is the duty of all us Christians to observe these limits:
The claim that each and every verse of the Old Testament is true and inspired, and that there is no need for investigation of their authors, invites unnecessary difficulties and trouble. These books were commonly read by the Jews of the time of our Saviour. They were believed in and acted upon by them, and the Apostles used to turn to them for guidance. This attitude of the Jews allows us to reach only one conclusion that the truth and divinity of a prophetic statement is confirmed only when Christ specifically witnessed to its being from God. Otherwise it only proves that these books were commonly acknowledged in that period.
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In this case our sacred books would be the best witness for the Jewish Scriptures. It is, however, necessary to understand the nature of this witness.

Its nature is different from what I have sometimes described. Every incident has a particular common cause and nature which provides strength for its proof, even if it apparently looks to be different but, in fact, comes out to be the same when all aspects are closely viewed. For example James said in his epistle. 149[13]

Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.

We know that the truth of the book of Job has been a matter of great controversy among Christian scholars. This witness of James confirms only the fact that this book was present and acknowledged by the Jews. Similarly Paul said in his second epistle to Timothy: 150[14]

Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so these also resist the truth.

These two names are not found in the Old Testament and we do not know if Paul reported them from one of the apocryphal books or knew of them through tradition. Had this event been written Paul would have reported it from the text and would have not made himself the pivot of the truth of this event, to the extent that the truth of his letter became dependent on the question of whether Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses or not.

The object of my contention is not to show that there is no testimony superior to that of Jannes and Jambres or Job regarding the history of the Jews. I see this matter from another perspective. What I mean is, that a particular verse of the Old Testament being recorded by the evangelists does not prove it to be so true as to distrust the arguments coming from external sources.
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149[13] James 5:11.
150[14]II Tim. 3:8.
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It is not correct to take it as a principle that every word of Jewish history is true. This would makes all their books unreliable. I must stress this point because Walter and his disciples used to take shelter in the Jewish writings and then raised objections against Christianity. Some of their objections are based on the fact that they misinterpreted the meanings of the texts, while some of their objections are simply founded on exaggeration.

But the main cause of their objections is the misconception that any witness of Christ and the ancient teachers confirming the prophethood of Moses and other Prophets is a witness to the truth of each and every verse of the Old Testament, and that it is obligatory for the Christians to support everything written in the Old Testament.

Varied Opinions on the Truth of Some Books of the Bible
The Book of Job
The above statement clearly confirms our previous claims. Paley’s remark that there is great controversy among the Christian scholars with regard to the authenticity of the book of Job, is, in fact, a reference to a great dispute among the scholars in this regard. Jewish scholars such as Semler, Michaelis, Leclerc and Stock said Job was a pseudonym and that such a man never really existed and that his book is nothing but a collection of false and unreal stories. On the other hand Calmet and Vantil claimed that Job was a real person who lived at that time. Those who recognise him as a real person place him in various historical periods.

There are seven different opinions:
(1) Some scholars claim that he was a contemporary of the Prophet Moses.

(2) Some others put him in the period of Judges 151[15] after the death of Joshua.

(3) Some People argue that he lived in the time of Ahasuerus or Ardashir, the Kings of Persia.
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151[15] The period of Judges.
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(4) Another opinion puts him in the period prior to the visit of Abraham to Canaan.

(5) Some hold him to have lived at the time of Jacob.

(6) Others claim him to have been a contemporary of Solomon.

(7) Some scholars said that he lived in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar.

Horne said that all these opinions showed weakness.

Similarly there are differing opinions concerning Job’s place of birth, “Ghota”. 152[16] There are three opinions, with regard to the geographical location of this place. Burckhardt, Spanheim, Calmet and others believe that it was a place in the Arabian peninsula. Michaelis and Ilgen 153[17] place it near Damascus. Lowth, Magee, Hales and Chodac said “Ghota” was the second name of Adom.

The same differences exist with regard to the author. There are varied opinions about him. He was a Jew; he was Job; he was Solomon; he was Isaiah; or he was an unknown person who was a contemporary of King Mansar.

According to some ancient writers the book was written by Moses in the Hebrew language. Origen claims that it was translated from Syrian to Greek. Similar disagreement is found about the last portion of the book. We discussed this earlier.

All this is sufficient proof that their claim for the authenticity of their books is not based on reports from authentic sources. They can nowhere show as equence of reporters going back to the author of even a single verse of their books. Most of their claims are founded simply on surmises and false deductions.

Theodore, the fifth century priest, condemned this book. Ward, on the other hand, reported the following remark of Luther, the founding leader of the Protestant faith who said: This book is merely a fable.

In view of the above statements this book cannot be considered as inspired.
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152[16] The word appears in the early Arabic Version as ‘Ghota’, while in the
New Arabic version it is ‘Aus’ while in the Urdu Version it is ‘Uz’ (which is in
accordance with the King James Version.)
153[17] Ilgen, a famous scholar of the eighteenth century.
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The Book of Esther
We have shown that the book of Esther remained rejected and disapproved of until the year 354. Even the name of its author is not definitely known. Melito and Athanasius also disapproved of it, while Amphilochius expressed suspicions about its authenticity.

The Song of Solomon
The condition of the Song of Solomon is no different to that of the Book of Job. Theodore, the priest, equally condemned and rejected this book while Simon and Leclerc have denied its authenticity. Wettstein and other later writers said that it was a vile song and should therefore be discarded from the sacred books. Semler said that there is a definite indication that this book is a fiction.

Ward quoted Castellio suggesting that its exclusion from the sacred books is necessary.

If the witness of Christ and his Apostles implied proof of the authenticity of each and every part of the Old Testament, the above serious differences would not have existed among ancient and modern writers. In view of the above, Pale's statement produced above is the most factual and final.

Besides, we have already pointed out that Judaeo-Christian scholars are agreed on the fact that Ezra made mistakes in the First Book of Chronicles, and this book, too, is one of those for which Christ, in their opinion, gave witness. So even if they reject the findings of Paley what can they say about these mistakes of Ezra?
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154[1]. This land was to the East of the Dead Sea.
155[2] “And he spoke three thousand Proverbs.” I Kings 4:32
156[3] “They are written in the book of Samuel the Seer, and in the book of Nathan Prophet, and in the book of Gad the Seer.” I Chronicles 29:29.
157[4] “Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer.”
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158[5] “The acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the Seer.” (II Chr. 9:29)
159[6] “Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Jehu the son of Hanani, who is mentioned in the book of the Kings of Israel.” This also implies that the book of Jehu was included in the book of Kings.
160[7] ”The rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz, write.”
161[8] “The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold, they are written to the vision of Isaiah the Prophet.”
162[9] “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah .... behold they are written in the Lamentations.”
163[10] “The son of Levi, the chief of the fathers were written in the book of Chronicles.”
164[11] “And he took the book of covenant and read in the audience.”
165[12] We may be allowed to add here that a number of prophecies recorded by the evangelists have been mentioned in Islamic literature and are not found in the present books. It is fair to assume that they might have been in some of the missing books listed above. It is not certain that the five books of Moses described by Josephus were the same books as the present
Pentateuch. There are indications that they were not in fact the same.
166[13] James 5:11.
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167[14]II Tim. 3:8.
168[15] The period of Judges.
169[16] The word appears in the early Arabic Version as ‘Ghota’, while in the New Arabic version it is ‘Aus’ while in the Urdu Version it is ‘Uz’ (which is in accordance with the King James Version.)
170[17] Ilgen, a famous scholar of the eighteenth century.

The Fourth Answer
If we assume for a moment that the testimony of Christ and his Apostles was enough to prove the authenticity of each and every part of these books, it does not make any difference for, as we have already proved, these books were changed and distorted after the time of the Christ and his Apostles. Among the ancient Christians, Justin, Augustine and Chrysostom held the same opinion and all the Catholic and the Protestant scholars like Sylbergius, Grabe, Whitaker, Leclerc and Watson clearly admitted that these books were changed by the Jews after the time of the Apostles.

All this has been sufficiently proved in earlier pages of this book. The question is whether the distorted versions of these texts, to which they admitted, were present at the time of Christ and his Apostles or not? The fact is that their authenticity in both cases remains unproved and doubtful and this is what we claim to have demonstrated.

As for their argument that Christ would have accused the Jews for inserting distortions in the texts had they been involved in it, we must remind them that the ancient Christians, themselves, used to change the texts of the sacred books, and we may add that many of the present distortions were made in their own period and the Apostles used to blame them in vain for it.

Apart from this historical evidence, it was not, at all, necessary for Christ to accuse them, as we have seen earlier that Christ and his Apostles blamed neither Samaritans nor the Jews for making distortions in their versions. What we mean to say is, that the Hebrew and Samaritan versions are so seriously different from each other that one of them must be distorted. Had it been necessary for Christ to distribute blame, he must have blamed one or the other of the two groups.
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This difference between the two versions has been a point of controversy among the groups of scholars. Dr. Kennicott and his followers favour the Samaritans while most Protestants support the Jews.

We do not find any evidence that Christ or his Apostles have ever cast blame on either group. Christ did not say anything in this regard even when a Samaritan woman asked a question specifically about this matter. He remained silent on this occasion. His silence provides support, if not proof, for the Samaritan version. Dr. Kennicott based his argument on Christ’s silence and favoured the Samaritan version.

Third Contention
It is often contended that the Jews and the Christians were as truthful and honest as the Muslims claim to be. Being honest they cannot be accused of having distorted their text. The imbecility of this contention must be quite evident to the readers in the presence of what they have so far read in earlier pages, with regard to admissions made by ancient and modem writers to the effect that the sacred books have certainly been changed. Especially when they are religiously allowed to alter and change certain passages in the name of propagating the truth.

Fourth Contention
In order to remove the blame of distortion from their books they often claim that “the copies and versions of the sacred books were so such circulated in both the East and the West that it was as impossible to change them.” This contention also is as laughable as the third one. Because, in the presence of unambiguous admissions of distortions by the Judaeo-Christian scholars, this contention is of no help to them.

The Judaeo-Christian books can never be compared to the Holy Qur`an as far as their history and authenticity is concerned. This is because the biblical books were in such a state before the invention of printing that they could easily be tampered with. Their popularity was not to the extent that could prevent distortion. We have already seen how the heretics of the East and the Jews manipulated the text of the Latin translation which was the best known in both the East and the West.

Admissions of both Catholics and Protestants to this effect have already been cited. On other hand, the Holy Qur’an, right from the time of its revelation, has been known to, and acted upon by, thousands of people in every age. In addition to its preservation in book form it has been kept preserved in the hearts of thousands of people throughout the ages.
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The Holy Qur'an was not, even for a single day, in a state that any change in it would physically have been possible, the preservation of the whole of the Holy Qur'an by memorising it is still practiced throughout the Islamic world. There are always thousands of people present in Qur’anic schools who have memorised all of the Holy Qur’an along with its complete intonations as practiced by the Holy Prophet himself. Anyone can verify this fact for himself. For example, there are one thousand ‘Huffaz’ 171[1] present in the university of al-Azhar in Cairo alone. There is no village and town in Egypt where Huffaz are not found.

There is, however, no tradition of memorising the sacred books in the Judaeo-Christian world. There are only rare examples of this practice. The Christian population of the world is larger than the Muslim population and they are financially in a better position but in spite of this we have never heard of any hafiz of the Old or the New Testament.

There is only the Prophet Ezra who was supposed to have memorised the Pentateuch. It is the miracle of the Holy Qur’an that even today there are many hundred thousand people who treasure the Holy Qur’an in their hearts. This ever-living miracle of the Holy Qur'an can be seen anywhere in the Islamic world.

As proof of this there is an account of an English officer who visited a Qur’anic School in Saharanpur in India and saw the children busy learning the Holy Qur'an by heart. The officer asked the teacher what book it was.

Discovering that it was the Holy Qur’an, he asked how many of those children had memorised the Holy Qur'an completely. The teacher pointed to a few of them. The officer asked one of them to come forward and held the Holy Qur'an himself and asked him to recite from various places.

The student recited the portions exactly as was written with all its intonations. He was very astonished at this and remarked that he was witness to the fact that no other book of the world could claim the status of being as original and authentic as the Holy Qur’an for a child of twelve or thirteen year of age was able to write it down without making a mistake.
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171[1] Huffaz, sing. Hafiz, someone who has memorised the Holy Qur’an completely with all its intonations. Such people conduct the prayer of Tarawih in the month of Ramadan and recite the whole of the Holy Qur’an by heart in the 29 days of the month. There are at present more than a hundred thousand Huffaz in the sub continent of 1ndia and Pakistan alone.
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Historicity of the Bible
History has recorded a vast quantity of indisputable evidence to show that none of the original revelations except the Holy Qur'an have not been able to save themselves from the cruel hands of political turmoil. We would like to produce some historical evidence to prove this claim:

First Evidence:
The Prophet Moses handed over the Torah (the Pentateuch) to the scholars and chiefs of the Israelites during his lifetime and commanded them to keep it safe in the Ark of the Covenant 172[1] It used to be taken out of the ark every seven year at the time of the Passover. The Torah was kept safe in the ark for some time and the people acted upon it in the first century after Moses, but subsequently they changed its injunctions. Committing apostasy and subsequently returning to Judaism was their usual practice. 173[2]

This state of affairs remained unchanged up to the reign of the Prophet David. In his time there was some improvement in their attitude which lasted up to the beginning of Solomon’s period. 174[3] During the subsequent historical calamities and great turmoil the Pentateuch was lost The time of its disappearance is not known with certainty. When the Prophet Solomon opened the ark, he found only two stone tablets in it. These two tablets of stone contained only the Ten Commandments.

This is described in I Kings 8:2:
There was nothing in the ark save the two tablets of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.
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172[1] This was a sacred box of the Israelites which was made under the commandment of God as described in Torah. The Holy Qur’an also mentions it as Tabut. It has a long history. Curious readers may refer to Joshua chapters 3,6.11,14 and 15; I Samuel 4:11 and chapter 6; and ll. 2 Samuel chapters 6,15 and 24 to 29
173[2] See the book of Judges which is full of accounts of their disobedience
174[3] See II Samuel and I Kings.
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Then towards the end of the reign of Solomon there started a sequence of great changes which are confirmed by the sacred books and after his death even greater turmoil took place. The Children of Israel were separated and divided.

Now there existed two separate kingdoms. Jeroboam became the king of ten tribes and his domain was named the Kingdom of Israel, while Rehoboam the son of Solomon became the king of two tribes, his land was named the Kingdom of Judah. Jeroboam, just after his ascension to the throne, became an apostate and turned to idol worship, with the result that all his people took to idol worship.

Those who still followed the law of the Pentateuch had to migrate to the kingdom of Judah. In this way all these tribes continued to be infidels and idol worshippers for two hundred and fifty years. Then there came punishment from God through the invasion of the king of Assyria, 175[4] who imprisoned them and then deported them to various countries. Only a small group of people were left who later on established social relations with the Assyrians and started marrying them. 176[5]

The new generation born as a result of these mixed relations came to be known as Samaritans. In short, right from the time of Jerobom up to the end of the Kingdom of Israel, these people had no contract with the Pentateuch and its injunctions. For all those years the existence of the Torah was not known to them.

Nor was the condition of the Kingdom of Judah very different from that of the Kingdom of Israel. They had twenty kings in three hundred and seventy two years. The number of apostate kings was more than those who were believers.

Idol worship had become a common practice in the period of Rehoboam. Idols were placed under every tree in order to be worshipped. Then, in the reign of Ahaz, idol worship became the practice of the ruler himself and he, “shut up the doors of the House of the Lord and he made altars in every comer of Jerusalem.” 177[6]

Prior to this the House of the Lord had been destroyed and ruined twice:
First the king of Egypt captured it and plundered the women of the house of the Lord as well as the royal ladies. The second time was when the apostate king of Israel raided it and did the same with the women of the House of the Lord and the ladies of the royal palaces. Infidelity and idolatry reached its climax in the reign of Manasseh when the majority of the people converted to idolatry. He built altars for the idols right in the courtyard of the temple and the king even shifted the particular deity that he worshipped to the temple precincts. 178[7]
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175[4] II Kings 17:3-23
176[5] II Kings 17:41.
177[6] II Chronicles 28:24
178[7] U Kings 21:2-7.
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Circumstances remained unchanged in the reign of Amon the son of Manasseh, 179[8] However, when Josiah the son of Amon ascended to the throne, he sincerely repented and turned to God with the result that his officials started reviving the law of Moses and tried to obliterate all traces of idolatry and infidelity. There was no trace of existence of the Pentateuch for as long as seventeen years after his ascension to the throne. 180[9]

Discovery of the Pentateuch in the Reign of Josiah
It was in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s accession 181[10] that the high priest Hilkiah suddenly claimed that he had found a copy of the Pentateuch in the temple. He handed it down to the scribe Shaphan. This copy was read to King Josiah. Josiah having discovered the contents of the book, was very shocked and aggrieved concerning the opposite practice of the Israelites for all those years and rent his clothes. We find this mentioned in II Kings chapter 22, and Chronicles chapter 34. The statement of Hilkiah is not acceptable, nor is the copy discovered by him in any way reliable for reasons that we will discuss below.

We know from history that the temple of the Lord had been totally destroyed twice prior to the reign of Ahaz. Subsequently it was turned into a place of idol worship. The keepers and worshippers used to enter the temple frequently. It seems inconceivable that a copy of the Pentateuch, which was present in the temple all that time, could have remained unnoticed by the people for as long a period as seventeen years. Especially when all the officials of Josiah’s Kingdom were striving hard to bring about the revival of the law of Moses, and the priests were continually in the House of the Lord, going through every inch of it.

The truth is that this copy was invented by Hilkiah himself. When he saw that king Josiah and all the people were inclined to the law of Moses and were trying to revive it, he started writing down the verbal tradition that he came to hear and remembered or was conveyed to him by others, with little regard for its reality and authenticity. It took him seventeen years to complete it. Then after its completion he found an opportunity to attribute it to Moses. And it is not surprising that this was done for the sake of truth because, as we know, this kind of falsehood was allowed, indeed encour-aged, by their faith as we have discussed earlier.
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179[8] II Kings 21:20
180[9] II Kings 22:2.
181[10] IIKings 22:3.
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From Josiah to Nebuchadnezzar
Even if we ignore what we have just said and accept that the copy of the Pentateuch found by Hilkiah in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s ascension was original, it takes us nowhere. This copy of the Pentateuch was followed and acted upon for only thirteen years. After the death of Josiah, his son Jehoahaz ascended to throne and he also deviated from the law of the Pentateuch and became an apostate. Infidelity came back to rule again. The king of Egypt then conquered the land of Judah and imprisoned Jehoahaz.

The throne was given to his brother. He too was an apostate. His son look over as king after his death. He also, like his father and uncle, was an apostale. Nebuchadnezar invaded Jerusalem and captured him and his people. The temple and royal treasury were plundered by him. The nephew of the king was cntrusted with the kingdom and he also was an apostate.

In the light of the above, one is naturally drawn to conclude that the original Pentateuch was lost before the period of Josiah. The copy that was discovered by Hilkiah in his reign was not reliable and authenticated and, in any case, remained in vogue for only thirteen years. We do not find any sign of its continued existence.

Apparently apostasy and infidelity found its way into their lives after the death of Jehnahaz and the Pentateuch had ceased to exist prior to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar. Taking it granted that some rare copies of the Pentateuch still existed, the calamitous invasion of Nebuchadnezzar eliminated all possibilities of its existence.

The Second Evidence
The king, 182[11] who was entrusted with the rule of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, rebelled against him. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem a second time, imprisoned the king, slaughtered his children before his eyes which were gouged out. 183[12] And in the words of Chronicles he:
...had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.
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182[11] King Zcdekiah. II Chr.36.
183[12] This description is found in II Chron. 36:17-2l, but there is no mention of the gouging out of his eyes in the King James version.
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And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of Ihe Lord, and the treaures of the king and of his prinees; all these he brought to Babylon. 184[13]

During this calamity the Pentateuch and all the books written before it were absolutely destroyed. This is also admitted by the scholars of the Christian world as has been shown earlier in this book.

The Third Evidence
When the prophet ‘Ezra’ recompiled the books of the Old Testament, as is claimed by the Christians, they were subjected to another disaster at the hands of Antiochus, a king from Europe who, after conquering Jerusalem, burnt and tore up all the avai-lable copies of the books of the Old Testament.

The following is from I Maccabees chapter 1:
Never a copy of the Divine law but was torn up and burned; if any were found that kept the sacred record or obeyed the Lord’s will, his life was forfeit to the king’s edict. Month by month such deeds of violence were done. 185[14]

This calamity befell them one hundred and sixty-one years before the birth of Christ and lasted for a period of three and a half years. These events were described by Josephus and historians of the Christian world. All the copies of the Old Testament written by Ezra were absolutely destroyed as we discussed at the beginning of this book.

The following remarks are quoted from the Catholic, John Mill:
When the correct copies of these books appeared through Ezra, these too were lost during the invasion of Antiochus.

John Mill further remarked:
In this case the these books cannot be considered authentic without the witness of Christ and his apostles to them.

We may remind the readers that we have sufficiently explained the situation regarding the witness of Christ and of his apostles.
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184[13] II Chron. 36:18,19
185[14] 1. Maccabees 1;59-61.
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The Fourth Evidence
After this persecution by Antiochus, the Jews were subjected to many more historical calamities at the hands of other kings who destroyed whatever was left of the writings of Ezra. One famous event is the invasion of the Roman emperor, Titus. This was a painful event of Jewish history and happened thirty seven years after the ascension of Christ. In this incident hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by sword, fire or hunger. Josephus described this event in great detail, Ninety-seven thousand Jews were enslaved and sold in other countries.

The Fifth Evidence
The ancient Christians, from the very beginning, were not very much inclined towards the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. The majority of them believed it to have been distorted by the Jews. They trusted and acknowledged the Greek version, especially up to the end of the second century. The same version was also followed by the Jews up to the end of the first century. Since the Christians had a natural indifference towards the Hebrew version, there were few copies, and those were mostly with the Jews. We have already discussed this in detail under the heading of the first contention.

The Sixth Evidence
All the versions of the sacred books that were written in the seventh or eighth centuries were destroyed and obliterated by the Jews simply because they were not in accordance with the copies that they possessed. This is why the scholars entrusted with the work of the revision of the Old Testament could not obtain even a single copy written in these two centuries. The result was that the Jews possessed only the copies that they thought were correct. They could easily have changed the texts of these copies without any fear of being found out or criticised.

The Seventh Evidence
The early history of the Christians was one of distress and trials, especially in the first three hundred years when they were subjected to great afflictions and faced massacre at many hands.
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First Calamity
The first calamity they faced was in the year 64 in the reign of the emperor, Nero. 186[15] Peter, the apostle, his wife and Paul 187[16] were murdered in this event in Rome. To express faith in Christianity was a great offence at that time. This state of affairs remained unchanged until the emperor‘s death.

Second Calamity
This event took place in the reign of the emperor Domitian, who, like the emperor Nero, was known for being hostile to the Christian faith. He issued an order to kill the Christians which was followed by such a great massacre of the Christians that the existence of Christianity was endangered. John, the apostle, was exiled and Philip Clement was murdered.

Third Calamity
Another great trial of the Christians started in the year 101 at the hands of the emperor Trajan 188 [17] and continued for eighteen years. Ignatius, the bishop of Corinth, Clement, the bishop of Rome. and Simon, the bishop of Jerusalem, were all murdered.

Fourth Calamity
A great massacre of the Christians was recorded by history starting in 161 at the hands the emperor Marcus Antonius. This homicidal period lasted for ten years. A great number of the Christians were killed in the East and the West.
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186 [15] He was the emperor of Rome from 54 to 64. He was the fifth Roman emperor and is famous for his barbarous killing of the Christians.
187[16] We are not sure that St. Paul was murdered in this event. May be that author has referred to some other Paul.
188[17] Trajan (53 117) reigned from 101-117. He is also known for his cruelty to the Christians.
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Fifth Calamity
This event took place in the period of the emperor Septimius. Thousands of Christians were killed in the land of Egypt alone. Similarly in France and Carthage the Christians were massacred barbarously, to the extent that the Christians thought that the time of the Antichrist had arrived.

Sixth Calamity
In 237 the Emperor Maximus started killing the Christians. The majority of the Christian scholars were killed at his orders, as he estimated that it would be easier for him to rule them after the elimination of their scholars. The Popes Pontian and Fabian were killed.

Seventh Calamity
This terrible calamity of the Christians started in 253, in the period of the emperor Decius who had firmly resolved to root out the Christian faith and obliterate all signs of its existence. He issued orders to his governors to fulfil his intention. A great number of Christians had to abandon their faith. Egypt, Africa, Italy and cities of the East were, the main centres of this calamity.

Eighth Calamity
This trial of the Christians started in 274. The emperor Aurelian also issued orders for killing the Christians but was killed before much damage to the lives of the Christians had taken place.

Ninth Calamity
Another general massacre of the Christians started in 302. The whole land was red with blood. The city of Phrygia was burnt to ashes, leaving no single Christian alive.
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Tenth Calamity
Diocletian, the famous Roman emperor who reigned from 284-305. persecuted the Christians because he felt that the increasing power of the Church endangered his kingdom.

If the above historical events are true, they leave little possibility of the sacred books having been preserved, It was also an ideal situation for people who wanted to change or alter the text We have already shown that there were many heretical sects present in the first century who were busy making alterations in the texts.

The Eighth Evidence
The emperor Diocletian intended to obliterate every trace of the existence of the sacred books. He tried hard to achieve this goal and issued orders to demolish churches, burn all the books, stop the Christians from worshipping in the form of a congregation. These orders were carried out. The churches were levelled and all the books that he could find after an extensive search were burnt.

Any Christian who was suspected of possessing a book was punished and tortured. This deprived the Christians of congregational worship. The details of these events can be found in the books of history.

Lardner said on page 22 of the seventh volume of his book: Diocletian passed orders that churches be abolished and books be burnt.

He further said:
Eusebius has given an eye-witness accounts of the event in a painful tone, saying, “I have seen with my own eyes the demolition of the churches and the burning of the sacred books in public places.”

We do not claim that in these event all the sacred books were completely lost. What these events confirm is the fact that the existence of the copies of the sacred books remained very limited in number and, of course, many correct versions were completely lost.

The possibility cannot be denied that a certain book could have been totally lost and that some other book have been published in its name, since such occurrences were quite possible before the existence of the modem printing press. We have just shown that the copies written in the seventh and eighth centuries ceased to exist.
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Adam Clarke said in the introduction of his commentary:
The original of the exegesis that is attributed to Tatian has been completely lost, and the book which is ascribed to him now is doubtful to the scholars, and they are absolutely right in their doubts.

Watson said in the third volume of his book:
The exegesis attributed to Tatian was present in the time of Theodoret and was recited in every church. Theodoret abolished all its copies so that it could be replaced with the Evangel.

This shows how it was easy for Theodoret to abolish all the copies of a certain book and how another could be substituted in its name. There can be no doubt that Diocletian was more powerful than the Jews and stronger than Theodoret. It would not, therefore, be surprising if some books of the New Testament were completely destroyed at the hands of Diocletian or ceased to exist during other calamities before, him, and if other books were substituted in their names, as we have seen in the case of the exegesis of Tatian.

This assumption, when seen in the light of the statement giving them religious licence to change the holy texts for the sake of the truth, is quite feasible and logical.

The historical events described above arc the main cause for the nonexistence of any authority supporting the books of the Old and New Testaments.

Neither the Jews nor the Christians possess anything to prove the truth of their scriptures. As we said earlier, when we asked some contemporary Christian scholars to produce authenticated proofs for the truth of their books in our famous public debate, they had to admit that, due to the calamities of the Christians in the first three hundred and thirteen years of their history, all such proofs had been destroyed. We also tried to find authorities to support the truth of the Biblical books but all our efforts ended in despair as what we found was no more than conjecture, which does not help prove the truth of these books.

The Fifth Contention
Sometimes the Christians make statements to the effect that the copies of the sacred books written in the period prior to the emergence of Islam are still in existence and that the present books are in accordance with them. This statement, in fact, consists of two separate claims, first that those versions were written before the emergence of Islam and second that the present books are identical copies of them. We intend to show that both claims are false and incorrect.
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Let us first remind ourselves of the clear statement of Dr. Kennicott and others that the Jews themselves destroyed all the copies of the sacred books written in the seventh and eighth centuries, and that no copy of the Hebrew version written in these two centuries could be obtained. There were no copies to be found in any period preceding the tenth century. The oldest copy that Dr. Kennicott was able to get was the Codex Laudianus which he claimed was written in the tenth century while de Rossi situated it in the eleventh century. Van der Hooght published a copy of the Hebrew version with a claim that it was the most correct of all the Hebrew versions. One can guess the profusion of errors that this copy contained.

The Ancient Versions of the Bible
Let us now examine the position of the Latin version. There are three versions that are considered among the Christians to be the oldest: the Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Ephraemi. The first is in London. It was this copy that was used for the first revision or correction of the present books. The second is in Italy and was used for the second revision. The third one is in Paris and bears the title “The Old Testament”. It does not, however, contain the books of the Old Testament. We can easily ascertain the position of all three versions through the witnesses provided by history.

The Codex Alexandrinus
In volume 2 of his book, Horne said describing the Codex Alexandrinus:
This copy consists of four volumes. The first three volumes contain the canonic as well as the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. The fourth volume consists of the New Testament and the First Epistle of Clement to Corinthians and the unacknowledged Book of Psalms which is attributed to Solomon, Further he specified: Before the Book of Psalms it has an epistle of Athanasius.

This precedes the prayers that are recited in everyday rituals offered every hour. Then there are fourteen psalms related to the faith. The eleventh of these psalms is an eulogy to Mary. Some of these psalms are false, while others are derived from the Gospels. The arguments of Eusebius are written on the hook of Psalms while his legislative notes are inscribed on the Gospels.
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Some scholars have been exaggerated in its praise while others disapproved of it in equally exaggerated fashion. Wettstein is considered to be it s chief opponent.

The question of its antiquity has also been debated. Grabe and Sholtz estimated that it was written towards the end of the fourth centrury while Michaelis claimed that it was the oldest copy available and no other copy could be older than it because it contained the Epistle of Athanasius. Woide, on the other hand, situates it in the tenth century. He also surmised that this was one of the copies that were collected in 615 in Alexandria for the Syrian translation.

Dr Semler thinks that it was written in the seventh century. Montfaucon said that none of these copies, including the Codex Alexandrinus, can be said with certainty to have been wrilten prior to the sixth century.

Michaelis claimed that it was written after Arabic had become the language of Egypt. This places it one or two hundred years after the Muslim conquest of Alexandria. The basis of his claim is that the copier interchanged M and B with each other according to the Arabic rules of recitation. Woide concluded that since it is subdivided into chapters and various sections and bears the canonical notes of Eusebius it cannot be older than the fourth century.

 Spohn raised the following objections against the arguments forwarded by Woide:
(1) The epistles of Paul (included in this copy) have not been divided into two chapters and sections when this division was made in 396.

(2) It contains the epistles of Clement when the reading of these lelters was prohibited by the councils of Laodicea and Carthage. Sholtz deduced from this that it was writen prior to 364.

The Codex Vaticanus
Horne said describing the Codex Vaticanus:
The introduction to the Greek translation printed in 1590 includes the claim that this codex was written sometime prior to 388. Montfaucon and Bianchini placed it in the fifth or sixth century. Dupin put it in the seventh century while Hug places it at the beginning of the fourth century and Marsh situates it towards the end of the fifth century. He has concluded that no other two copies are so completely different from each other as the Codex Alexandrinus and this codex.

He also said:
Dr. Kennicott also deduced that neither this codex nor the Codex Alexandrinus has been copied from the version of Origen nor from the copies of it prepared in the period immediately after it. Both were copied from a version that does not bear any sign of the Origen version.
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The Codex Ephraemi
Home, describing the Codex Ephraemi, observed in the same volume:
Wettstein considers it to be one of the copies that were collected in Alexandria for the revision of the Syrian translation but there is nothing to support this opinion. He inferred this opinion from the marginal note that appeared against verse 7 of chapter 8 of the Epistle to Hebrews, saying that this version was prepared before 544 but Michaelis refuted this argument, only saying that it was an ancient version. Marsh has suggested that it was written in the seventh century.

The above is more than enough to convince us that no definite proof exists to specify the year of the compilation of these revision. The scholars have only made calculations and conjectures about the date of their origin on the basis of some indefinite indications which they have found in their books. These vague calculations obviously cannot authenticate any of the sacred books. Most of the arguments cited above are of the kind that do not stand up to reason. Semler's statement with regard to the Muslim domination over Egypt is unacceptable, as the language of a country could not possibly take over in such a short time.

Alexandria was conquered by the Muslims in the seventh century, in the
twentieth year of Hijra. Michaelis, however, forwarded strong arguments placing its writing in the tenth century. Woide's opinion that it was written in the tenth century seems quite logical because it was in this century that the practice of distorting the sacred texts became commonplace. Another indication of this is the fact that this copy contains three books that are not genuine, indicating that it must belong to a period in which it was difficult to distinguish between true and false which definitely applied to the tenth century.

This proves the falsity of the claim that these books were written before the emergence of Islam. The other claim is also disproved by the fact that the Codex Alexandrinus contains books that are not genuine and that it has been condemned by some scholars, Wettstein being foremost among them, and that no other two copies are so completely different from each other as are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrinus.

Now if, for a moment, we grant that the above three versions were written prior to the appearance of Islam, it does not make any difference to our contention, because we have never said that the sacred books were not distorted in the period preceding Islam and that all the distortions were only made after it. What we contend is that these books existed prior the period of Islam but they did not possess an unbroken chain of authority to prove their authenticity.

They were certainly distorted even before the time of Islam. The presence of a number of books in the pre-Islamic period does not, therefore, help prove their authenticity. The presence of the above three versions in that period, if ever proved, would only add to the number of the books distorted by earlier generations.
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