Which is more trustworthy - The Qur'an or the Bible?

Good afternoon. Welcome along to premier Christian radio. I'm Justin Briley with you for the next hour and a half for unbelievable the show that gets Christians and non-christians Talking and a big thank you to everyone who turned out for our expelled screenings and debates at Imperial College last Saturday.

The events went very well. I'll be bringing some of your feedback from those events. So do stick around for the end of the program while we'll be hearing some of the attendees and what they thought of the screening and the debates of that Controversial intelligent design film right now though.

The Program’s Topic: Which Is More Trustworthy, the Qur'an or the Bible?

It's a time to launch into the program. This is as I said The show that gets Christians and non-christians talking to special programs coming up in the next two weeks with one of our guests. He's in conversation with a Muslim today.

Let's find out what they're talking about. And today we're doing a Quran versus Bible sort of show we often bring in a Christian and a Muslim on this program today is no exception. James White the director of Alpha and Omega ministries are Christian in the studio today.

He's over from the States and he's going to be with us for the next couple of weeks. Adnan Rashid is from the Hinton Institute and we'll be finding out about that and we get they're going to be asking which is more Trustworthy the Quran or the Bible?

What about the different ways that these manuscripts have come to us over the centuries? What about alternative readings and versions of them other scriptures that have been around in the past? What about particular events perhaps we'll touch on the different ways that they see the crucifixion of Jesus very pertinent as we approach Easter do hope you can stay with us right through to the end of the show.

Well a very warm welcome gentlemen to both of you. I'll start with you James because you've come the furthest distance in some sense to be with us all the way from across the pond. You were with us in the studio here a year or two ago and you joined us very kindly just last year by ISDN the wonders of modern technology, but you were you run a ministry out in Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, I think and Alpha and Omega ministries tell us about that.

What is exists for what what your role with them is?

Well, often. Omega has existed since 1983. I'm the co-founder and it's a Christian apologetics organization. We initially started off dealing primarily with the subject of Mormonism Which is very large in our area being the state immediately south of Utah with Salt Lake right there.

So but that has expanded out over the years and as I completed my education and Began the teaching and preaching in the church We've we've expanded out to a number of other subjects especially due to my study of Greek and textual criticism Teaching and writing in that area and then the starting about 2005 as I started to prepare for a debate with Shabir Ali At Biola University.

I really began my serious studies of Islam because I saw that a lot of the key areas that I had studied church history Textual criticism the doctrine the Trinity were the primary areas of concern there as well that combined with my study The persecuted church is what really gave me a passion to engage these particular subjects.

Fantastic now. Last time you were over you were doing some debates with Muslims and Again similarly on this occasion. You've been doing a debate or two. What what is it about? You know, what why particularly are you engaging with Muslims here in the UK?

What's your particular rationale for that? Well.

It's honestly difficult to arrange these things simply because they're a. Lot of the Muslim debaters want to address political issues primarily and I want to address Theological historical issues primarily and there are a limited number of folks who have experience in doing debates in November of 2008.

In studio, we had Abdullah al-Andalusi and and then I debated Rashid at a church this time. We reversed it without not in studio and I just debated Abdullah. So You know, there there are people here who are willing to engage the issues.

It's. How did that debate go down? Oh, I thought it was very enjoyable. We had a very good turnout.

And I think it was done the way it needs to be done. That is I think the people in the audience could tell that. Both of us were doing everything in our power to understand what the other person was saying.

And I think that's when real communication actually takes place is when you when you seek to hear What the other person is saying not in the sense of trying to find a mean of means of compromise. But so that at least you're speaking the same language and you're addressing the same issues.

I think very often we end up talking past each other if that type of communication isn't taking place.

Well, thank you for coming in and for making time in your schedule to come in and contribute to a couple of programs.

I'm a regular subscriber to the podcast. You've got a guy riding along out there in Arizona in the heat listening to Justin Barley's.

I get more emails now than I've ever done before from Arizona. And I just think it must be something to do with our friend Amiga ministries that we've got some listeners. Thanks to thanks to your being on the show.

Thanks for coming in our other guest Adnan Rashid Adnan. Welcome back to the program. You've been in before. I think we were debating Jay Smith and Beth Grove last time which it was a long time ago actually.

But tell us a little bit because I've said you're from the Hitton Institute. All I know that as at the moment is something on the bottom of your email. But tell us a little bit about what the Hitton Institute is and what you do there.

Bismillah Rahman Rahim.

Alhamdulillah was salatu was salamu ala rasool. Allah my bad. Thank you very much Justin first firstly For inviting me to this Positive interaction between me and dr. James White. I'm privileged to be here With such a scholar.

Hittin Institute is an institute which was initiated to tackle some of the misconceptions about Islam Deliberately or Unconsciously Pumped against Islam and Muslims in the media, so The role of this Institute is to demystify those misconceptions about Islam and clarify the position of Islam as it stands.

I.

Mean a lot of people obviously do. Pick up a negative view of Islam from certain aspects of what the media broadcast. I mean today we're doing particularly theological debate. Do you think people are aware of the theology of Islam what Islam stands for generally?

Or do you think that's an area that needs demystifying as well? I I agree with you that that's that's another area which needs to be.

Elaborated upon by the scholars and and the preachers in general. We need to See each other we need to converse we need to interact so that we can learn about each other to have better understanding and then Consequent consequently to coexist with each other in peace.

If we don't understand each other It would be it would be very difficult for societies to come about and live in peace as they were living in the past. During the Golden Age of Islam in Islamic Spain, which I have spoken about.

Yeah, well, thank you for coming in and I'm looking forward to today's discussion. We are inevitably gonna have disagreement here in the studio. That's really to some extent what the program is about but we're about airing those disagreements in a frank and open and honest way and It should be a very interesting interaction as we ask today.

Which is more trustworthy the Quran or the Bible and we're going to be touching on a few different areas in the course of the program. If you want to get in touch with anything you hear today, you're more than welcome to drop me an email.

That's unbelievable at premier .org UK. You can phone and leave me a voicemail message on oh eight four five six fifty two fifty two fifty two and select Option eight to do that. And don't forget you can find us online and many many podcasts in our archive there at premiere .org UK.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable with Justin Briley.

The Bible, the Qur'an, and the History of Textual Transmission

Well, I mean sure. We maybe kick off with with you James. I Can guess what your answer is going to be. Which is more trustworthy the Quran or the Bible. What's your view overall of the state? In which we find the Bible to start with perhaps.

And you did a very quite a high-profile debate with Bart Ehrman who of course? Has been noted has been on this program talking about whether the Bible is Transmitted in a trustworthy way down the centuries.

I hope you saw Justin that your program got quoted in my debate with Bart. Did you see that? I My slides was a direct quote from unbelievable.

Wonder if he regretted coming on.

Don't think so, but no. Obviously I think in this in this particular Conversation the primary thing that we have to deal with is the fact that people don't understand where their sacred texts came from they they tend to think most Christians tend to think the Bible floated down of heaven in a calfskin cover with gold edges and thumb indexing and Replete the first time it appeared.

That's not how it came to us. That's not how it's been transmitted to us. And that's the same thing with the Quran. It's it's not like there was a Muhammad left a Perfectly inscribed codex and said here just photocopy this and everything.

It'll be fine. That's not how it works. Any book that has come to us from antiquity has a history to it and the primary difference between the New Testament prime and I'm focusing on the New Testament, especially and The Quran is the methodology by which has been transmitted to us.

One is a controlled methodology with the Quran. The other is an uncontrolled methodology with the New Testament. And that has a lot to do with the fact that the early history of both religions is very different that is Christianity is primarily a religion of The the poor the slaves and it is illegal from the time of Nero in the seventh seventh decade of the first century up until the piece of church in 313 under Constantine and While that persecution is not consistent during all that time it's actually the worst at the end of that time period and What does this have to do the transmission of the text?

Well, it was illegal to even copy or own the the Christian scriptures and especially at the end of that period of persecution. We know historically from records that have only recently been translated that literally thousands of codices of The Christian writings were destroyed by the Roman Empire.

They knew that the Christianity was a religion of the book. There was some connection here. And so there was a there was a Transmission of the text not by controlled scribes not by professionals. But you'd have portions of the text that people would literally risk their lives to copy.

Can you imagine Justin if if on Sunday next Sunday morning at your church? Everyone was asked only to bring a handwritten copy of the Bible that they himself themselves had copied out. It'd be pretty difficult.

Don't you think? And yet that's what the early Christians had to do. It was a tremendous risk on their part, but that creates this rich manuscript tradition. The important part is it's not controlled.

There was never any one person group of people. Group of churches anything else that controlled the text in New Testament had multiple authors. Writing to multiple audiences at different times. The books of the New Testament had a life of their own before they became collected into one edition.

And what's important about that is that we've all heard the claims that well, you know the Bible used to contain Reincarnation but the Council of Constantinople took it out and things like that. That kind of claim is just from his historical perspective completely fallacious.

It never could have happened. Because not only do we have texts that predate those counsels so we could compare to see you know. If any type of major changes took place. But it would simply be impossible for a persecuted minority.

To gather up manuscripts and be making changes as they as they did. So you have this free open transmission which results in textual variation. They didn't say show me your scribe card your training in the Institute card that you're gonna make a perfect copy here.

Instead of someone came into Christian fellowship and you heard someone a reading from a book. I've never heard that before. Well, this is this is Peters. These are Peters epistles. We don't have that in our fellowship.

Can I copy that? Manuscript p72 is a good example of that one. I've seen myself. That's obvious a guy who was not trained as a scribe I think I would have beat him in penmanship in first grade. But but he loved the Word of God and so he makes this copy.

The result is there are textual variations that we have to examine. Spellings of words. Skipping a phrase because you're copying from one thing to another that's very different than a controlled transmission of a text where you have a powerful organization that in essence can gather up the materials create a formal version and then promulgate that version because once you have that kind of editing going on if You don't have access to the previous materials that becomes the earliest point you can trace the text to.

And that then becomes the locus of inspiration and authority at that point. And this presumably is is the way you see the Quran is having.

Developed well the hadith of themselves record in In Albuquerque six five one nine and five ten the process by which this takes place. And that's not the only place we find from.

Other historical sources. The same story. Just for those who aren't immediately aware the hadiths are is there were a commentary on the the traditions.

The traditions that are collected over the two to three hundred years after the time of Muhammad, they're not commentaries in the Quran. That's that's that's that's Tafsir literature. The the hadith sahih al-bukhari sahih al-muslim are probably the two best-known Collections of hadith and in six five one nine five ten you have narrated there what happens under Uthman two different Time periods and to make it just just as simple as possible.

There is a real concern Amongst the Muslims that the Muslims would end up arguing about their scriptures like the Christians and the Jews did and so there is a Collection initially a collection very shortly after the death of Muhammad and then about 20 years later approximately There is a renewed concern about differences and how people are reciting the Quran.

And so there is a gathering together of all the materials both interestingly enough record Sections that were found with only one person at that particular point in time. Even 20 years later one verse is found with only one person.

But a an official version is made it is distributed to the primary centers of Islam and then most importantly according to Sahih al-bukhari six five ten. There is a burning of the previous materials the destruction of those materials.

Specifically quote Uthman sent every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied in order that all the other Quranic materials whether written in Fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies be burned that is.

That's massive for a textual critic for someone who is studying the transmission of the text. That's massive that has a big impact on what scholars discover when they examine the earliest manuscripts of the Quran.

Palimpsest manuscripts where you've you've had the original washed off because you're the leather manuscripts. And then you read that something written over top of it. You can frequently read what's underneath it by ultraviolet light.

They give evidence that there were other streams of readings specifically coming from Ibn Masud and by Ibn Ka 'b. That persisted in the manuscript tradition for a hundred to two hundred years after that period of time.

So it does have a textual history, but it's a very different textual history. It results in us in significantly fewer variations as you would expect. It's a much younger text. First of all, the New Testament has to go Approximately six hundred to seven hundred years longer in handwritten form.

Then then the Quran does but still you would expect because of that editing that it would be a much narrower Range because it's been controlled from the beginning. The question is is that the best way to transmit a text or not?

Fascinating stuff. Do you broadly agree with the way James has sort of outlined the Two different ways that you might see the the transmission of the two texts there. I agree with parts of what James actually said.

Firstly coming to the Bible itself because James talked about Bible first and then the Quran after and I'll do the same. We have many issues with the Bible. Firstly how the Bible was written down. Number one James is a man who believes in a concept called Sola Scriptura and and and he also believes that the Bible is the infallible Word of God as he stated in one of the debates with Pastor Sabian, he had a debate some time ago.

So for him to believe in the in the infallibility of this word This word must be proven to be infallible. Otherwise his claim his belief is worthless. So one once we go to the Bible itself to scrutinize it to see the text and see you see the authenticity and the transmission Of the Bible we come to realize that there are major problems with the text of the Bible.

Firstly Bibles are attributed to four evangelists Matthew Mark Luke and John. The manuscript tradition Tells us that the manuscripts were manuscripts which we have today at our disposal cannot could not have come from them.

Because there are so different. When we when we study them, how do I know this major scholars in the field such as Bart Ehrman whom? James White has debated and he states in his book misquoting Jesus.

Page number 89 to 90 with this abundance of evidence. What can we say about the total number of variants known today scholars differ significantly in their estimates? Some say there are 200 ,000 variants known some say 300 ,000 some say 400 ,000 or more.

We do not know for sure because despite impressive developments in in computer technology. No one has yet been able to count them all perhaps as I indicated earlier. It is best simply to leave the matter in comparative terms.

There are more variants among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. This is a major issue. This is a big problem. Now another Christian show source the interpret interpret is the dictionary of the Bible states.

It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscript tradition is wholly uniform. There is no comparison between the Bible in this sense.

Let before we go on to the next issue. Those are obviously two big things and and will allow James to respond to them in a moment. Moving on to the Quran what did you feel. James sort of represented the way that that I think James had a lot of time.

To address the issue of the Bible as well as the Quran. So I would like to have to be fair the same amount of time. So let me finish with the Bible first and then we can go on to the Quran now. Once we once we look at the manuscript tradition, we come to realize that there are major problems there.

If there are so many differences almost five thousand seven hundred manuscripts in Greek Are to be found. Today if there are so many difference in the manuscripts We we need to find out which manuscript comes from Matthew or Luke or Mark or John.

If they were inspired firstly, we have to establish whether they ever they were ever inspired if they were inspired Which manuscript is the inspired word of God because they all differ and then The dilemma is that the editors must decide which word Goes into the Bible now.

I have a book here Nestle famous Nestle and Allen Greek English and New Testament if we open the book It's called English translation with the Greek text Side by side and if we look look at the footnotes It gives us the variant readings what the text actually says, okay, and there are thousands of variant readings so My question is my contention is who made this text the Greek Testament who made it?

If if the manuscript tradition is uniform, then we would have one Bible coming from the evangelists themselves, but it's not uniform. Why do I say this Bruce Metzger one of the leading scholars in this field?

In his book a textual commentary on the Greek New Testament on the page number 11 He states of the approximately 5 ,000 Greek manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament That are known today no to agree exactly in all particulars confronted by a mass of conflicting readings editors must decide Which variants deserve to be included in the text and which should be relegated to the apparatus?

Although at first it seems it may seem to be a hopeless task Amid so many thousands of variant readings to sort out those that should be regarded as original textual scholars have developed certain generally acknowledged criteria of evaluation.

These considerations depend it will be seen upon probabilities and Sometimes the textual critics must weigh one set of public probabilities against another. The range and complexity of textual data are so great that no neatly arranged or mechanically Contrived set of rules can be applied with mathematical precision.

I'm finishing each and every variant reading needs to be considered in itself and not judge merely according to a rule of thumb so Metzger is what he's saying that It is the editors who decide what goes in the Bible obviously God or not Matthew Mark and Luke and effectively you've told us.

Essentially what James did that there were inevitably a number of variations in the manuscript transmission over time.

So just to conclude and my contention is not about the variation. My contention is that we don't have what Matthew Mark Luke and John wrote to even today.

Okay, so we're too far removed in terms of the copies to know what they originally wrote in there.

That's right. It is the editors who are deciding what goes in the Bible and just not.

Evangelist just briefly kind of to bring in the Quran aspect do you feel that therefore the Quran has some kind of superior way of Transmission. Because you have this kind of in a sense this quite controlled type of transmission where older versions were destroyed and when You know Osman was it Brought together in one if you like that the official version.

It's a very good question.

Firstly, there is no comparison between the Bible and the Quran as James pointed out because these two documents are Completely distinct documents. They're independent documents and they don't share Some similar history.

Bible was compiled during chaotic Three centuries of Christian experience under Roman persecution and the Quran was compiled under. So the Caliphs came together. Who was this man? The question is who is this man and is he copying the Quran from himself?

Is he making it up or is he copying an earlier source? Now James already pointed out and in the time of Abu Bakr who came to power immediately after Prophet Muhammad he was confronted by Omar and Omar came to him asking him to compile the Quran.

And then they came together and they decided that Quran should be put in one codex. Because at the time it was written written on many materials such as bones rocks leaves. So they collected the Quran in the time of Abu Bakr which is immediately after the death of the Prophet and Abu Bakr was one of the earliest companions of Prophet Muhammad.

Imagine if the Christians had this claim. Imagine if the Christians had Peter or James or one of the one of the disciples of Jesus Christ writing The Bible himself that would be a superior claim. I would accept that claim.

However, we don't have that claim coming from the Bible. Coming to the case of Uthman when he burned the copies. Uthman's compilation was purely to do with the text and it's Standardization rather than changing the text or adding or subtracting.

He had nothing to do with that. All he did was he unified the Arab tribes on one mode of recitation and that was the purpose of his compilation and the variant copies Which were written by illiterate Arabs for their own convenience and which were full of mistakes.

He asked them to burn them not that he sent armies out to burn them. He never forced anyone. There is no report suggesting that he asked people to burn them for for the sake of.

Unanimity on the text of the Quran. Well, we've had quite a long introductory section there. In fact, it's almost taken us to the end of this first part. So what I'll do is we'll we'll we'll end Slightly early here and allow James so that I don't have to break you in mid-flow in your response.

To come back on that in the next section and we'll be able to have a little more time To do that in the next section. You're listening to unbelievable. We're asking today, which is more trustworthy the Quran or the Bible?

We've been hearing about the different views from our guest James White and Adnan Rashid on how both texts have been transmitted down the centuries and We'll be asking questions. Like what about the different accounts that both have of Jesus's crucifixion?

What about other writings that were floating around at the time? We'll be finding out more from our guests in just a moment's time here on the show that gets you thinking.

You're listening to unbelievable on premiere Christian radio.

The Crucifixion and the Qur'an’s Denial of It

Welcome back to the show. It's the Quran and the Bible under discussion today, which is more trustworthy. We're asking and we've got with us Adnan Rashid from the hitting Institute Muslim on the show.

James White director of alpha and omega Ministries also with us. I'll send links to both these gentlemen's websites where you can find more information about their ministries. With the podcast of this show that's at premiere .org UK forward-slash unbelievable.

So coming back to James obviously and then a lot of information there, but I mean a lot of it you've obviously Come across directly before through a primary source of evidence. There was Bart Ehrman and what he has to say about the transmission and Metzger so so I think to sum up your contention Adnan it is that The Bible has arrived in this fashion where we can't get back to the original text.

Therefore we can't know if they were inspired. Anyway, we don't we certainly don't have the inspired version now Whereas the Quran it you know had this kind of as you described Controlled form of transmission which makes it a lot more reliable in that sense.

So your responses James. Well, one thing's for certain Bart.

Bruce Metzger did not come to that conclusion. Bart Ehrman has but our butterman is not a believer in God any longer. I lecture on this all the time and we just had I think a classic example of giving only part of the information when you Tell people there are 400 ,000 variants in the New Testament.

I start off my lectures giving that same information and I say well think about there's only 138 ,162 words in the Nessian Greek text of the New Testament. That's three variants per word and we just had the quote there is not one sentence uniform in the manuscript tradition.

These are these are statements that that Really do not deal honestly with the text of the New Testament. For a couple reasons first of all 99 of those variations cannot be translated into another language.

They have to do with spelling orthography the movable new things like that that in no way shape or form Can even be explained to someone who doesn't read Greek in the first place. There are approximately 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 Meaningful that is they change the meaning of the text and viable which means that they could possibly be original.

Ascribed in the 15th century who had a bad morning and introduced a reading No one had ever seen before is not exactly relevant to actually the establishment of the text in the New Testament. That number also needs to be understood on another basis.

And that is the more manuscripts you have the more variants you're gonna have. If you have only one manuscript of a book how many? Variants you're gonna have none, but how much we have thousands of manuscripts.

But I'm not I'm not addressing the issue of the current this moment I'm pointing out that if you have Five thousand seven hundred and approximately fifty nine manuscripts a catalog today. You're going that's approximately 1 .3 million pages of handwritten text remember the New Testament Existed almost twice as long as the Quran in a merely handwritten form.

Now when you actually look at the number of meaningful and viable variants it adds up to about one per three pages. It's a very different story than the numbers that were just presented. The reality is however that has nothing to do with either the authorship of the New Testament.

And it's not a matter that editors just sit around to turn what's in the Bible because the very same text that Adnan has there Gives you all that information and so for example as I'm preaching through the book of Hebrews right now in my church I examine all the textual variants that impact that even though the book of Hebrews has some of the fewest Textual variants of any New Testament book.

But still I'm going to examine those textual variants and if they're relevant as they were in Hebrews 2 9 I will raise those issues in my explication exegesis of the text. So it's not the editors that have come along and said oh This is all you get to see we Christians are wide open with this.

I mean we publish these things last evening I gave to my Islamic opponent a copy of the net any 27 diaglot that has even more textual information than that volume has. Here's here's our information. I would like to have a critical edition of the Quran.

That likewise provides and we're starting to get close the recent publication of the top copy manuscript from Turkey. Does have a list of textual variants between the major manuscripts produced within it?

But not to the point where you have for example, what's in this text? What's on my screen where I have the same information you can you can click on any of these manuscripts? You can see where they're housed when they were written what they contain and Eventually, I think you're gonna be able to click on all those and see images of them high-resolution images yourself.

So that it's not a bunch of editors telling me what's there I have the ability to look at this information myself.

And that's I think is already working on that. James just to come in to comment on James point. I know a German scholar personally is a friend of mine. His name is Michael Marx who is dealing with one of the collections of some of the earliest copies of the Quran and he has thousands of photographs coming from a collection which was done in the early 19th century by one of the German scholars in was lost and he studied these manuscripts and When he studied the text and I spoke to him personally. He showed me personally that there are no shocking Revelations in my findings.

There is no new worse. There is no old worse. There are no Major variants there are spelling mistakes common spelling Scribal errors and apart from that there are no shocks. But in the Bible is a totally different story now James is trying to put it very eloquently.

And he's trying to put the main issue aside. What I read from Metzger was Shocking for me when I read it for the first time I was amazed that how can scholars like James White claim the infallibility of the Bible when Metzger is very clearly stating and he's one of the major authorities in this field.

He's stating editors must decide and the text is based upon probabilities. So there there are heavy.

Editors are only deciding what is placed in the main reading of the text. Simply a matter. This is simply a matter of what is going to be the main reading and what is going to be in the notes. That's the only thing he's talking about there.

I don't just simply doesn't understand what Metzger is talking about if you read. If you if you if you read Metzger's own conclusions, he does not come to Adnan's conclusion and I would like to point out That if we do if we.

Well, he continued to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, sir. So it's just simply a matter of recognizing the difference between a what's the main reading of a text and what's placed in the footnotes which.

Metzger believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. This is my contention and I don't think he ever believed I guess.

You will get into a discussion on the whole area of what does infallible mean I suppose I mean. Without wanting to go too much down that road I do want to hear as well James. Your response to the way that the Quran is transmitted Now and then makes this point that as far as he's concerned, you know Muhammad's right-hand man was basically able to pick up from where Muhammad left off in giving us a sure account of what Muhammad.

Actually Muhammad told us at least we trust the Hadith that if you want to know what the Quran says you go to Ibn Masud. Not to those that actually did the compilation. That's one of the reasons that it Masud Did not appreciate what Uthman did and there's a lot of sources that indicate there was strong friction there.

And the fact that his readings continue, for example, if you look at the Foggs Palimpsest manuscript of Surah 2 222 you see evidence there by comparing the Foggs manuscript with the current Uthmanic version of not only Total editing but the word orders changed grammatical terminations are changed clear editing has taken place between those two versions now.

I'm hoping that the kind of work that he was just making reference to Would indicate these things would go through the early tafsir literature Which lists many variant readings they didn't have any problem with that at that time.

It hadn't the theology hadn't developed a point where that would be an issue. It was acceptable to discuss those things in in modern context that that has changed. But that needs to be a part of any type of critical edition of the Quran that would come out now.

I would expect that there would be again because the mechanism of transmission fewer of those Than you have in the free transmission. But again, this takes us back to In the hadith itself we are told that there are certain ayahs.

Mentioned specifically in those texts one is in surat al-tawbah in Surah 9 That was found with one person only one source now. We already know that many of the Qura had died the Battle of Yamama. And so This sort of brings us I think maybe transitionally to the discussion that you had also mentioned There's only one ayah in the Quran that denies the crucifixion of Jesus surah 4 157.