Abdullah of the UK on Textual Claims, Part 6

So even the text as a receptance is not authentic.

So anyway, Jay, what next? Next, we're going to have maybe an archaeologist stumble in Egypt upon an earliest manuscript, a more early manuscript.

They're going to find verses that were not in there, and then we're going to come back onto the YouTube with a lot of videos saying that, oh no, we found these verses, and we found these verses that don't exist in the modern -day ones, and now we've got the pure version.

Abdullah, let's turn this back upon you. According to Sahih al -Bukhari, there was a mushaf produced under the direction of Uthman.

Zayed bin Thabit is involved. Let's look at the final one that is compiled, not the original one that's put away for a while and then brought back out and added to.

The final one that becomes the archetype. It's copied, and copies are sent to all the

Islamic centers in the world around 655 or so. What if that mushaf, and we can prove that that's it, that mushaf was found?

What would you do with it? Would you reject it for the 1924

Egyptian printing that's so popular today? Or would that not be your final authority?

And what if there were differences between that mushaf and the current edition of the

Quran? What would you do? I would hope that you would go with the oldest, most representative sample you can get.

Now I'm not arguing that Uthman or Zayed bin Thabit or anybody else was inspired.

I think that's a major, major problem with the entire textual history of the Quran as you have it. But the point is, what would you do?

You keep saying, what have you found in the Egyptian manuscript? And then you come back and you say, well now we have the pure form.

That's not how it's functioned. Abdullah, look at what happened with the discovery of the papyri around 1900, 1930, in that time frame when those papyri began to start surfacing, and look at how they impacted textual criticism.

You bet they're vitally important. But it's not like what was found in the papyri was some different New Testament.

Instead, it really verified that the tradition that had been passed down had been passed down in a very pure form.

And so, I'm sorry, but when you sit there and say, well what do you do, Jay, if another manuscript's found?

Well, that manuscript is probably going to be very much like all the other manuscripts that we've found.

That's been our experience in the past. And we certainly have moved our knowledge of the

New Testament back farther and farther and farther. But shouldn't our desire be to have exactly what was written by the men we believe to have been inspired by God, the very apostles of the

Lord Jesus Christ? And why should our openness about that be a negative? It really seems to me that most

Muslims have this idea of textual criticism exactly backwards, rather than what you should have, and that is a desire to have in pure form that which was actually written by the apostles themselves.

Look, Jay, the Bible's corrupted. It's time to face facts. And the sooner you admit it to yourself, the better.

Don't admit it to us, just admit it to yourself first. And maybe you can make some progress. Now, once again, if what you're saying is the

Bible is corrupt in that we have no idea what it originally said because it contains textual variance, well, you've been proven wrong.

If what you're saying is the Bible's corrupt simply because it contains textual variance, then you need to say, and so is the

Quran, because it does too. What are you saying? Do not traffic on the use of the term corrupt and using it one way here and one way there.

Be very specific, be very clear, because if you claim to honor the truth, then that's what you want to do.

And that's what I'm going to assume you want to do. And so define what you mean by corrupt so that we can examine that claim.

Because what we've seen is, so far, the accusations you're making really are not grounded in historical truth.

And returning back to the issue of gospel burnings, in the Galatian decree, although it does not mention explicitly in the

Galatian decree that these books are to be burnt, but it does say that they are an anathema and anyone who possesses them are excommunicate.

Now, it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to wonder what the church does to when it finds these books.

And it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to work out what the church does to people who possess these books.

Now, I really don't have enough time in this video to go all the way back through church history and deal with the development of such things as the

Inquisition, such things as the development of a state church over time, my objections to those things, my consistent historical objections to Roman Catholicism as being even properly identified as biblically

Christian, it does not possess the gospel, the fact that the Inquisition murdered many a simple believing

Christian and all the rest of those things. But I do want to make sure that people understand that there is absolutely no valid parallel whatsoever between what

I think you're talking about and that is, of course, Uthman's destroying the previous sources he used to create the final edition of the

Quran and something that happens long, long after the

New Testament or the Bible as a whole has been collated, completed in regards to the

Galatian Decree or the identification of heretical books or whatever else it might be. There can be no parallel between the two and I think just throwing it out there without even trying to establish a meaningful foundation, again, greatly weakens your argument.

What's more is the role that is about to take place here of alleged gospels, primarily

Gnostic gospels, is, again, very destructive of the argumentation that you're trying to present.

Because, again, for a Muslim to suggest that the work of Gnostics is in any way, shape, or form representative of the original apostles is self -contradictory and quite simply ridiculous.

It's only used for shock effect and it's only usable on people who don't know anything about Gnosticism. So why bother doing that?

It doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for well -read Christians. What's worse is, what we're going to see here in a moment,

I'm going to isolate it, you include the glowing fraud of the

Gospel of Barnabas, written in the late 14th century at the earliest, as if it's somehow relevant.

And honestly, it is very difficult for any serious -minded person to give a lot of respect to someone who could promote the

Gospel of Barnabas, which is so utterly ridiculous in its pretensions and so clearly a modern fraud filled with errors from beginning to end, as seriously having been an ancient document.

It's truly amazing. And again, it's just very destructive of the credibility of those who would use it.

But let's look at what you had to say. By the way, just in passing, what would your response be if a

Christian took a citation from the Quran and altered it the way you did that text from John 1, 14, and then placed it up there?

Wouldn't Muslims be rioting in the streets and burning restaurants? That's very similar to the

Danish cartoons, isn't it? So why do you think that's an effective apologetic? I don't understand it, especially since, as we've demonstrated, you don't really have any foundation for it to begin with.

Again, very destructive to one's credibility and argumentation. There is so much that could be said about the sources that are listed here because so many of them are not even semi -valid.

But there you have the Gospel of Barnabas, the glowing fraud listed as if this is somehow relevant.

Again, Abdullah, I would strongly recommend you really increase the level of your apologetic at that particular point.

No, it doesn't take a PhD, but it certainly would be helpful if you took a less simplistic view of church history and took into consideration a much wider range of information than you have so far.

Because the relationship of Gnosticism, the issues relating to those early writings, is far more complicated and really, once you dig into it, much more destructive to your position than you seemingly understand.

And so I know that providing six videos in response to one seems a little excessive, but obviously

I've been trying to educate a wide variety of folks in regards to the issues of the Texas Receptus and textual critical issues.