Were the Gospels Inspired?
إِنْ هِيَ إِلَّا
أَسْمَاءٌ سَمَّيْتُمُوهَا
أَنْتُمْ وَآبَاؤُكُمْ
مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ
بِهَا مِنْ سُلْطَانٍ
إِنْ يَتَّبِعُونَ
إِلَّا الظَّنَّ
وَمَا تَهْوَى
الْأَنْفُسُ وَلَقَدْ
جَاءَهُمْ مِنْ
رَبِّهِمُ الْهُدَى
'IN HIYA 'ILLAA ASMAA'
SAMMAYTUMO -HAA 'ANTUM WA- 'AABAA' -KUM
MAA ANZALA 'ALLAAH BI- -HAA MIN SULT.AAN 'IN YATTABIcON 'ILLAA AZ.- Z.ANN WA- MAA TAHWAA AL- ANFUS WA- LA- QAD JAA'A HUM MIN RABB -HIM AL-
HUDAA
They are but names, which you have named - you and your fathers
- for which Allâh has sent down no authority. They follow but a guess and that
which they themselves desire, whereas there has surely come to them the
Guidance from their Lord! {Glorious Qur’aan 53:23}
One of the Christian Trojan horse is the absurd claim that the
gospels are inspired word of God. However, Christian Bible {New Testament}
never claims itself to be the word of inspiration. 2 Timothy 3:16 is the only verse in the entire NT on
which Christians’ so-called claim of inspiration is based upon,
3:16 All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2
Timothy 3:16 is the reference to Old Testament, because New Testament was not
yet fabricated in the way it is known today. A 2nd century
writer named Justin Martyr has further elaborated this idea, his further
clarification is that this inspiration is
attributed not to the actual Hebrew text, but only to the accuracy of its translation into Greek. {See Helmut Koester, “What Is- And Is Not-Inspired”, Bible
Review, vol. xi, no. 5, October 1995, p. 18}
Christian scholars and Christian missionaries often pepper their
writings with the term of ‘inspiration’; for example P.W. Comfort states
that, “certain individuals…were inspired by God to write Gospels accounts to
substantiate the oral tradition.” {See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of
the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 3} And again, the scribes copying the New Testament at a later
stage “may have considered themselves to have been inspired by the Spirit in
making certain adjustment to the exemplar”. {See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern
Translations of the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 5} But the anonymous authors of the four
gospels might very well have disagreed with P. W. Comfort. The earliest gospel, Mark, was scavenged as source by the later ghost authors of
Matthew and Luke, who altered, omitted, and abbreviated many of Mark’s stories.
Such treatment would never have taken place had they thought that God inspired
Mark, or that his words were the unqualified truth. {See Helmut Koester, “What Is- And Is
Not-Inspired”, Bible Review, vol. xi, no. 5, October 1995, pp. 18, 48}
Having observed that these claims of inspiration in the New
Testament have no legitimacy, let us now examine, how Christians until now have handled these
fabricated gospels and consider whether this treatment is congruent with what a
sacred text deserves?
According to P.W. Comfort, the gospels were first known in
Christian circles orally before finding their way to the written page. {See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts &
Modern Translations of the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 3} Not a single book from the New Testament has survived in the
original author’s handwriting, the closest thing being a fragment dated c. 100-115 and
containing six verses of John 18. {See P.W.
Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of the New Testament,
Baker Books, 1990, p. 3-4}
A note about date: The date c.
100-115 is a pure guesswork,
because the manuscript does not contain any Christian date, as the
calendar system had yet to be invented. Thus, these dates based on
guesswork may well be off with a marginal difference of decades to centuries.
Copies
of various books from the NT were made extensively throughout the first several
centuries, generally by non-professionals who rarely checked for errors
afterwards. There was a little incentive to check them anyway: almost all
Christians during the first century expected the impending return of Christ,
and likely never realized that they were preserving a text for the distant
future. {See P.W.
Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of the New Testament,
Baker Books, 1990, p. 6} After some time, the
text in circulation no longer bore strict resemblance to the work, which had
been original authored, so that any scribe duplicating a parchment with great
fidelity was not necessarily creating an accurate reproduction of the original.
{See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts &
Modern Translations of the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 7} Additionally, “the early Christians did not necessarily
treat the NT text as a ‘sacred’ text”{See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts &
Modern Translations of the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 6} one whose every letter was fixed and
holy. They may have felt themselves inspired, on occasion, to make alterations
to the parchment that lay before them. {See P.W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of
the New Testament, Baker Books, 1990, p. 6}
What I have presented is not even a drop in the ocean, which
undeniably proves that the anonymous authors of gospels were not inspired.
And Christian Trojan horse 2
Timothy 3:16 is a reference
to OT, thus cannot be accepted as an evidence of NT being the inspired word of
God.
Saturday, October 23, 2004