Where are the Old and New Testaments corrupted

Submitted by Kepha Hor (United States), Sep 26, 2010 at 00:02

I don't know that the Old and New Testaments have been corrupted.

Abdellah Isri, kindly explain this to my benighted, Christian mind. If the Old and New Testaments were corrupted, how come the Jews and Christians have been arguing over the same Old Testament Hebrew TEXT for two millennia, when they did not cooperate with each other in copying and propagating it? Their arguments are always about the interpretation of the book, but not about the text itself.

Christians translate the Old Testament of the Bible into their vernaculars from the same Hebrew text the Jews use and print the same Old Testament the Jews use for Christian use. When Rabbi Dr. Isaac Leeser produced an English version of the Old Testsament for the use of American Jews in the 19th century, he borrowed wholesale from the Christians' King James Version of the Old Testament, figuring that if some English Christians had done a good enough job, he had no reason not to incorporate their work into his. Leeser certainly believed that King James' Christian English translators of 1604-11 were wrong to see Jesus as Messiah; and those Christian translators of the 17th century certainly thought the Jews were wrong to deny that Jesus is the Messiah; but both sides of the debate recognized that the other side was reading the same book.

Also, why do all these non-cooperating Christian Sects do the same with the Greek New Testament? Yes, there are different interpretations, but they are over how we are to understand a commmon text. The Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts, and Anglicans all say that there is only one "episcopos" (bishop) in each city; but their versions of the New Testament still have "Presvyteros" (elder) and "episcopos" (bishop) used interchangeably in Acts 20, and plural bishops in the Philippi that the Apostle Paul wrote to at Philippians 1:1. As a Presbyterian who believes in several elders/bishops over each congregation, I see that the ROman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans propagated versions of the New Testament that witnessed against their own practice, even when they were the ones who had control over the propagation of the New Testament text. The Roman Catholics say Mary remained virgin after bearing Jesus, and remains so in heaven--but the New Testaments they print still say Jesus was her "firstborn" (implying more children) at Matthew 1:25 and that Jesus had brothers and sisters at Mark 3:32. When people whose doctrines and practices are challenged by what the Scriptural text teaches, yet still refrain from changing it to conform to their ways, this tells me that people were very careful about copying and transmitting these books; that God the Holy Spirit may well have been protecting His Word; and that those who say the Scriptures are corrupted and far from what they originally were (modern scoffers and Muslims alike), such people either lie or simply do not know what they are talking about.

Whereas Muslims are told they may use the Old and New Testaments as toilet paper and are excused by their imams from reading them, I have been told throughout my life as a Christian that the New Testament is only one-fifth of my Bible, and that I must read the four-fifths as well to know how to see the world, understand the history from which Jesus Christ came, pray, and walk. I, and other Christians young and old, are always encouraged to read the whole Bible--both Old and New Testaments. Indeed, almost all Christians know the "Bible" as a single volume with the Old and New Testaments bound together.

Never has any Muslim been able to explain to me how the corruptions the Jews and Christians introduce into the holy books end up with the same Old Testament in both Jewish and Christian hands; and the same New Testament in the hands of Christians of different sects.

I mean, we see the Sunni arguing with the Shi'ah (whether Za'idi, 'Ithna'ashariyya, or Ismaili) with the 'Ibadi with the "Ahmadi with the Ba'hai with the Ali Ilahi, etc. but suppose they have differences over the interpretation of the same Qu'ranic text. But we assume that the Qu'ran--which we do not believe due to its clear misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the Old and New Testaments--of today is probably largely the same that the Caliiph 'Umar collated from bits of inscribed plam leaf and the memories of Muhammad's cocmpanions.

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