Was the Arabian Church using a different Bible?
The main writer of the site answering-christianity.com produced an argument to justify the claims of corruption in the Bible: since Arabia was not under the Roman Empire, they used a different Bible.
The following points can be concluded from the articles below:
1. At the time of the Quranic revelation, Christianity existed. The discovery of the Jubail Church from the 4th century indicates that one of the denominations that the prophet Mohammed met were Nestorians
From Wikipedia
Christianity in Saudi Arabia
History
Christians had formed churches in Arabia prior to the time of Muhammad in the 7th century. Purportedly, one of the earliest church buildings ever discovered by archaeologists is located in Saudi Arabia, known as Jubail Church, built around the 4th century.[citation needed] Some parts of modern Saudi Arabia (such as Najran) were predominantly Christian until the 7th to 10th century, when most Christians were expelled or converted to Islam. Some Arabian tribes, such as Banu Taghlib and Banu Tamim, followed Christianity. As a result of their help to Muhammad in his conquest of Arabia the Banu Taghlib were allowed to keep their Christian faith and their status as Arabs if they paid the Jizya and promised not to interfere in their preaching or propagation of Islam. The Jizya is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria. The tax is/was to be levied on able bodied adult males of military age and affording power, (but with specific exemptions, from the point of view of the Muslim rulers, jizya was a material proof of the non-Muslims' acceptance of subjection to the state and its laws, "just as for the inhabitants it was a concrete continuation of the taxes paid to earlier regimes." In return, non-Muslim citizens were permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to Muslim state's protection from outside aggression, to be exempted from military service and the zakat taxes obligatory upon Muslim citizens.
Jubail Church
Jubail Church is an ancient (4th-century) Nestorian church building near Jubail, Saudi Arabia, discovered in 1986. Possibly to minimize damage, the government hides it from locals and even archaeologists.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
2. A large number of the Christians in the east were Nestorians. They call their bible in Aramaic Peshitta. The following paragraph is extracted from Nestorian.org
The Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in Aramaic original the language of Palestine at the time of our Lord Jesus Christ and that Aramaic Bible “Peshitta is the text of the church of the East which has come from Biblical times without any change or revision. We hope that the imperishable memory of the innumerable company of martyrs of the Church of the East who lived and died in the light of eternity will provide an incentive to all churches toady and to the members of this ancient church, the heirs of this great tradition
3. With regards to the Gospels, the Old Testament and. Most books in the New Testament, Peshitta has the same contents as the Bibles used in the Church of the west.
From Wikipedia
The Peshitta (Classical Syriac for "simple, common, straight, vulgate"), sometimes called the Syriac Vulgate, is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.
The general, but not universal, consensus is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek.[1] This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 AD) of Thomas of Harqel.[2] However, the 1905 United Bible Society Peshitta used new editions prepared by the Irish Syriacist John Gwynn for the missing books.
4. The argument that the Qur'an refers to a different Bible is therefore baseless.
Thank you
ReplyDeleteMuslim friends should reconsider their claims.