Authenticity
of the Bible
The Bible consists of various books written by various men
at different time periods. The compilation of these various books into
one book was done over time. This collection or canon is known today as the
“Bible” to Christians. The languages of this “Bible” originally were Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek from which no original manuscripts exist.
In Jewish tradition, a total of twenty-four books, all written in
Hebrew, are recognized and referred to as the Tanakh.
The process of canonizing the Hebrew Bible is estimated to have been around 2nd
century BC. The actual incidents and alleged inscription, however, supposedly
began with Moses who lived nearly fourteen hundred years prior to the advent of
Jesus, twelve hundred years prior the canonization, and nearly four thousand
years ago from today.
The Christian Greek scriptures began inscription with the book of Mark
around 50/70 CE. That means that they were written approximately 50/70 years
after the advent of Jesus, nearly 1500 years after the advent of Moses, and
nearly 500 years prior to the arrival of Mohammed. In other words the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Bible, so often referred to as the
Old and New Testaments of the Bible,
are two separate canons of two separate eras, written in two different
languages, by men that lived centuries apart.
According to mainstream Jewish theology, written scripture has always
been seen by scholars and rabbis as a secondary source. The main source was and
still should be today – the “oral Torah”. The “oral Torah” is an oral and
practiced tradition that existed prior to the inscription of any book.
The words that were uttered by Moses and revealed by God, are understood to have been the original and actual
Torah. In other words, there is a vital difference between revelation and
inscription, both due to the time of deliverance, and due to the time of
original practice and occurrence. Scripture, on the other hand is a narrative
presenting itself usually long after the original occurrences.
Therefore, it is also the Muslim understanding, that when the Glorious
Quran refers to the Torah and Gospel, it is referring to the initial revelation
given to and traditionally practiced by the Prophets of God – and it is not
referring to the latter written scripture that came to include the
interpretations, perceptions, narrations, opinions, and hearsay of men.
Luke writes in his book:
"Many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative
of those things which have been fulfilled among us; it seemeth
good to me also, to write to you an orderly account." (Luke 1:1-3).
Historically, Mark wrote the first “Gospel
According To” around 50/70 CE. Later on, as the Two Source Hypothesis
states, Matthew and Luke independently used Mark and a second source termed Q
to write their respective books. It is also argued by some scholars that Luke
had also used Matthew.
The Gospel Q is known by Christian scholars as being a lost document
which included several narrated statements of Jesus. The Q is derived from the
German term “Quelle” which means “source” – thereby
the inevitable “source” from which the writers of at least two of the gospels
had acquired their information.
There are three issues that present themselves here. Did Matthew and
Luke simply plagiarize Mark? If there
was a Gospel Q that both Matthew and Luke used respectively, then where is Q
and why did it vanish? And finally, are the New Testament writings that
Christians revere as “holy scripture” – are they really “narratives”, as Luke
suggests, and if so, would they not in essence be biased by the
interpretations, perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and hearsay of the
author?
We learn from these words of Luke that “many” have written such
“narratives” – but realistically two or three narratives are not ‘many’ at all.
If that is the case, where are these “many narratives” that Luke is referring
to? Notice that when Luke wrote these words, the Gospel of John was years away
from being written.
By 325 CE, when the council of Nicea was
initiated, it is said that hundreds, if not thousands of books, epistles, and
gospels had existed throughout
Now the questions that need to be pondered over include, who canonized
the Bible, who gave them that authority, what reasons were several books not
included, and who decided not to include them, and were such books not included
because they did not agree with the theology of those that canonized, and
therefore is the Bible that Christians put faith in today, a biased and out of
context canon that the Council of Nicea concocted in
325 CE? But more importantly, are such narrations and interpretations
“according to xyz” even worth believing in?
The next question is, who authored the Bible?
The four gospels according to ‘xyz’ are said to have been authored by Mark,
Matthew, Luke and John, but were they really authored by individuals with these
names? And furthermore, were the authors even disciples
of Christ?
History
shows that these traditional names were given by second century Christians to
anonymously written works. This means that these writings were randomly
assigned authorship over a hundred years after they were written. In other
words these Gospels were not eyewitness accounts or even second hand accounts
of the ministry of Jesus. Rather, decades later, they were products of
complicated religious advocacy by people who were desperate to show the
reliability of their doctrines.
The
New International Version is the most widely used Bible among Evangelicals, and
in its commentary we read for the book of Mark that “there is no internal or
direct evidence for authorship”. In fact most Bibles when introducing this
Gospel, as well other writings that are contained in the canon, advise that the
authors are anonymous and unknown.
Let us
specifically pay attention to the Gospel of Mark because Mark is the Gospel
that both Luke and Matthew used to initiate their own writings, and it is said
to have been the earliest of the four. We already know Gospel According to Mark
itself does not identify its own author. Theoretically “Mark” could have simply
related a series of events and stories to someone else who collected them,
edited them, and wrote them down. It wasn't until the second century that the
title “According to Mark” or “The Gospel According to Mark” was affixed to this
document.
A number of
people in the New Testament, and not only Acts but also in the Pauline letters
are named Mark and anyone of them could potentially have been the author behind
this gospel. Tradition has it that the Gospel According to Mark was written
down by Mark, a companion of Peter, who simply recorded what Peter preached in
Rome (1 Peter 5:13) and this person was, in turn, identified with “John Mark”
in Acts (12:12,25; 13:5-13; 15:37-39) as well as the “Mark” in Philemon 24,
Colossians 4:10, and 2 Timothy 4:1.
It seems
unlikely that all of these Marks were the same Mark, much less the
author of this gospel. The name “Mark” appears frequently in the
This is what
Christian tradition has handed down, however, and to be fair, it’s a tradition
that dates back pretty far — to the writings of Eusebius around the year 325.
He, in turn, claimed to be relying upon work from an earlier writer, Papias, bishop of
“And the Presbyter used to say this, Mark became Peter's
interpreter and wrote ‘accurately’ all that he remembered, though not, indeed,
in order, of the things said and done by the Lord. For he had not heard the
Lord, nor had followed him, but later on, followed Peter, who used to give teaching
as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord's
oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as
he remembered them.
What this means is that Eusebius heard from Papias
who heard from a Presbyter who heard from someone that Mark, who heard from
Peter who heard from Jesus ... It is stated in this chain of narration that
Mark was Peter’s “interpreter” (hermeneutês),
and Mark wrote down everything that was narrated to him by Peter, though Mark
himself was not an eyewitness, and he also admits what was written was
chronologically inconsistent. The amount of time this anonymous character Mark
spent with Peter is unknown, however one thing we all can agree on is that all
of this occurs post-Paul. Paul was known to have been writing his epistles and
was preaching to the gentiles prior to Mark initiating these writings.
Therefore, theologically Mark’s writings are interpretations of Peter’s
post-Paul beliefs and teachings. Nevertheless, we are still uncertain if Mark
is the one who wrote the Gospel According to Mark, or whether it was a disciple
of Mark who narrated Mark’s teachings and therefore attributed the Gospel to
him. This possibility is as open as the Gospel actually being written by a John
Mark. One thing that is fascinating more than anything else is that Evangelical
Christian scholars agree that the author is unknown. This
lack of knowing who the author is not limited to the Gospel According to Mark,
but several other writings in the Bible as well.
Speaking
of the authors, even if they were disciples of the disciples of Christ, as
Christians would like to believe, what they wrote, was it an evolved perception
of what happened 50/70/100 years later, after Christ had lived among them?
Would you honestly consider these writings as divinely inspired?
But when Jesus turned
and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me,
Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but
the things of men. (Mark 8:32)
Peter, who
contributed to the New Testament writings, to be described by these words in
the words of Jesus, as narrated by Mark, is to automatically understand the
difference between a prophet of God, who has understood and learned directly
from GOD, and a disciple or apostle of the prophet, who can only comprehend
from his own personal interpretation of what he has physically witnessed. Such
a comprehension on part of the disciple also shows that his writings are only
perceptions and not divinely communicated, revealed,
statements.
A prophetic declaration?:
‘How can you say, "We are wise, for we
have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has
handled it falsely?' (NIV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)"
The Revised Standard Version makes it even clearer:
"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But,
behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. (From the
RSV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)"
These particular verses written by the prophet Jeremiah
seem to make a very important prophetic statement. The statement specifically
pertains to the scribes – not the pharisees, not the
rabbis, not the priests, not any random people, but specifically the scribes; ie. those who initiate with their
pens, the writing of the scripture. As if the statements are not already bold
and blatant enough, the message here seriously confirms the Quranic
injunction that words were taken out from there proper places, and also that
interpretation, perception, opinion, and hearsay were possibly and probably
included in the writings of scripture, so much so that one could say that the
law of the Lord was no longer with them because of it.
The next question is, why didn’t
God safeguard and protect the Bible? The answer to this question is simple, and
the Jews knew it all along too; that the Torah, and also the Gospel for that
matter, were time-specific and tribe-specific
revelations. They did not need to be preserved, nor would it be feasible to
preserve them. The preservation of such scripture would only complicate the
situation with an inevitable perfect, complete scripture that would be meant
all times and all peoples. For this very reason were the scrolls of Abraham, or
any other revelation that was given to any tribe, nation, or ancient people
that God may have revealed to, it is for this very reason that their scriptures
and revealed messages were not preserved as well. This is why the Israelites
depended on the “oral Torah” more than anything else, because they knew that
the Torah was specifically for them and them only – the gentiles had no
business with their covenant.
The issues of translations.
It is argued by many Christian scholars that the original
Gospels were written in Aramaic, and not Greek, and that the Greek is in fact a
translation of the original Aramaic. This conclusion is more than probable,
given that the original manuscripts do not exist, and furthermore, because it
was Aramaic and not Greek, which Jesus spoke, particularly with his
disciples.
Centuries later, the issue over which translation to use has become so severe
that whole denominations have formed because of it, and each uses it own
'versions' of the Bible. Despite this, it seems that most Roman Catholics, and
therefore the majority, seem to be comfortable in using the King James Version
which they call 'Authorized'. Authorized by whom? King James. Now, we can argue
over which translation is the better, but there are a few facts to consider. The fact that the original manuscripts do not exist. The fact that translations can be manipulative because a word in
English may mean something entirely different then how the word is used in
Hebrew or Aramaic. Meaning that the translations may
change the meaning of the original words because of the style that they were
used originally; and the fact that one is depending on human intelligence to
provide us with the best possible translation. How much can we trust a
translation, to what extent, and which translation? This is a huge controversy
in Biblical interpretation, something that does not exist with the Quran,
because unlike the Bible, the original manuscripts of the Quran do exist, and
if there is a debate over the meaning of a particular verse, one could always
go back to the original Arabic script, the original language it was revealed
and written in.
Another issue is the selection of writings contained within the Bible.
If the Bible is the ultimate authority, then which Bible?
Should we accept the Armenian Bible, which includes books such as Joseph and
the Aseneth that are not found in most European
Bibles? Perhaps the Catholic Bible with its many apocrypha books not found in
Protestant Bibles? Or maybe we should use the Ethiopic Bible or the Gnostic
Bible, which have other books not familiar to most Americans and Europeans? The
early uses of scripture by Christians contain several books that are no longer
used today. The Shepherd of Hermas for example, is
contained within the Codex Sinaiticus, which is the
oldest New Testament collection available, a fourth century manuscript found in
a monastery on
When the Council of Nicea canonized the
authorized New Testament in 325 CE., the list that
they compiled did not include Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, or 2 Peter, and included
only two of the letters of John. The fact of the matter is, that the Bibles
that have existed and do exist in the world today, are controversially
different. Why should one accept the "Authorized Version" when the
'authority' is not reliable? What about the books that are
considered divine and are used within some Bibles, but are rejected by others?
Martin Luther, considered father of the
Anyone who has studied the Bible and particularly its numerous
versions has inevitably come to another interesting realization. There are some
versions that have omitted entire verses from their respective Biblical
inscriptions. The excuses that these translators give is that there exists some
older Greek manuscripts that can be checked to confirm that some verses,
phrases, and whole parts of the Bible were added and were not originally inscripted! They confess that the later generations who
attempted to copy the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament might have
changed, added, or taken away from the original. Famous translations which are
widely used and have omitted these several verses include The New English
Translation, The New Living Translation, The New American Bible, The New World
Translation, and the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, just to name a few. The
verses that are omitted include over 40 verses and phrases, including Matthew
6:14, Matthew 18:11, Matthew 23:14, Mark 16:9-20, Mark 15:28, Luke 17:36, Luke
23:17, and the list goes on. By omitting such verses,
these translators of the Bible admit that the New Testament has indeed been
changed. The translators of these versions do not belong to the same
denomination, but vary from denomination to denomination. It can also be noted
that while other Bibles may include the mentioned verses, they admit in their
commentary the possibility of them being later additions.
For example in the New International Version in reference to
Mark16:9-20 it is stated that
“Serious
doubts exists as to whether these verses belong to the Gospel of Mark. They are absent from important early
manuscripts and display certain peculiarities of vocabulary, style and
theological content that are unlike the rest of Mark. His Gospel probably
ended at 16:8, or its original ending has been lost. (From the NIV
Bible Foot Notes, page 1528)"