Kyk ook: Islam 101 Die Islamgeloof ontbloot Die Islam dilemma Islam ontbloot The textual history of the Qur’an and the Bible

Note: The following article was taken from The Christian response to the Muslim debate – an informal network of Christian researchers in the UK, whose primary interest is the academic study of all issues relevant to Islam and Christianity.

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Introduction

Often, when we find ourselves in conversation with Muslims the authority for that which we are discussing comes up and we are forced to answer the question: “Which is the true Word of God, the Bible or the Qur’an?” As a Christian, I immediately affirm my own scriptures, maintaining that the Bible is the intrinsic Word of God. Obviously, for any Muslims, or others who may not have a religious position, this answer is not credible, as it involves a subjective statement of faith, one which cannot be proved or disproved, as there is no possibility of enquiry or verification. I am certain that when the same question is posed to a Muslim he likewise answers that the Qur’an qualifies as the final Word of God, and any further discussion ends. Both Christianity and Islam derive their set of beliefs from their revelations, the Bible and the Qur’an, yet we find that they disagree on a number of areas. One need only compare how each scripture deals with Jesus, sin, atonement, and salvation to understand that there are contradictory assertions held by both. Thus it is important to delineate which scripture can best make the claim to be the final and perfect Word of God.

When two documents which claim to be true are in contradiction, one must ascertain whether the contradictions can be explained adequately using criteria which a non-believer, or a third party, can accept; in other words, using criteria which go beyond the adherents’ personal faith commitment to their revelation. Essentially one must ask whether the Qur’an or the Bible can stand up to verification, or whether they can withstand an external critical analysis for their authenticity. This is an immensely complex and difficult subject. Since both Islam and Christianity claim to receive their beliefs from the revealed truth which they find in their respective scriptures, to suspect the source for revealed truth, the scriptures for each faith, is to put the integrity of both Christianity and Islam on trial.

Obviously this is not a task that one should undertake lightly, and I don’t intend to do so here. For that reason, and because of the lack of time and space, I have decided not to make a comparison between the claims the two revelations make for themselves, but simply ask the question whether the two scriptures can be corroborated by history; in other words whether there is any historical data or evidence which we can find that can help us verify that which they claim is true.

I start with the presupposition that God has intersected time and space and has revealed His truth to His creation. We should expect to see, therefore, evidence of those revelations in history, and be able to corroborate the historical claims the revelations make by an historical analysis. Both the Bible and the Qur’an claim to have been revealed at a certain place, and over a period of time. They speak of people, places, and events. If they are true, then we should be able to find evidence for their claims, and especially corroboration for what they say in the period in which they themselves profess they were revealed; the Bible between 1,447 BC and 70 AD, and the Qur’an between 610 AD and 632 AD My intent in this study is to look at the historical data which exists in these periods, and ascertain whether it supports or denies the claims for the historicity of both the Bible and the Qur’an. This I will attempt to do by looking at three areas of evidence; that provided by manuscripts, documents and archaeological data from the periods mentioned above. If the manuscript, documentary and archaeological evidence supports the claims for the Bible or the Qur’an, then we can assume their reliability. However, if the evidence denies their historicity, then we have to question their authenticity.

I will admit that this study is nothing more than a mere ‘overview,’ with the desire that it will stimulate others to continue investigating this very important area in their own time. The hope is that, like Peter before us, we too can “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [us] to give the reason for the hope that [we] have” (1 Peter 3:15).

[I] Manuscript analysis

Let’s then begin by looking at the area of manuscript evidence. What manuscripts do we have in Islam which can corroborate the authenticity of the Qur’an that we have in our hands today, and likewise, what Christian manuscripts are available to validate the Bible?

[A] The Qur’an’s manuscript evidence

A manuscript analysis of the Qur’an does present us with unique problems not encountered with the Bible. While we can find multiple manuscripts for the Bible written 700-900 years earlier, at a time when durable paper was not even used, the manuscripts for the Qur’an within the century in which it was purported to have been compiled, the seventh century, simply do not exist. Prior to 750 AD (thus for 100 years after Muhammad’s death) we have no verifiable Muslim documents which can give us a window into this formative period of Islam (Wansbrough 1978:58-59). In fact the primary sources which we possess are from 150-300 years after the events which they describe, and therefore are quite distant from those events (Nevo 1994:108; Wansbrough 1978:119; Crone 1987:204). For that reason they are, for all practical purposes, secondary sources, as they rely on other material, much of which no longer exists. We simply do not have any “account from the Islamic’ community during the [initial] 150 years or so, between the first Arab conquests [the early 7th century] and the appearance, with the sira-maghazi narratives, of the earliest Islamic literature” [the late 8th century] (Wansbrough 1978:119).

We should expect to find, in those intervening 150 years, at least remnants of evidence for the development of the old Arab religion towards Islam (i.e. Muslim traditions); yet we find nothing (Nevo 1994:108; Crone 1980:5-8). The documentary evidence at our disposal, prior to 750 AD “consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations in later compilations” (Humphreys 1991:80). Consequently, we have no reliable proof that the later Muslim traditions speak truly of the life of Muhammad, or even of the Qur’an (Schacht 1949:143-154). In fact we have absolutely no evidence for the original Qur’anic text (Schimmel 1984:4). Nor do we have any of the alleged four copies which were made of this recension and sent to Mecca, Medina, Basra and Damascus (see Gilchrist’s arguments in his book Jam’ al-Qur’an, 1989, pp. 140-154, as well as Ling’s & Safadi’s The Qur’an 1976, pp. 11-17).

Even if these copies had somehow disintegrated with age (as some Muslims now allege), there would surely be some fragments of the documents which we could refer to. By the end of the seventh century Islam had expanded from Spain in the west to India in the east. The Qur’an (according to tradition) was the centrepiece of their faith. Certainly within that enormous sphere of influence there would be some Qur’anic documents or manuscripts which still exist till this day. Yet, there is nothing anywhere from that period at all.

With the enormous number of manuscripts available for the Christian scriptures, all compiled long before the time Muhammad was born, it is incredible that Islam cannot provide a single corroborated manuscript of their most holy book from even within a century of their founder’s birth.

(1) Sammarkand and Topkapi MSS; Kufic and Ma’il Scripts

In response, Muslims contend that they do have a number of these “Uthmanic recensions,” these original copies from the seventh century, still in their possession. There are two documents which do hold some credibility, and to which many Muslims refer. These are the Samarkand Manuscript, which is located in the Tashkent library, Uzbekistan (in the southern part of the former Soviet Union), and the Topkapi Manuscript, which can be found in the Topkapi Museum, in Istanbul, Turkey.

These two documents are indeed old, and there has been ample etymological analysis done on them by scriptologists, as well as experts in Arabic calligraphy to warrant their discussion. What most Muslims do not realize is that these two manuscripts are written in the Kufic Script, a script which according to modern Qur’anic manuscript experts, such as Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, did not appear until late into the eighth century, and was not in use at all in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century (Lings & Safadi 1976:12-13,17; Gilchrist 1989:145-146; 152-153).

The reasons for this are quite simple. Consider: The Kufic script, properly known as al-Khatt al-Kufi, derives its name from the city of Kufa in Iraq (Lings & Safadi 1976:17). It would be rather odd for this script to have been adopted as the official script for the “mother of all books” as it is a script which had its origins in a city that had only been conquered by the Arabs a mere 10-14 years earlier.

It is important to note that the city of Kufa, which is in present day Iraq, was a city which would have been Sassanid or Persian before that time (637-8 AD). Thus, while Arabic would have been known there, it would not have been the predominant language, let alone the predominant script until much later.

We know in fact, that the Kufic script reached its perfection during the late eighth century (up to one hundred and fifty years after Muhammad’s death) and thereafter it became widely used throughout the Muslim world (Lings & Safadi 1976:12,17; Gilchrist 1989:145-146). This makes sense, since after 750 AD the Abbasids controlled Islam, and due to their Persian background were headquartered in the Kufa and Baghdad areas. They would thus have wanted their script to dominate. Having been themselves dominated by the Umayyads (who were based in Damascus) for around 100 years, it would now be quite understandable that an Arabic script which originated in their area of influence, such as the Kufic script would evolve into that which we find in these two documents mentioned here.

Therefore, it stands to reason that both the Topkapi and Samarkand Manuscripts, because they are written in the Kufic script, could not have been written earlier than 150 years after the Uthmanic Recension was supposedly compiled; at the earliest the late 700s or early 800s (Gilchrist 1989:144-147).

We do know that there were two earlier Arabic scripts which most modern Muslims are not familiar with. These are the al-Ma’il Script, developed in the Hijaz, particularly in Mecca and Medina, and the Mashq Script, also developed in Medina (Lings & Safadi 1976:11; Gilchrist 1989:144-145). The al-Ma’il Script came into use in the seventh century and is easily identified, as it was written at a slight angle (see the example on page 16 of Gilchrist’s Jam’ al-Qur’an, 1989). In fact the word al-Ma’il means “slanting.” This script survived for about two centuries before falling into disuse.

The Mashq Script also began in the seventh century, but continued to be used for many centuries. It is more horizontal in form and can be distinguished by its somewhat cursive and leisurely style (Gilchrist 1989:144). There are those who believe that the Mashq script was a forerunner to the later Kufic script, as there are similarities between the two.

If the Qur’an had been compiled at this time in the seventh century, then one would expect it to have been written in either the Ma’il or Mashq script.

Interestingly, we do have a Qur’an written in the Ma’il script, and considered to be the earliest Qur’an in our possession today. Yet it is not found in either Istanbul or Tashkent, but, ironically, it resides in the British Museum in London (Lings & Safadi 1976:17,20; Gilchrist 1989:16,144). It has been dated towards the end of the eighth century (790 AD) by Martin Lings, the former curator for the manuscripts of the British Museum, who is himself, a practising Muslim.

Therefore, with the help of script analysis, we are quite certain that there is no known manuscript of the Qur’an which we possess today which can be dated from the seventh century (Gilchrist 1989:147-148,153).

Furthermore, virtually all the earliest Qur’anic manuscript fragments which we do possess cannot be dated earlier than 100 years after the time of Muhammad. In her book Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, Annemarie Schimmel underlines this point when she states that apart from the recently discovered [Korans] in Sanaa, “the earliest datable fragments go back to the first quarter of the eighth century.” (Schimmels 1984:4)

From the evidence we possess, therefore, it would seem improbable that any portions of the Qur’an supposedly copied out at Uthman’s direction have survived. What we are left with is the intervening 150 years for which we cannot account.

(2) Talmudic Sources in the Qur’an

Another problem with manuscript evidence for the Qur’an is that of the heretical Talmudic accounts found within its passages. Possibly the greatest puzzlement for Christians who pick up the Qur’an and read it are the numerous seemingly Biblical stories which bear little similarity to the Biblical accounts. The Qur’anic stories include many distortions, amendments, and some bizarre additions to the familiar stories we have known and learned. So, we ask, where did these stories come from, if not from the previous scriptures?

Fortunately, we do have much Jewish and Christian apocryphal literature (some of it from the Talmud), dating from the second century AD with which we can compare many of these stories. It is when we do so, that we find remarkable similarities between these fables or folk tales of the later Jewish and Christian communities, and the stories which are recounted in the Qur’an (note:Talmudic material taken from Feinburg 1993:1162-1163).

The Jewish Talmudic writings were compiled in the second century AD, from oral laws (Mishnah) and traditions of those laws (Gemara). These laws and traditions were created to adapt the law of Moses (the Torah) to the changing times. They also included interpretations and discussions of the laws (the Halakhah and Haggadah etc.). Most Jews do not consider the Talmudic writings authoritative, but they read them nonetheless with interest for the light they cast on the times in which they were written.

Each generation embellished the accounts, or at times incorporated local folklore, so that it was difficult to know what the original stories contained. There were even those among the Jews who believed that these Talmudic writings had been added to the “preserved tablets” (i.e. the Ten Commandments, and the Torah which were kept in the Ark of the Covenant), and were believed to be replicas of the heavenly book (Feinburg 1993:1163).

Some orientalist scholars believe that when later Islamic compilers came onto the scene, in the eighth to ninth centuries AD, they merely added this body of literature to the nascent Qur’anic material. It is therefore, not surprising that a number of these traditions from Judaism were inadvertently accepted by later redactors, and incorporated into the holy writings’ of Islam.

There are quite a few stories which have their root in second century (AD) Jewish apocryphal literature; stories such as the murder of Abel by Cain in sura 5:31-32, borrowed from the Targum of Jonathan-ben-Uzziah and the Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; or the story of Abraham, the idols and the fiery furnace in sura 21:51-71, taken from the Midrash Rabbah; or the amusing story found in sura 27:17-44, of Solomon, his talking Hoopoo bird, and the queen of Sheba who lifts her skirt when mistaking a mirrored floor for water, taken from the 2nd Targum of Esther.

There are other instances where we find both apocryphal Jewish and Christian literatures within the Qur’anic text. The account of Mt. Sinai being lifted up and held over the heads of the Jews as a threat for rejecting the law (sura 7:171) comes from the second century Jewish apocryphal book, The Abodah Sarah. The odd accounts of the early childhood of Jesus in the Qur’an can be traced to a number of Christian apocryphal writings: the Palm tree which provides for the anguish of Mary after Jesus’s birth (sura 19:22-26) comes from The Lost Books of the Bible; while the account of the infant Jesus creating birds from clay (sura 3:49) comes from Thomas’ Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ. The story of the baby Jesus talking (sura 19:29-33) can be traced to Arabic apocryphal fable from Egypt named The first Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.

In sura 17:1 we have the report of Muhammad’s journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque.’ From later traditions we find this aya refers to Muhammad ascending up to the seventh heaven, after a miraculous night journey (the Mi’raj) from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a “winged-horse” called Buraq. More detail is furnished us in the Mishkat al Masabih. We can trace the story back to a fictitious book called The Testament of Abraham, written around 200 BC, in Egypt, and then translated into Greek and Arabic. Another analogous account is that of The Secrets of Enoch ( chapter 1:4-10 and 2:1), which predates the Qur’an by four centuries. Yet a further similar account is largely modelled on the story contained in the old Persian book entitled Arta-i Viraf Namak, telling how a pious young Zoroastrian ascended to the skies, and, on his return, related what he had seen, or professed to have seen (Pfander 1835:295-296).

The Qur’anic description of Hell resembles the descriptions of hell in the Homilies of Ephraim, a Nestorian preacher of the sixth century (Glubb 1971:36).

The author of the Qur’an in suras 42:17 and 101:6-9 possibly utilized The Testament of Abraham to teach that a scale or balance will be used on the day of judgment to weigh good and bad deeds in order to determine whether one goes to heaven or to hell.

It is important to remember that the Talmudic accounts were not considered by the orthodox Jews of that period as authentic for one very good reason: they were not in existence at the council of Jamnia in 80 AD when the Old Testament was canonized. Neither were the Christian apocryphal material considered canonical, as they were not attested as authoritative both prior to and after the council of Nicea in 325 AD. Thus, these accounts have always been considered as heretical by both the Jewish and Christian orthodox believers, and the literate ever since. It is for this reason that we find it deeply suspicious that the apocryphal accounts should have made their way into a book claiming to be the final revelation from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Let’s now look at the manuscript evidence for the Bible and ascertain whether the scripture which we read today is historically accurate?

[B] The Bible’s manuscript evidence

Unlike the Qur’an, when we consider the New Testament manuscripts (MSS) we are astounded by the sheer numbers of extent copies which are in existence. Muslims contend, however, that since we do not have the original documents, the reliability of the copies we do have is thus in doubt. Yet is this assumption correct?

(1) New Testament Manuscript Copies

Because the Bible is a book, it was initially made up of manuscripts. Consequently a primary means for ascertaining its credibility today are the number of copies from those manuscripts which are currently in one’s possession. The more copies we have the better we can compare between them and thus know if the document we now read corresponds with the original. It is much like a witness to an event. If we have only one witness to the event, there is the possibility that the witness’s agenda or even an exaggeration of the event has crept in and we would never know the full truth. But if we have many witnesses, the probability that they all got it wrong becomes minute.

Because of time and wear many of the historical documents from the ancient world have few manuscripts to which we can refer. This is specially true when we consider the secular historians and philosophers. For instance, we only have eight copies of Herodotus’s historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle’s writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today (McDowell 1972:42). These are indeed very few.

When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell’s Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pgs. 40-48; and Time, January 23, 1995, pg. 57). Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained.

What’s more, a substantial number were written well before the compilation of the Qur’an. In fact, according to research done by Kurt and Barbara Aland, a total of 230 manuscript portions are currently in existence which pre-date 600 AD! These can be broken down into 192 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 5 Greek lectionaries containing scripture, and 33 translations of the Greek New Testament (Aland 1987:82-83).

Muslims assert that we have similar problems concerning the large number of years which separate the manuscripts from the events which they speak about. Yet, unlike the Qur’an which was compiled much more recently, we do not find with the Bible such an enormous gap of time between that which the Bible speaks about and when it was written down. In fact, outside of the book of Revelation and the three letters of John considered to have been written later, when we look at the rest of the New Testament books, there is no longer any solid basis for dating them later than 80 AD, or 50 years after the death of Jesus Christ (Robinson 1976:79). Most of the New Testament was likely written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and perhaps before the fire of Rome (64 AD), and the subsequent persecution of Christians, since none of these events, which would have had an enormous impact on the nascent Christian community are mentioned in any of the New Testament writings. Had the documents been compiled in the second century as Muslims claim, then certainly they would have mentioned these very important events.

This same logic can be taken a step further. Take for instance the martyrdoms of James in 62 AD, Paul in 64 AD, and Peter in 65 AD. All were leaders in the nascent church. Thus their deaths were momentous events for the early Christian community. Yet we find none of the deaths referred to in any of the 27 canonized books of the New Testament (and significantly not in Acts, the most comprehensive historical record we have of the early church). The only explanation can be that they were all written prior to these events, and thus likely before 62 AD, or a mere 30 years after the death of Jesus, of whose life they primarily refer.

(2) Available Manuscripts

A further criticism concerns whether the copies we possess are credible. Since we do not possess the originals, people ask, how can we be sure they are identical to them? The initial answer is that we will never be completely certain, for there is no means at our disposal to reproduce the originals. This has always been a problem with all known ancient documents. Yet this same question is rarely asked of other historical manuscripts which we refer to constantly. If they are held to be credible, let’s then see how the New Testament compares with them. Let’s compare below the time gaps for the New Testament documents with other credible secular documents.

There were several historians of the ancient world whose works are quite popular. Thucydides, who wrote History of the Peloponnesian War, lived from 460 BC to 400 BC. Virtually everything we know about the war comes from his history. Yet, the earliest copy of any manuscripts of Thucydides’ work dates around 900 AD, a full 1,300 years later! The Roman historian Suetonius lived between AD 70 to 140 AD. Yet the earliest copy of his book The Twelve Caesars is dated around AD 950, a full 800 years later. The chart below reveals the time gaps of these and other works from the ancient world and compares them to the earliest New Testament manuscripts (taken from McDowell 1972:42, & Bruce 1943:16-17).

Author	Date Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	Copies (extent)
Secular Manuscripts:
Herodotus (History)	480 – 425 BC	900 AD	1,300 years	8
Thucydides (History)	460 – 400 BC	900 AD	1,300 years	?
Aristotle (Philosopher)	384 – 322 BC	1,100 AD	1,400 years	5
Caesar (History)	100 – 44 BC	900 AD	1,000 years	10
Pliny (History)	61 – 113 AD	850 AD	750 years	7
Suetonius (Roman History)	70 – 140 AD	950 AD	800 years	?
Tacitus (Greek History)	100 AD	1,100 AD	1,000 years	20
Biblical Manuscripts: (note: these are individual manuscripts)
Magdalene Ms (Matthew 26)	1st century	50-60 AD	co-existant (?)
John Rylands (John)	90 AD	130 AD	40 years
Bodmer Papyrus II (John)	90 AD	150-200 AD	60-110 years
Chester Beatty Papyri (N.T.)	1st century	200 AD	150 years
Diatessaron by Tatian (Gospels)	1st century	200 AD	150 years
Codex Vaticanus (Bible)	1st century	325-350 AD	275-300 years
Codex Sinaiticus (Bible)	1st century	350 AD	300 years
Codex Alexandrinus (Bible)	1st century	400 AD	350 years

(Total New Testament manuscripts = 5,300 Greek MSS, 10,000 Latin Vulgates, 9,300 others = 24,000 copies)
(Total MSS compiled prior to 600 AD = 230)

What one notices almost immediately from the table is that the New Testament manuscript copies which we possess today were compiled very early, a number of them hundreds of years before the earliest copy of a secular manuscript. This not only shows the importance the early Christians gave to preserving their scriptures, but the enormous wealth we have today for early Biblical documentation.

What is even more significant however, are the differences in time spans between the original manuscripts and the copies of both the biblical and secular manuscripts. It is well known in historical circles that the closer a document can be found to the event it describes the more credible it is. The time span for the biblical manuscript copies listed above are all within 350 years of the originals, some as early as 130-250 years and one even purporting to coexist with the original (i.e. the Magdalene Manuscript fragments of Matthew 26), while the time span for the secular manuscript copies are much greater, between 750-1,400 years! This indeed gives enormous authority to the biblical manuscript copies, as no other ancient piece of literature can make such close time comparisons.

Because of its importance to our discussion here a special note needs to be given to the Magdalene Manuscript mentioned above. Until two years ago, the oldest assumed manuscript which we possessed was the St. John papyrus (P52), housed in the John Rylands museum in Manchester, and dated at 120 AD (Time April 26, 1996, pg.8). Thus, it was thought that the earliest New Testament manuscript could not be corroborated by eyewitnesses to the events. That assumption has now changed, for three even older manuscripts, one each from the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have now been dated earlier than the Johannine account. It is two of these three findings which I believe will completely change the entire focus of the critical debate on the authenticity of the Bible. Let me explain.

The Lukan papyrus, situated in a library in Paris has been dated to the late 1st century or early 2nd century, so it predates the John papyrus by 20-30 years (Time April 26, 1996, pg.8). But of more importance are the manuscript findings of Mark and Matthew! New research which has now been uncovered by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and is published in his newly released book on the subject, the Jesus Papyrus mentions a fragment from the book of Mark found among the Qumran scrolls (fragment 7Q5) showing that it was written sometime before 68 AD It is important to remember that Christ died in 33 AD, so this manuscript could have been written, at the latest, within 35 years of His death; possibly earlier, and thus during the time that the eyewitnesses to that event were still alive!

The most significant find, however, is a manuscript fragment from the book of Matthew (chapt.26) called the Magdalene Manuscript which has been analysed by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and also written up in his book The Jesus Papyrus. Using a sophisticated analysis of the handwriting of the fragment by employing a special state-of-the-art microscope, he differentiated between 20 separate micrometer layers of the papyrus, measuring the height and depth of the ink as well as the angle of the stylus used by the scribe. After this analysis Thiede was able to compare it with other papyri from that period; notably manuscripts found at Qumran (dated to 58 AD), another at Herculaneum (dated prior to 79 AD), a further one from the fortress of Masada (dated to between 73/74 AD), and finally a papyrus from the Egyptian town of Oxyrynchus. The Magdalene Manuscript fragments matches all four, and in fact is almost a twin to the papyrus found in Oxyrynchus, which bears the date of 65/66 AD Thiede concludes that these papyrus fragments of St. Matthew’s Gospel were written no later than this date and probably earlier. That suggests that we either have a portion of the original gospel of Matthew, or an immediate copy which was written while Matthew and the other disciples and eyewitnesses to the events were still alive. This would be the oldest manuscript portion of our Bible in existence today, one which co-exists with the original writers!

What is of even more importance is what it says. The Matthew 26 fragment uses in its text nomina sacra (holy names) such as the diminutive “IS” for Jesus and “KE” for Kurie or Lord (The Times, Saturday, December 24, 1994). This is highly significant for our discussion today, because it suggests that the godhead of Jesus was recognised centuries before it was accepted as official church doctrine at the council of Nicea in 325 AD There is still ongoing discussion concerning the exact dating of this manuscript. However, if the dates prove to be correct then this document alone completely eradicates the criticism levelled against the gospel accounts (such as the “Jesus Seminar”) that the early disciples knew nothing about Christ’s divinity, and that this concept was a later redaction imposed by the Christian community in the second century (AD).

We have other manuscript evidence for the New Testament as well:

(3) Versions or Translations

Besides the 24,000 manuscripts we have more than 15,000 existing copies of the various versions written in the Latin and Syriac (Christian Aramaic), some of which were written as early as 150 AD, such as the Syriac Peshitta (150-250 AD) (McDowell 1972:49; 1990:47).

Because Christianity was a missionary faith from its very inception (Matthew 28:19-20), the scriptures were immediately translated into the known languages of that period. For that reason other written translations appeared soon after, such as Coptic translations (early 3rd and 4th centuries), Armenian (400 AD), Gothic (4th century), Georgian (5th century), Ethiopic (6th century), and Nubian (6th century) (McDowell 1972:48-50). The fact that we have so many translations of the New Testament points to its authenticity, as it would have been almost impossible, had the disciples or later followers wanted to corrupt or forge its contents, for them to have amassed all of the translations from the outlying areas and changed each one so that there would have been the uniformity which we find witnessed in these translations today.

(4) Lectionaries

The practice of reading passages from the New Testament books at worship services began from the 6th century, so that today we have 2,135 lectionaries which have been catalogued from this period (McDowell 1972:52). If there had been a forgery, they too would have all had to have been changed.

(5) Early Church Father’s Letters

But possibly the greatest attestation for the authority of our New Testament are the masses of quotations taken from its pages by the early church fathers. Dean Burgon in his research found in all 86,489 quotes from the early church fathers (McDowell 1990:47-48; 1991:52). In fact, there are 32,000 quotations from the New Testament found in writings from before the council of Nicea in 325 AD (Mcdowell Evidence, 1972:52). J. Harold Greenlee points out that the quotations of the scripture in the works of the early church writers are so extensive that the New Testament could virtually be reconstructed from them without the use of New Testament manuscripts.

Sir David Dalrymple sought to do this, and from the second and third century writings of the church fathers he found the entire New Testament quoted except for eleven verses(McDowell 1972:50-51; 1990:48)! Thus, we could throw the New Testament manuscripts away and still reconstruct it with the simple help of these letters. Some examples of these are (from McDowell’s Evidence…, 1972 pg. 51):

• Clement (30-95 AD) quotes from various sections of the New Testament.
• Ignatius (70-110 AD) knew the apostles and quoted directly from 15 of the 27 books.
• Polycarp (70-156 AD) was a disciple of John and quoted from the New Testament.

Thus the manuscript evidence at our disposal today gives us over 24,000 manuscripts with which to corroborate our current New Testament. The earliest of these manuscripts have now been dated earlier than 60-70 AD, so within the lifetime of the original writers, and with an outside possibility that they are the originals themselves. On top of that we have 15,000 early translations of the New Testament, and over 2,000 lectionaries. And finally we have scriptural quotations in the letters of the early Church fathers with which we could almost reproduce the New Testament if we so wished. This indeed is substantial manuscript evidence for the New Testament.

So what comparisons are there between the manuscript evidence for the Qur’an and the Bible? We know from the historical record that by the end of the seventh century the Arabs had expanded right across North Africa and up into Spain, and east as far as India. The Qur’an (according to later Islamic tradition) was the centrepiece of their faith and practice at that time. Certainly within that enormous sphere of influence there should therefore be some Qur’anic manuscripts which still exist till this day. Yet, there is nothing from that period at all. The only manuscripts which Islam provides turn out to have been compiled in the ninth century, while the earliest corroborated manuscript is dated 790 AD, written not 1400 years ago as Muslims claim but a mere 1,200 years ago.

While Christianity can claim more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,300 other early versions, adding up to over 24,000 corroborated New Testament manuscripts still in existence (McDowell 1990:43-55), most of which were written between 25-400 years after the death of Christ (or between the 1st and 5th centuries) (McDowell 1972:39-49), Islam cannot provide a single manuscript until well into the eighth century (Lings & Safadi 1976:17; Schimmel 1984:4-6). If the Christians could retain so many thousands of ancient manuscripts, all of which were written long before the Qur’an, at a time when paper had not yet been introduced, forcing the dependency on papyrus which disintegrated with age, then one wonders why the Muslims are not able to forward a single manuscript from this much later period, during which the Qur’an was supposedly revealed? This indeed gives the Bible a much stronger claim for reliability than the Qur’an.

Furthermore, while the earliest New Testament manuscripts as well as the earliest letters from the church fathers correspond with the New Testament which we have in our hands, providing us with some certainty that they have not been unduly added to or tampered with, the Qur’anic material which we have in our possession abounds with stories whose origins we can now trace to second century Jewish and Christian apocryphal literature. We know in some cases who wrote them, when exactly they were written and at times even why they were written; and that none of them were from a divine source, as they were written by the most human of Rabbis and storytellers over the intervening centuries after the Bible had been canonized.

We now turn our attention to the documentary evidence for both the Qur’an and the Bible.

[II] Documentary analysis

[A] The Qur’an’s documentary evidence

Documentary evidence for the Qur’an has always been difficult, due to the paucity of primary documents at our disposal (as was mentioned in the previous section). The oldest Muslim documents available are the Muslim Traditions, which were initially compiled as late as 765 AD (i.e. The Sira of Ibn Ishaq). Yet the earliest documents which we can refer to today are those compiled by Ibn Hisham (the Sira of the prophet), and the large Hadith compilations of al-Bukhari, Muslim and others, all written in the ninth century, and thus 200 to 250 years after the fact. They are much too late to be useful for our study here. Therefore we must go back to the seventh century itself and ascertain what documents are available with which we can corroborate the reliability of the Qur’an.

(1) Doctrina Iacobi and 661 Chronicler

Two seventh century documents at our disposal are helpful here: a) the Doctrina Iacobi, the earliest testimony of Muhammad and of his “movement” available to us outside Islamic tradition; a Greek anti-Jewish tract which was written in Palestine between 634 and 640 AD (Brock 1982:9; Crone-Cook 1977:3), and b) a chronicle supposedly written by Sebeos in 660 AD Both of these documents deal with the relationship between the Arabs and Jews in the seventh century.

The Qur’an implies that Muhammad severed his relationship with the Jews in 624 AD (or soon after the Hijra in 622 AD), and thus moved the direction of prayer, the Qibla at that time from Jerusalem to Mecca (Sura 2:144, 149-150). The early non-Muslim sources, however, depict a good relationship between the Muslims and Jews at the time of the first conquests (late 620s AD), and even later. Yet the Doctrina Iacobi warns of the Jews who mix with the Saracens,’ and the danger to life and limb of falling into the hands of these Jews and Saracens’ (Bonwetsch 1910:88; Cook 1983:75). In fact, this relationship seems to carry right on into the conquest as an early Armenian source mentions that the governor of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the conquest was a Jew (Patkanean 1879:111; Sebeos 1904:103).

What is significant here is the possibility that Jews and Arabs (Saracens) seem to be allied together during the time of the conquest of Palestine and even for a short time after (Crone-Cook 1977:6).

If these witnesses are correct than one must ask how it is that the Jews and Saracens (Arabs) are allies as late as 640 AD, when, according to the Qur’an, Muhammad severed his ties with the Jews as early as 624 AD, more than 15 years earlier?

To answer that we need to refer to the earliest connected account of the career of the prophet,’ that given in an Armenian chronicle from around 660 AD, which is ascribed by some to Bishop Sebeos (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:6). The chronicler describes how Muhammad established a community which comprised both Ishmaelites (i.e. Arabs) and Jews, and that their common platform was their common descent from Abraham; the Arabs via Ishmael, and the Jews via Isaac (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:8; Cook 1983:75). The chronicler believed Muhammad had endowed both communities with a birthright to the Holy Land, while simultaneously providing them with a monotheist genealogy (Crone-Cook 1977:8). This is not without precedent as the idea of an Ishmaelite birthright to the Holy Land was discussed and rejected earlier in the Genesis Rabbah (61:7), in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Book of Jubilees (Crone-Cook 1977:159).

Here we find a number of non-Muslim documentary sources contradicting the Qur’an, maintaining that there was a good relationship between the Arabs and Jews for at least a further 15 years beyond that which the Qur’an asserts.

If Palestine was the focus for the Arabs, then the city of Mecca comes into question, and further documentary data concerning Mecca may prove to be the most damaging evidence against the reliability of the Qur’an which we have to date.

(2) Mecca

To begin with we must ask what we know about Mecca? Muslims maintain that “Mecca is the centre of Islam, and the centre of history.” According to the Qur’an, “The first sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah (or Mecca), a blessed place, a guidance for the peoples.” (Sura 3:96) In Sura 6:92 and 42:5 we find that Mecca is described as the “mother of all settlements.” According to Muslim tradition, Adam placed the black stone in the original Ka’ba there, while according to the Qur’an (Sura 2:125-127) it was Abraham and Ishmael who rebuilt the Meccan Ka’ba many years later. Thus, by implication, Mecca is considered by Muslims to be the first and most important city in the world! In fact much of the story of Muhammad revolves around Mecca, as his formative years were spent there, and it was to Mecca that he sought to return while in exile in Medina.

Apart from the obvious difficulty in finding any documentary or archaeological evidence that Abraham ever went to or lived in Mecca, the overriding problem rests in finding any reference to the city before the creation of Islam. From research carried out by both Crone and Cook, except for an inference to a city called “Makoraba” by the Greco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy in the mid-2nd century AD (though we are not even sure whether this allusion by Ptolemy referred to Mecca, as he only mentioned the name in passing), there is absolutely no other report of Mecca or its Ka’ba in any authenticated ancient document; that is until the early eighth century (Cook 1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:22). As Crone and Cook maintain the earliest substantiated reference to Mecca occurs in the Continuatio Byzantia Arabica, which is a source dating from early in the reign of the caliph Hisham, who ruled between 724-743 AD (Crone-Cook 1977:22,171).

Therefore, the earliest corroborative evidence we have for the existence of Mecca is fully 100 years after the date when Islamic tradition and the Qur’an place it. Why? Certainly, if it was so important a city, someone, somewhere would have mentioned it; yet we find nothing outside of the small inference by Ptolemy 500 years earlier, and these initial statements in the early eighth century.

Yet even more troubling historically is the claim by Muslims that Mecca was not only an ancient and great city, but it was also the centre of the trading routes for Arabia in the seventh century and before (Cook 1983:74; Crone 1987:3-6). It is this belief which is the easiest to examine, since we have ample documentation from that part of the world with which to check out its veracity.

According to extensive research by Bulliet on the history of trade in the ancient Middle-East, these claims by Muslims are quite wrong, as Mecca simply was not on any major trading routes. The reason for this, he contends, is that, “Mecca is tucked away at the edge of the peninsula. Only by the most tortured map reading can it be described as a natural crossroads between a north-south route and an east-west one.” (Bulliet 1975:105)

This is corroborated by further research carried out by Groom and Muller, who contend that Mecca simply could not have been on the trading route, as it would have entailed a detour from the natural route along the western ridge. In fact, they maintain the trade route must have bypassed Mecca by some one-hundred miles (Groom 1981:193; Muller 1978:723).

Patricia Crone, in her work on Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam adds a practical reason which is too often overlooked by earlier historians. She points out that, “Mecca was a barren place, and barren places do not make natural halts, and least of all when they are found at a short distance from famously green environments. Why should caravans have made a steep descent to the barren valley of Mecca when they could have stopped at Ta’if. Mecca did, of course, have both a well and a sanctuary, but so did Ta’if, which had food supplies, too” (Crone 1987:6-7; Crone-Cook 1977:22).

Furthermore, Patricia Crone asks, “what commodity was available in Arabia that could be transported such a distance, through such an inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a peripheral site bereft of natural resources?” (Crone 1987:7) It wasn’t incense, spices, and other exotic goods, as many notoriously unreliable earlier writers have intimated (see Crone’s discussion on the problem of historical accuracy, particularly between Lammens, Watts and Kister, in Meccan Trade 1987:3). According to the latest and much more reliable research by Kister and Sprenger, the Arabs engaged in a trade of a considerably humbler kind, that of leather and clothing; hardly items which could have founded a commercial empire of international dimensions (Kister 1965:116; Sprenger 1869:94).

The real problem with Mecca, however, is that there simply was no international trade taking place in Arabia, let alone in Mecca in the centuries immediately prior to Muhammad’s birth. It seems that much of our data in this area has been spurious from the outset, due to sloppy research of the original sources, carried out by Lammens, “an unreliable scholar,” and repeated by the great orientalists such as Watts, Shaban, Rodinson, Hitti, Lewis and Shahid (Crone 1987:3,6). Lammens, using first century sources (such as Periplus and Pliny) should have used the later Greek historians who were closer to the events (such as Cosmas, Procopius and Theodoretus) (Crone 1987:3,19-22,44).

Had he referred to the later historians he would have found that the Greek trade between India and the Mediterranean was entirely maritime after the first century AD (Crone 1987:29). One need only look at a map to understand why. It made little sense to ship goods across such distances by land when a water-way was available close by. Patricia Crone points out that in Diocletian’s Rome it was cheaper to ship wheat 1,250 miles by sea than to transport it fifty miles by land (Crone 1987:7). The distance from Najran, Yemen in the south, to Gaza in the north was roughly 1,250 miles. Why would the traders ship their goods from India by sea, and unload it at Aden where it would be put on the backs of much slower and more expensive camels to trudge 1,250 miles across the inhospitable Arabian desert to Gaza, when they could simply have left it on the ships and followed the Red Sea route up the west coast of Arabia?

There were other problems as well. Had Lammens researched his sources correctly he would have also found that the Greco-Roman trade with India collapsed by the third century AD, so that by Muhammad’s time there was not only no overland route, but no Roman market to which the trade was destined (Crone 1987:29). He would have similarly found that what trade remained, was controlled by the Ethiopians and not the Arabs, and that Adulis, the port city on the Ethiopian coast of the Red Sea, and not Mecca was the trading centre of that region (Crone 1987:11,41-42).

Of even more significance, had Lammens taken the time to study the early Greek sources, he would have discovered that the Greeks to whom the trade went had never even heard of a place called Mecca (Crone 1987:11,41-42). If, according to the Muslim traditions, and recent orientalists, Mecca was so important, certainly those to whom the trade was going would have noted its existence. Yet, we find nothing. Crone in her work points out that the Greek trading documents refer to the towns of Ta’if (which is south-east and close to present-day Mecca), and to Yathrib (later Medina), as well as Kaybar in the north, but no mention is made of Mecca (Crone 1987:11). That indeed is troubling for the historicity of a city whose importance lies at the centre of the nascent Islam.

Had the later orientalists bothered to check out Lammens’ sources, they too would have realized that since the overland route was not used after the first century AD, it certainly was not in use in the fifth or sixth centuries (Crone 1987:42), and much of what has been written concerning Mecca would have been corrected long before now.

Finally, the problem of locating Mecca in the early secular sources is not unique, for there is even some confusion within Islamic tradition as to where exactly Mecca was initially situated (see the discussion on the evolution of the Meccan site in Crone & Cook’s Hagarism 1977:23,173). According to research carried out by J.van Ess, in both the first and second civil wars, there are accounts of people proceeding from Medina to Iraq via Mecca (van Ess 1971:16; see also Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi 1369:343). Yet Mecca is south-west of Medina, and Iraq is north-east. Thus the sanctuary for Islam, according to these traditions was at one time north of Medina, which is the opposite direction from where Mecca is today!

We are left in a quandary. If, according to documentary evidence, in this case the ancient Greek historical and trading documents, Mecca was not the great commercial centre the later Muslim traditions would have us believe, if it was not known by the people who lived and wrote from that period, and if it could not even qualify as a viable city during the time of Muhammad, it certainly could not have been the centre of the Muslim world at that time. How then can we believe that the Qur’an is reliable? The documentary evidence not only contradicts its dating on the split between the Arabs and the Jews, but the city it identifies as the birthplace and cornerstone for the nascent Islam cannot even be identified with any historical accuracy until at least a full century later? Do these same problems exist with the Bible?

[B] The Bible’s documentary evidence

(1900=Abraham, 1700=Joseph, 1447=Moses, 1000=David)

The documentary evidence for the reliability of the Bible has been an area of research which has been increasing rapidly over the last few decades. But this hasn’t always been so. The assumption by many former archaeologists was that the Old Testament was written not in the tenth to fourteenth centuries BC by the authors described within its text, but by later Jewish historians during the much later second to sixth century BC, and that the stories were then redacted back onto the great prophets such as Moses and David, etc… Yet, with the enormous quantity of data which has been uncovered and is continuing to be uncovered, as well as the new forensic research methods being employed to study them, what we are now finding is that many of these preconceived notions of authorship are simply no longer valid. For instance:

(1) The skeptics contended that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses, because there was no evidence of any writing that early. Then the Black Stele was found with the detailed laws of Hammurabi which were written 300 years before Moses, and in the same region.

(2) There was much doubt as to the reliability of the Old Testament documents, since the oldest manuscript in our possession was the Massoretic Text, written in 916 AD. How, the skeptics asked, can we depend on a set of writings whose earliest manuscripts are so recent? Then came the amazing discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls written around 125 BC These scrolls show us that outside of minute copying errors it is identical to the Massoretic Text and yet it predates it by over 1,000 years! We have further corroboration in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, translated around 150-200 BC.

Yet to please the skeptics, the best documentary evidence for the reliability of the Biblical text must come from documents external to the Biblical text themselves. There has always been doubt concerning the stories of Abraham and the Patriarchs found in the books attributed to Moses, the Pentateuch. The skeptics maintained that there is no method of ascertaining their reliability since we have no corroboration from external secular accounts. This has all changed; for instance:

(3) Discoveries from excavations at Nuzu, Mari and Assyrian, Hittite, Sumerian and Eshunna Codes point out that Hebrew poetry, Mosaic legislation as well as the Hebrew social customs all fit the period and region of the patriarchs.

(4) According to the historians there were no Hittites at the time of Abraham, thus the historicity of the Biblical accounts describing them was questionable. Now we know from inscriptions of that period that there were 1,200 years of Hittite civilization, much of it corresponding with the Patriarchal period.

(5) Historians also told us that no such people as the Horites existed. It is these people whom we find mentioned in the genealogy of Esau in Genesis 36:20. Yet now they have been discovered as a group of warriors also living in Mesopotamia during the Patriarchal period.

(6) The account of Daniel, according to the sceptical historians, must have been written in the second century and not the sixth century BC because of all the precise historical detail found in its content. Yet now the sixth century’s East India Inscription corresponds with the Daniel 4:30 account of Nebuchadnezzar’s building, proving that the author of Daniel must have been an eye-witness from that period. Either way it is amazing.

The strongest case for extra-Biblical corroboration of the Patriarchal period is found in four sets of tablets which have been and are continuing to be uncovered from that area of the world. They demonstrate that the Biblical account is indeed historically reliable. Let’s briefly look at all four sets of tablets.

(7) *Armana tablets: (from Egypt) mention the Habiru or Apiru in Hebrew, which was first applied to Abraham in Genesis 14:13.

(8) *Ebla tablets: 17,000 tablets from Tell Mardikh (Northern Syria), dating from 2300 BC, shows us that a thousand years before Moses, laws, customs and events were recorded in writing in that part of the world, and that the judicial proceedings and case laws were very similar to the Deuteronomy law code (i.e. Deuteronomy 22:22-30 codes on punishment for sex offenses). One tablet mentions and lists the five cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar in the exact sequence which we find in Genesis 14:8! Until these tablets were uncovered the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah had always been in doubt by historians.

(9) *Mari tablets: (from the Euphrates) mentions king Arriyuk, or Arioch of Genesis 14, and lists the towns of Nahor and Harran (from Genesis 24:10), as well as the names Benjamin and Habiru.

(10) *Nuzi tablets: (from Iraq) speaks about a number of customs which we find in the Pentateuch, such as:
a) a barren wife giving a handmaiden to her husband (i.e. Hagar)
b) a bride chosen for the son by the father (i.e. Rebekah)
c) a dowry paid to the father-in-law (i.e. Jacob)
d) work done to pay a dowry (i.e. Jacob)
e) the unchanging oral will of a father (i.e. Isaac)
f) a father giving his daughter a slave-girl (i.e. Leah, Rachel)
g) the sentence of death for stealing a cult gods (i.e. Jacob).

Because of these extra-Biblical discoveries many of the historians are now changing their position. Thus Joseph Free states: “New discoveries now show us that a host of supposed [Biblical] errors and contradictions are not errors at all: such as, that Sargon existed and lived in a palatial dwelling 12 miles north of Ninevah, that the Hittites were a significant people, that the concept of a sevenfold lamp existed in the early Iron Age, that a significant city given in the record of David’s empire lies far to the north, and that Belshazzar existed and ruled over Babylon.”

While documentary evidence for the Bible in the form of secular inscriptions and tablets not only corroborates the existence of some of the oldest Biblical traditions, similar and more recent documentary evidence (such as the Doctrina Iacobi, and the Armenian Chronicler) eradicates some of the more cherished Islamic traditions, that Islam was a uniquely Arab creation, and that Mecca, the supposed centre for Islam, has little historicity whatsoever before or during the time of Muhammad.

We look forward to further documentary discoveries coming to light, as they continue to substantiate and underline the Biblical record, while simultaneously putting doubt to the record of the Qur’an. Let’s now look at the archaeological evidence for both the Bible and the Qur’an:

[III] The archaeological analysis

If we are to take the Qur’anic and Biblical records seriously, we will need to inquire further as to whether there are other sources which we can turn to for a corroboration of their accounts. Since we are dealing with scriptures which often speak of history, probably the best and easiest way to confirm that history is to go to the areas where the history took place because history never takes place in a vacuum. It always leaves behind its forgotten fingerprints, waiting dormant in the ground to be discovered, dug up and deciphered. It is therefore, important that we also get our digets dirty and take a look at the treasures which our archaeologist friends are discovering, to ascertain if they have been able to reward us with any clues as to the authenticity of both the Qur’anic and Biblical accounts. Let’s see what archaeology tells us concerning the Qur’an.

[A] The Qur’an’s archeological evidence

As with the manuscript and documentary evidence, there is not much archaeological data to which we can turn for corroboration of the Qur’an. What we can do, however, is look at the claims the Qur’an makes and ascertain whether they can be backed up by archaeology. Let’s start with the Qibla, or direction of prayer.

(1) The Qibla

According to the Qur’an, the direction of prayer (the Qibla), was canonized (or finalized) towards Mecca for all Muslims in or around 624 AD (see Sura 2:144, 149-150).

Yet, the earliest evidence from outside Muslim tradition regarding the direction in which Muslims prayed, and by implication the location of their sanctuary, points to an area much further north than Mecca, in fact somewhere in north-west Arabia (Crone-Cook 1977:23). Consider the archaeological evidence which has been and is continuing to be uncovered from the first mosques built in the seventh century:

According to archaeological research carried out by Creswell and Fehervari on ancient mosques in the Middle East, two floor-plans from two Umayyad mosques in Iraq, one built at the beginning of the 8th century by the governor Hajjaj in Wasit (noted by Creswell as, “the oldest mosque in Islam of which remains have come down to us” – Creswell 1989:41), and the other attributed to roughly the same period near Baghdad, have Qiblas (the direction which these mosques are facing) which do not face Mecca, but are oriented too far north (Creswell 1969:137ff & 1989:40; Fehervari 1961:89; Crone-Cook 1977:23,173). The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, and the Baghdad mosque is off by 30 degrees (Creswell 1969:137ff; Fehervari 1961:89).

This agrees with Baladhuri’s testimony (called the Futuh) that the Qibla of the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, supposedly constructed in 670 AD (Creswell 1989:41), also lay to the west, when it should have pointed almost directly south (al-Baladhuri’s Futuh, ed. by de Goeje 1866:276; Crone 1980:12; Crone-Cook 1977:23,173).

The original ground-plan of the mosque of Amr b. al As, located in Fustat, the garrison town outside Cairo, Egypt shows that the Qibla again pointed too far north and had to be corrected later under the governorship of Qurra b. Sharik (Creswell 1969:37,150). Interestingly this agrees with the later Islamic tradition compiled by Ahmad b. al-Maqrizi that Amr prayed facing slightly south of east, and not towards the south (al-Maqrizi 1326:6; Crone-Cook 1977:24,173).

If you take a map you will find where it is that these mosques were pointing. All four of the above instances position the Qibla not towards Mecca, but much further north, in fact closer possibly to the vicinity of Jerusalem. If, as some Muslims now say, one should not take these findings too seriously as many mosques even today have misdirected Qiblas, then one must wonder why, if the Muslims back then were so incapable of ascertaining directions, they should all happen to be pointing to a singular location; to an area in northern Arabia, and possibly Jerusalem?

We find further corroboration for this direction of prayer by the Christian writer and traveller Jacob of Edessa, who, writing as late as 705 AD was a contemporary eye-witness in Egypt. He maintained that the Mahgraye’ (Greek name for Arabs) in Egypt prayed facing east which was towards their Ka’ba (Crone-Cook 1977:24). His letter (which can be found in the British Museum) is indeed revealing. Therefore, as late as 705 AD the direction of prayer towards Mecca had not yet been canonized.

Note: The mention of a Ka’ba does not necessarily infer Mecca (as so many Muslims have been quick to point out), since there were other Ka’bas in existence during that time, usually in market-towns (Crone-Cook 1977:25,175). It was profitable to build a Ka’ba in these market towns so that the people coming to market could also do their pilgrimage or penitence to the idols contained within. The Ka’ba Jacob of Edessa was referring to was situated at “the patriarchal places of their races,” which he also maintains was not in the south. Both the Jews and Arabs ( Mahgraye’) maintained a common descent from Abraham who was known to have lived and died in Palestine, as has been corroborated by recent archaeological discoveries (see the earlier discussion on the Ebla, Mari and Nuzi tablets, as well as extra-Biblical 10th century references to Abraham in McDowell 1991:98-104). This common descent from Abraham is also corroborated by the Armenian Chronicler, Sebeos, as early as 660 AD (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:8; Cook 1983:75).

According to Dr. Hawting, who teaches on the sources of Islam at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, a part of the University of London), new archaeological discoveries of mosques in Egypt from the early 700s also show that up till that time the Muslims (or Haggarenes) were indeed praying, not towards Mecca, but towards the north, and possibly Jerusalem. In fact, Dr. Hawting maintains, no mosques have been found from this period (the seventh century) which face towards Mecca (noted from his class lectures in 1995). Hawting cautions, however, that not all of the Qiblas face towards Jerusalem. Some Jordanian mosques have been uncovered which face north, while there are certain North African mosques which face south, implying that there was some confusion as to where the early sanctuary was placed. Yet, the Qur’an tells us (in sura 2) that the direction of the Qibla was fixed towards Mecca by approximately two years after the Hijra, or around 624 AD, and has remained in that direction until the present!

Thus, according to Crone and Cook and Hawting, the combination of the archaeological evidence from Iraq along with the literary evidence from Egypt points unambiguously to a sanctuary [and thus direction of prayer] not in the south, but somewhere in north-west Arabia (or even further north) at least till the end of the seventh century (Crone-Cook 1977:24).

What is happening here? Why are the Qiblas of these early mosques not facing towards Mecca? Why the discrepancy between the Qur’an and that which archaeology as well as documents reveal as late as 705 AD?

Some Muslims argue that perhaps the early Muslims did not know the direction of Mecca. Yet these were desert traders, caravaneers! Their livelihood was dependant on travelling the desert, which has few landmarks, and, because of the sandstorms, no roads. They, above all, knew how to follow the stars. Their lives depended on it. Certainly they knew the difference between the north and the south.

Furthermore, the mosques in Iraq and Egypt were built in civilized urban areas, amongst a sophisticated people who were well adept at finding directions. It is highly unlikely that they would miscalculate their qiblas by so many degrees. How else did they perform the obligatory Hajj, which we are told was also canonized at this time? And why are so many of the mosques facing in the direction of northern Arabia, or possibly Jerusalem? A possible answer may be found by looking at archaeology once again; this time in Jerusalem itself.

(2) The Dome of the Rock

In the centre of Jerusalem sits an imposing structure (even today) called the Dome of the Rock, built by Abd al-Malik in 691 AD One will note, however, that the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque, as it has no Qibla (no direction for prayer). It is built as an octagon with eight pillars (Nevo 1994:113), suggesting it was used for circumambulation (to walk around). Thus, it seems to have been built as a sanctuary (Glasse 1991:102). Today it is considered to be the third most holy site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Muslims contend that it was built to commemorate the night when Muhammad went up to heaven to speak with Moses and Allah concerning the number of prayers required of the believers (known as the Mi’raj in Arabic) (Glasse 1991:102).

Yet, according to the research carried out on the inscriptions on the walls of the building by Van Berchem and Nevo, they say nothing of the Mi’raj, but state mere polemical quotations which are Qur’anic, though they are aimed primarily at Christians. The inscriptions attest the messianic status of Jesus, the acceptance of the prophets, Muhammad’s receipt of revelation, and the use of the terms “islam” and “muslim” (Van Berchem 1927:nos.215,217; Nevo 1994:113). Why, if the Dome of the Rock were built to commemorate that momentous event, does it saying nothing about it? Perhaps this building was built for other purposes than that of commemorating the Mi’raj. The fact that such an imposing structure was built so early suggests that this and not Mecca became the sanctuary and the centre of a nascent Islam up until at least the late seventh century, (Van Bercham 1927:217)!

From what we read earlier of Muhammad’s intention to fulfill his and the Hagarene’s birthright, by taking back the land of Abraham, or Palestine, it makes sense that the caliph Abd al-Malik would build this structure as the centre-piece of that fulfilment. Is it no wonder then, that when Abd al-Malik built the dome in which he proclaimed the prophetic mission of Muhammad, he placed it over the temple rock itself (Van Berchem 1927:217).

According to Islamic tradition, the caliph Suleyman, who reigned as late as 715-717 AD, went to Mecca to ask about the Hajj. He was not satisfied with the response he received there, and so chose to follow abd al-Malik (i.e. travelling to the Dome of the Rock) (note: not to be confused with the Imam, Malik b. Anas who, because he was born in 712 AD would have been only three years old at the time). This fact alone, according to Dr. Hawting at SOAS, points out that there was still some confusion as to where the sanctuary was to be located as late as the early eighth century. It seems that Mecca was only now (sixty years after the Muhammad’s death) taking on the role as the religious centre of Islam. One can therefore understand why, according to tradition, Walid I, who reigned as Caliph between 705 and 715 AD, wrote to all the regions ordering the demolition and enlargement of the mosques (refer to ‘Kitab al-‘uyun wa’l-hada’iq,’ edited by M. de Goeje and P. de Jong 1869:4). Could it be that at this time the Qiblas were then aligned towards Mecca? If so it points to a glaring contradiction in the Qur’an which established Mecca as the sanctuary and thus direction for prayer during the lifetime of Muhammad some eighty to ninety years earlier (see Sura 2:144-150).

And that is not all, for we have other archaeological and inscripted evidence which point up differences with that which we read in the Qur’an. Let’s look at the reliability of Muhammad’s prophethood, using the data at our disposal.

(3) Nevo’s Rock inscriptions

In order to know who Muhammad was, and what he did, we must go back to the time when he lived, and look at the evidence which existed then, and still exists, to see what it can tell us about this very important figure. Dr. Wansbrough, who has done so much research on the early traditions and the Qur’an believes that, because the Islamic sources are all very late, from 150 years for the Sira-Maghazi documents, as well as the earliest Qur’an, it behoves us not to consider them authoritative (Wansbrough 1977:160-163; Rippin 1985:154-155). It is when we look at the non-Muslim sources that we find some rather interesting observances as to who this man Muhammad was.

The best non-Muslim sources on this period which we have are those provided by the Arabic rock inscriptions scattered all over the Syro-Jordanian deserts and the Peninsula, and especially the Negev desert (Nevo 1994:109). The man who has done the greatest research on these rock inscriptions is the late Yehuda Nevo, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is to his research, which is titled Towards a Prehistory of Islam, published in 1994, that I will refer.

Nevo has found in the Arab religious texts, dating from the first century and a half of Arab rule (seventh to eighth century AD), a monotheistic creed. However, he contends that this creed “is demonstrably not Islam, but [a creed] from which Islam could have developed.” (Nevo 1994:109)

Nevo also found that “in all the Arab religious institutions during the Sufyani period [661-684 AD] there is a complete absence of any reference to Muhammad.” (Nevo 1994:109) In fact neither the name Muhammad itself nor any Muhammadan formulae (that he is the prophet of God) appears in any inscription dated before the year 691 AD. This is true whether the main purpose of the inscription is religious, such as in supplications, or whether it was used as a commemorative inscription, though including a religious emphasis, such as the inscription at the dam near the town of Ta’if, built by the Caliph Mu’awiya in the 660s AD (Nevo 1994:109).

The fact that Muhammad’s name is absent on all of the early inscriptions, especially the religious ones is significant. Many of the later traditions (i.e. the Sira and the Hadith, which are the earliest Muslim literature that we possess) are made up almost entirely of narratives on the prophet’s life. He is the example which all Muslims are to follow. Why then do we not find this same emphasis in these much earlier Arabic inscriptions which are closer to the time he lived? Even more troubling, why is there no mention of him at all? His name is only found on the Arab inscriptions after 690 AD (Nevo 1994:109-110).

And what’s more, the first dated occurrence of the phrase Muhammad rasul Allah (Muhammad is the prophet of God) is found on an Arab-Sassanian coin of Xalid b. Abdallah from the year 690 AD, which was struck in Damascus (Nevo 1994:110).

Of greater significance, the first occurrence of what Nevo calls the “Triple Confession of Faith,” including the Tawhid (that God is one), the phrase, Muhammad rasul Allah (that Muhammad is his prophet), and the human nature of Jesus (rasul Allah wa- abduhu), is found in Abd al-Malik’s inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, dated 691 AD (Nevo 1994:110)! Before this inscription the Muslim confession of faith cannot be attested at all.

As a rule, after 691 AD and on through the Marwanid dynasty (until 750 AD), Muhammad’s name usually occurs whenever religious formulae are used, such as on coins, milestones, and papyrus “protocols” (Nevo 1994:110). One could probably argue that perhaps these late dates are due to the fact that any religious notions took time to penetrate the Arabic inscriptions. Yet, according to Nevo, the first Arabic papyrus, an Egyptian entaqion, which was a receipt for taxes paid, dated 642 AD and written in both Greek and Arabic is headed by the “Basmala,” yet it is neither Christian nor Muslim in character (Nevo 1994:110).

The religious content within the rock inscriptions do not become pronounced until after 661 AD However, though they bear religious texts, they never mention the prophet or the Muhammadan formulae (Nevo 1994:110). “This means,” Nevo says, “that the official Arab religious confession did not include Muhammad or Muhammadan formulae in its repertoire of set phrases at this time,” a full 30-60 years and more after the death of Muhammad (Nevo 1994:110). What they did contain was a monotheistic form of belief, belonging to a certain body of sectarian literature with developed Judaeo-Christian conceptions in a particular literary style, but one which contained no features specific to any known monotheistic religion (Nevo 1994:110,112).

Of even greater significance, these inscriptions show that when the Muhammadan formulae is introduced, during the Marwanid period (after 684 AD), it is carried out “almost overnight” (Nevo 1994:110). Suddenly it became the state’s only form of official religious declaration, and was used exclusively in formal documents and inscriptions, such as the papyrus “protocols” (Nevo 1994:110).

Yet even after the Muhammadan texts became official, they were not accepted by the public quite so promptly. For years after their appearance in state declarations, people continued to include non-Muhammadan legends in personal inscriptions, as well as routine chancery writings (Nevo 1994:114). Thus, for instance, Nevo has found a certain scribe who does not use the Muhammadan formulae in his Arabic and Greek correspondence, though he does on papyrus “protocols” bearing his name and title (Nevo 1994:114).

In fact, according to Nevo, Muhammadan formulae only began to be used in the popular rock inscriptions of the central Negev around 30 years (or one generation) after its introduction by Abd al-Malik, sometime during the reign of Caliph Hisham (between 724-743 AD). And even these, according to Nevo, though they are Muhammadan, are not Muslim. The Muslim texts, he believes, only begin to appear at the beginning of the ninth century (around 822 AD), coinciding with the first written Qur’ans, as well as the first written traditional Muslim accounts (Nevo 1994:115).

Thus, it seems from these inscriptions that it was during the later Marwanid period (after 684 AD), and not during the life of Muhammad that he was elevated to the position of a universal prophet, and that even then, the Muhammadan formula which was introduced was still not equivalent with that which we have today.

(4) The Qur’an

We now come to the Qur’an itself. It seems evident that the Qur’an underwent a transformation during the 100 years following the prophet’s death. We have now uncovered coins with supposed Qur’anic writings on them which date from 685 AD, coined during the reign of Abd al-Malik (Nevo 1994:110). Furthermore, the Dome of the Rock sanctuary built by Abd al-Malik in Jerusalem in 691 AD “does attest to the existence, at the end of the seventh century, of materials immediately recognizable as Koranic.” (Crone-Cook 1977:18) Yet, the quotations from the Qur’an on both the coins and the Dome of the Rock differ in details from that which we find in the Qur’an today (Cook 1983:74). Van Berchem and Grohmann, two etymologists who have done extensive research on the Dome of the Rock inscriptions, maintain that the inscriptions contain “variant verbal forms, extensive deviances, as well as omissions from the text which we have today.” (Cook 1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:167-168; see Van Berchem part two, vol.ii, nos.1927:215-217 and Grohmann’s Arabic Papyri from Hirbet el-Mird, no.72 to delineate where these variances are).

If these inscriptions had been derived from the Qur’an, with the variants which they contain, then how could the Qur’an have been canonized prior to this time (late seventh century)? One can only conclude that there must have been an evolution in the transmission of the Qur’an through the years (if indeed they were originally taken from the Qur’an).

The sources also seem to suggest that the Qur’an was put together rather hurriedly. This is underlined by Dr. John Wansbrough who maintains that, “the book is strikingly lacking in overall structure, frequently obscure and inconsequential in both language and content, perfunctory in its linking of disparate materials, and given to the repetition of whole passages in variant versions. On this basis it can plausibly be argued that the book is the product of the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of traditions.” (quoted in Hagarism, Crone-Cook 1977:18,167) Thus Crone and Cook believe that because of the imperfection of the editing, the emergence of the Qur’an must have been a sudden and late event (Crone-Cook 1977:18,167).

As to when that event took place we are not altogether sure, but we can make an educated guess. From the earlier discussion concerning the dating of the earliest manuscripts we can conclude that there was no Qur’anic documentation in existence in the mid-late seventh century. The earliest reference from outside Islamic literary traditions to the book called the “Qur’an” occurs in the mid-eighth century between an Arab and a monk of Bet Hale (Nau 1915:6f), but no-one knows whether it may have differed considerably in content from the Qur’an which we have today. Both Crone and Cook conclude that except for this small reference there is no indication of the existence of the Qur’an before the end of the seventh century (Crone-Cook 1977:18).

Crone and Cook in their research go on to maintain that it was under the governor Hajjaj of Iraq in 705 AD that we have a logical historical context in which the “Qur’an” (or a nascent body of literature which would later become the Qur’an) could have been compiled as Muhammad’s scripture (Crone-Cook 1977:18). In an account attributed to Leo by Levond, the governor Hajjaj is shown to have collected all the old Hagarene writings and replaced them with others “according to his own taste, and disseminated them everywhere among [his] nation.” (Jeffrey 1944:298) A reasonable conclusion is that it was during this period that the Qur’an began its evolution, possibly beginning to be written down, until it was finally canonized in the mid to late eighth century as the Qur’an which we now know.

From this brief survey we can conclude that the archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Qur’an proves to be the most damaging. Not only do the seventh and eighth century ruins and inscriptions from the area seem to contradict the notion that Muhammad canonized a direction of prayer during his lifetime, or that he had formulated a scripture known as the Qur’an, but the idea of his universal prophethood, that he was the final “seal” of all prophets is brought into question. This indeed is significant and troublesome.

The question we must now pose is whether there is any archaeological evidence to corroborate the authenticity for the Bible? Do the same problems exist with the Bible that we find with the Qur’an?

[B] The Bible’s archaeological evidence

(1900=Abraham, 1700=Joseph, 1447=Moses, 1000=David):

What has become evident over the last few decades is that unlike the difficulties found with the Qur’anic evidence, the most fruitful area for a confirmation of the Bible’s reliability has come from the field of archaeology, for it is here that the past can speak to us the clearest concerning what happened then.

Because Abraham is honoured by both Christianity and Islam it is interesting to look at the archaeological evidence concerning his time which is now coming to light in the twentieth century. What we find is that archaeology clearly places Abraham in Palestine and not in Arabia.

1) Abraham’s name appears in Babylonia as a personal name at the very period of the patriarchs, though the critics believed he was a fictitious character who was redacted back by the later Israelites.

2) The field of Abram in Hebron is mentioned in 918 BC, by the Pharaoh Shishak of Egypt (now also believed to be Ramases II). He had just finished warring in Palestine and inscribed on the walls of his temple at Karnak the name of the great patriarch, proving that even at this early date Abraham was known not in Arabia, as Muslims contend, but in Palestine, the land the Bible places him.

3) The Beni Hasan Tomb from the Abrahamic period, depicts Asiatics coming to Egypt during a famine, corresponding with the Biblical account of the plight of the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’.

There is further archaeology evidence which supports other Biblical accounts, such as:

4) The doors of Sodom (Tell Beit Mirsim) dated to between 2200-1600 BC are heavy doors needed for security; the same doors which we find in Genesis 19:9. Yet, if this account had been written between 900-600 BC, as the critics previously claimed, we would have read about arches and curtains, because security was no longer such a concern then.

5) Joseph’s price as a slave was 20 shekels (Genesis 37:28), which, according to trade tablets from that period is the correct price for 1,700 BC An earlier account would have been cheaper, while a later account would have been more expensive.

6) Joseph’s Tomb (Joshua 24:32) has possibly been found in Shechem, as in the find there is a mummy, and next to the mummy sits an Egyptian officials sword! Is this mere coincidence?

7) Jericho’s excavation showed that the walls fell outwards, echoing Joshua 6:20, enabling the attackers to climb over and into the town. Yet according to the laws of physics, walls of towns always fall inwards! A later redactor would certainly have not made such an obvious mistake, unless he was an eyewitness, as Joshua was.

8) David’s capture of Jerusalem recounted in II Samuel 5:6-8 and I Chronicles 11:6 speak of Joab using water shafts built by the Jebusites to surprise them and defeat them. Historians had assumed these were simply legendary, until archaeological excavations by R.A.S. Macalister, J.G.Duncan, and Kathleen Kenyon on Ophel now have found these very water shafts.

Another new and exciting archaeological research is that which has been carried out by the British Egyptologist, David Rohl. Until a few years ago we only had archaeological evidence for the Patriarchal, Davidic and New Testament periods, but little to none for the Mosaic period. Yet one would expect much data on this period due to the cataclysmic events which occurred during that time. David Rohl (in A Test of Time) has given us a possible reason why, and it is rather simple. It seems that we have simply been off in our dates by almost 300 years! By redating the Pharonic lists in Egypt he has been able to now identify the abandoned city of the Israelite slaves (called Avaris), the death pits from the tenth plague, and Joseph’s original tomb and home. There remain many ‘tells’ yet to uncover.

Moving into the New Testament material we are dependant on archaeology once again to corroborate a number of facts which the critics considered to be at best dubious and at worst in error.

9) Paul’s reference to Erastus as the treasurer of Corinth (Romans 16:23) was thought to be erroneous, but now has been confirmed by a pavement found in 1929 bearing his name.

It is to Luke, however, that the skeptics have reserved their harshest criticisms, because he more than any other of the first century writers spoke about specific peoples and places. Yet, surprisingly, once the dust had settled on new inscription findings, it is Luke who has confounded these same critics time and again. For instance:

10) Luke’s use of the word Meris to maintain that Philippi was a “district” of Macedonia was doubted until inscriptions were found which use this very word to describe divisions of a district.

11) Luke’s mention of Quirinius as the governor of Syria during the birth of Jesus has now been proven accurate by an inscription from Antioch.

12) Luke’s usage of Politarchs to denote the civil authority of Thessalonica (Acts 17:6) was questioned, until some 19 inscriptions have been found that make use of this title, 5 of which are in reference to Thessalonica.

13) Luke’s usage of Praetor to describe a Philippian ruler instead of duumuir has been proven accurate, as the Romans used this term for magistrates of their colonies.

14) Luke’s usage of Proconsul as the title for Gallio in Acts 18:12 has come under much criticism by secular historians, as the later traveller and writer Pliny never referred to Gallio as a Proconsul. This fact alone, they said, proved that the writer of Acts wrote his account much later as he was not aware of Gallio’s true position. It was only recently that the Delphi Inscription, dated to 52 AD was uncovered. This inscription states, “As Lusius Junius Gallio, my friend, and the proconsul of Achaia…” Here then was secular corroboration for the Acts 18:12 account. Yet Gallio only held this position for one year. Thus the writer of Acts had to have written this verse in or around 52 AD, and not later, otherwise he would not have known Gallio was a proconsul. Suddenly this supposed error not only gives credibility to the historicity of the Acts account, but also dates the writings in and around 52 AD Had the writer written the book of Acts in the 2nd century as many liberal scholars suggest he would have agreed with Pliny and both would have been contradicted by the eyewitness account of the Delphi Inscription.

It is because of discoveries such as this that F.F.Bruce states, “Where Luke has been suspected of inaccuracy, and accuracy has been vindicated by some inscriptional evidence, it may be legitimate to say that archaeology has confirmed the New Testament record.”

In light of archaeological evidence, books such as Luke and Acts reflect the topography and conditions of the second half of the first century AD and do not reflect the conditions of any later date. Thus it is because Luke, as a historian has been held to a higher accountability then the other writers, and because it has been historical data which has validated his accounts, we can rest assured that the New Testament can be held in high regard as a reliable historical document.

We have no reason to fear archaeology. In fact it is this very science which has done more to authenticate our scriptures than any other. Thus we encourage the secular archaeologists to dig, for as they dig we know they will only come closer to that which our scriptures have long considered to be the truth, and give us reason to claim that indeed our Bible has the right to claim true authority as the only historically verified Word of God. This is why so many eminent archaeologists are standing resolutely behind the Biblical accounts. Listen to what they say (taken from McDowell’s Evidences 1972:65-67):

G.E. Wright states,”We shall probably never prove that Abram really existed…but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly within any later period.”

Sir Frederic Kenyon mentions, “The evidence of archaeology has been to re-establish the authority of the Old Testament, and likewise to augment its value by rendering it more intelligible through a fuller knowledge of its background and setting.”

William F. Albright (a renowned archaeologist) says, “The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible by important historical schools of the 18th and 19th centuries, certain phases which still appear periodically, has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a source of history.”

Millar Burrows of Yale states, “On the whole, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record.”

Joseph Free confirms that while thumbing through the book of Genesis, he mentally noted that each of the 50 chapters are either illuminated or confirmed by some archaeological discovery, and that this would be true for most of the remaining chapters of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Nelson Glueck (a Jewish Reformed scholar and archaeologist) probably gives us the greatest support for the historicity of the Bible when he states, “To date no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single, properly understood biblical statement.”

Conclusion

Now that we have carried out a cursory study of the historicity for both the Qur’an and the Bible, it is important that we make some conclusions. What can we say concerning the veracity of these two scriptures in light of the evidence produced by the manuscript, document and archeological data at our disposal?

Starting with the Qur’an, it is reasonable to conclude that these findings indeed give us reason for pause concerning its reliability. Manuscript, as well as documentary and archaeological evidence indicates that much of what the Qur’an maintains does not coincide with the historical data at our disposal which comes from that period. From the material amassed from external sources in the7th-8th centuries, we now know:

1) that the Jews still retained a relationship with the Arabs until at least 640 AD;

2) that Jerusalem and not Mecca was more-than-likely the city which contained the original sanctuary for Islam, as Mecca was not only unknown as a viable city until the end of the seventh century, but it was not even on the international trade route;

3) that the Qibla (direction of prayer) was not fixed towards Mecca until the eighth century, but to an area much further north, possibly Jerusalem;

4) that the Dome of the Rock situated in Jerusalem was possibly the original sanctuary;

5) that Muhammad was not known as the seal of prophets until the late seventh century;

6) that the earliest we even hear of any Qur’an is not until the mid-eighth century;

7) and that the earliest Qur’anic writings do not coincide with the current Qur’anic text. All of this data contradicts the Qur’an which is in our possession, and adds to the suspicion that the Qur’an which we now read is NOT the same as that which was supposedly collated and canonized in 650 AD under Uthman, as Muslims contend (if indeed it even existed at that time). One can only assume that there must have been an evolution in the Qur’anic text. Consequently, the sole thing we can say with a certainty is that only the documents which we now possess (from 790 AD onwards) are the same as that which is in our hands today, written not 16 years after Muhammad’s death but 160 years later, and thus not 1,400 years ago, but only 1,200 years ago.

As for the Bible, with the abundance of existing manuscripts (handwritten copies) of the New Testament (more than 24,000), we know little has been lost through the transmission of the text. In fact there is more evidence for the reliability of the text of the New Testament than there is for any ten pieces of classical literature put together. It is in better textual shape than the 37 plays of William Shakespeare which were written a mere 300 years ago, after the invention of the printing press! This is indeed surprising, considering the early period in which the manuscripts were compiled, as well as the flimsy material on which they were written. The fact that we have such an abundance of manuscripts still in our possession points to the importance the scriptures have held for the church over the centuries. As far as we can know, the names, places, and events mentioned in the Bible have been recorded accurately so that what we have is the representation of what God said and did. Besides the massive numbers of early New Testament documents, the Old Testament can also be substantiated by the Jewish community who continue to corroborate the proof for its accuracy, as well as documents such as the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls which give added weight to the claim that it has never been changed.

Even the Qur’an, possibly written during the 7th-8th centuries recognized the authority of our scriptures (see suras 2:136; 3:2-3; 4:136; 5:47-52,68; 10:95; 21:7; and 29:46). We also know that, outside of the few scribal errors, the historical events and personages are adequately correct, as they do not confuse names, dates and events, and in fact, surprisingly, continue to coincide with current archaeological findings. This is indeed significant, since with each successive year, ongoing documental and archaeological discoveries fail to divulge any historical contradictions. Instead they continue to corroborate what the Bible has been saying for 2,000-3,000 years (examples such as the Ebla tablets, or the newly discovered tomb of the priest Caiaphus give continuing credibility to the scriptures historical trustworthiness).

Therefore, the testimony of the historical evidence is that the Bible and not the Qur’an can be trusted as an accurate and reliable historical document. While we continue to unearth data which substantiates the Bible’s accuracy, we likewise unearth further data which erradicates the validity for the Qur’anic account. If a scripture claims to be a revelation from God, it must prove its claim by establishing its historical credentials, to the extent that even a third party can agree upon the evidence provided. This the Bible and not the Qur’an does adequately.

We must also know that the Bible is unique? Consider: Here is a book written over a 1,500 year span (about 40 generations), by more than 40 authors, among whose number were found: kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, a herdsman, a general, a cupbearer, a doctor, a tax collector, and a rabbi. It was written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe, and in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial topics, yet from Genesis right on through to Revelation the authors all spoke with harmony and continuity on the theme of the unfolding story of “God’s redemption of humanity.”

If God truly created the world for His pleasure, He would have created it to work to a pattern. This pattern we would expect to find revealed in His Word; as indeed we do, not only in the life of Jesus, the incarnate Word, who came and dwelt among us, but in the truth of the Gospel which was found in His teaching and later written down by His apostles. It is therefore not surprising that many cultures and governments even today continue to follow its precepts, laws and institutions, even though they do not necessarily adhere to its authorship.

It should not surprise us then that the Bible continues to be the source of God’s revelation to His creation, for families and communities around the world, and that, according to the latest statistics, the Bible and not the Qu’ran is uncontested as the most popular book ever written. The statistics prove that it is read by more people and published in more languages than any other book in the history of humanity, so that even now “one copy of the Bible is published every three seconds day and night; or 22 copies every minute day and night; or 1,369 copies every hour day and night; and 32,876 copies every day in the year, and so on…”.

It is logical, then, that Christianity, because it holds the repository of Biblical principles and thinking, is the fastest conversion-growing religion in the world today. What better testimony could one ask to demonstrate the Bible’s claim to be the truly revealed and inspired Word of God.

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