5. Church Tradition & Manuscripts
As much as there is a variation is the canons of the Bible as well as in its 'inspiration', it is reflected in the manuscripts too. Below is some material taken from The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Under "Text, NT". Interestingly enough, this section starts with The Problem. Many Christian apologists prefer to brush this well-known problem under the carpet as if it does not exist! THE PROBLEM. The NT is now known, whole or in part, in nearly five thousand Greek MSS alone. Every one of these handwritten copics differ from every other one. In addition to these Greek MSS, the NT has been preserved in more than ten thousand MSS of the early versions and in thousands of quotations of the Church Fathers. These MSS of the versions and quotations of the Church Fathers differ from one another just as widely as do the Greek MSS. Only a fraction of this great mass of material has been fully collated and carefully studied. Until this task is completed, the uncertainty regarding the text of the NT will remain.
It has been estimated that these MSS and quotations differ among themselves between 150,000 and 250,000 times. The actual figure is, perhaps, much higher. A study of 150 Greek MSS of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings. It is true, of course, that the addition of the readings from another 150 MSS of Luke would not add another 30,000 readings to the list. But each MS studied does add substantially to the list of variants. It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.
Many thousands of these different readings are variants in orthography or grammar or style and however effect upon the meaning of the text. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text. It is true that not one of these variant readings affects the substance of Christian dogma. It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally. It may not, e.g., affect the substance of Christian dogma to accept the reading "Jacob the father of Joseph, and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed) the father of Jesus who is called 'Christ'" (Matt. 1:16), as does the Sinaitic Syriac; but it gives rise to a theological problem.
It has been said that the great majority of the variant readings in the text of the NT arose before the books of the NT were canonized and that after those books were canonized, they were very carefully copied because they were scripture. This, however, is far from being the case.
It is true, of course, that many variants arose in the very earliest period. There is no reason to suppose, e.g., that the first person who ever made a copy of the autograph of thc Gospel of Luke did not change his copy to conform to the particular tradition with which he was familiar. But he was under no compulsion to do so. Once the Gospel of Luke had become scripture, however, the picture was changed completely. Then the copyist was under compulsion to change his copy, to correct it. Because it was scripture, it had to be right.[34]George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).
After reading all this, does not the Muslim position of the corruption of the Bible hold water? And of course, again which Bible manuscript is inspired?
Now we all know that none of the variants that are there in the Bible have a chain of narration or isnad. So it is very hard to say which one or ones is the true reading and the other the bogus one. So, futher on we read: Many thousands of the variants which are found in the MSS of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of careless handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons (even though they may not affect the substance of Christian dogma). It is because the books of the NT are religious books, sacred books, canonical books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading. His interest was not in the "original reading but in the "true reading." This is precisely the attitude toward the NT which prevailed from the earliest times to the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the invention of printing. The thousands of Greek MSS, MSS of the versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers provide the source for our knowledge of the earliest or original text of the NT and of the history of the transmission of that text before the invention of printing.[34]George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 4, 1962 (1996 Print), Abingdon Press, Nashville, pp. 594-595 (Under Text, NT).
Now if you do not know what the "original reading" is, then there is no point talking about 'believing' in what is supposed to be the "original" reading. So, this is the great Christian Church tradition which cannot even produce two identical manuscripts! Furthermore on "original" reading one can say that since there are no original manuscripts, there is not point talking about "original" reading at all. This search for "original" reading would be a guess work or 'consensus'. Indeed the Acts of Apostles has earned the notoriety for the variant readings.
In fact no book of the NT gives evidence of so much verbal variation as does the Acts of Apostles. Besides the text represented in the oldest uncial Greek MSS, begin with the Codex Vaticanus, often called the Neutral Text and dating back to the second century AD, there is evidence either of a consistent alternative text equally old, or of a series of early miscellaneous variants, to which the name Western text is traditionally applied. The ancient authorities of the Western Text of Acts include only one Greek (or rather bilingual Greek and Latin) uncial MS, Codex Bezae of the fifth or sixth century. But the variants often have striking content and strong early support from Latin writers and Latin NT MSS. It now appears that while both the Neutral and Western texts were in circulation, the former is the more likely of the two to represent the original.[35]George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1, pp. 41 (Under "Acts of the Apostles").
Apart from the notorious variation, we also have the problem of which text is the original text. Since we do not know which one is original, the guess work in pressed into service. This is one such example of guess work. And how come guess work leads to truth?
We have already seen that the there is no original document of the Bible available to us to verify its inerrancy doctrine. Concerning the New Testament documents The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible confirms that:
The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and persihable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities.[36]Ibid., p. 599 (Under "Text, NT').
So, the Qur'an in this aspect is far more better placed than the Bible with all the Qiraa'a associated with it clearly listed with detailed chain of narrations going back to the Companions of the Prophet(P) who in turn learnt the Qur'an from the Prophet(P) himself.