Monday, July 27, 2009

Has the Qur'an Really Never been Changed?

Professor James A. Bellamy writes:

These variants, however – I have counted more than two-hundred that make a difference in the meaning - are important in that they tell us there was no solid oral tradition stemming directly from the prophet to prove which variant was correct.

For example:

In Surah 6:63, of the seven readers, the two from Kufah recite ‘njyn‘ (anjana) “he saves us.” and the other five ‘njytn’ (anjay- tana) “you (sg.) save us.” These two words sound so dif- ferent that no one, unless he were deaf, could mistake one for the other, and the words on both sides of the word in question are unambiguous. One cannot argue that the prophet used one variant one day and the other the next. Nor can one maintain that there is a firm oral tradition that guarantees the reading of the unambiguous words but breaks down when more than one reading is possible.

Reference: James A. Bellamy (2001), ‘Textual Criticism of the Koran’. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 121 No. 1 (Jan-Mar. 2001), pp. 1-6.

5 comments:

  1. >_< So you guys fully support the textual criticisms of the Qur'an, but still believe that the Bible is somehow unadulterated? Wow. I'm convinced that both have errors and other issues. It's amazing that you're able to accept poor transmission for one religion while simultaneously rationalizing perfect transmission for another religion.

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  2. Thanks, What i beleive is let us ask the people of God to come forward and help the people of the Living God to know the truth which letter the Bible or Qur'an to follow. This is not war but Sarvation. The aim is to receive entrnal life. Mistakes or not. Let us beleive that this world is not our Home. OH! God help us. God loves His people, i believe the truth will come out if we believe in Him only.

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  3. Brad, I fully support the textual criticisms of the Bible. And what consensus has been reached from the scholars investigating this topic is that we can be very sure that what we have in our possession today is almost exactly the version as was written down by the Biblical authors. This is because of the sheer number of manuscript copies there are of the Bible, and the absolute vast majority of variants are simply meaningless, such as spelling mistakes, etc. The other variants do not add any new doctrines and are only minor.

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  4. ..............this argument is so dumb. Just because you read different translations of the qu'ran doesn't mean the qur'an has been changed. In order to fully understand the quran you need to learn arabic first to be able to interpret it properly.

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  5. Raz, the argument is not that there are different translations of the Qur'an, but rather, in the Arabic there are multiple variants in the manuscripts we have today for the same verses, thus meaning that the Qur'an has not been perfectly preserved.

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