Torah corruption confirmed by New Testament Bible scholars!

And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on MOUNT EBAL, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. (Deuteronomy 27:4 Masoretic text). 

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And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on MOUNT GERIZIM, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. (Deuteronomy 27:4 Samaritan text)

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The above problematic verses have only one solution, and that is which one is correct and which is corrupted?  Thanks to the bible scholars we have a confirmation that the Torah has been tampered with. Let's read the commentary for these verses.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan,.... Some time after they had passed that river: 

that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in Mount Ebal; a mountain near Shechem in Samaria, and was, as Benjamin of Tudela says (r), dry as stones and rocks itself, and perhaps had its name, as some think (s), from the root in the Arabic language which signifies to strip a tree of its leaves, and a derivative from it, white stones and a mountain in which such are found. Hither the stones commanded to be set up were to be brought, and fixed here; from whence it is not certain; it may be from some part of the mountain. Here the Samaritan version has Gerizim instead of Ebal, which is generally thought to be a wilful corruption of the Samaritans, in favour of their temple built at Gerizim: 

Adam Clarke Commentary 

Not only that, we can see another interesting account by Adam Clarke, a Christian commentator where he shows another intentional corruption made by the Jews against the Samaritans. He said in his commentary on Deu 27:4 –

“Set up these stones – in Mount Ebal – So the present Hebrew text , but the  Samaritan has Mount Gerizim. Dr. Kennicott has largely defended the reading of the Samaritan in his second dissertation on the present state of the Hebrew text , and Dr. Parry has defended the Hebrew against the Samaritan. Many still think Dr. Kennicott’s arguments unanswerable, and have no doubt that the Jews have here corrupted the text through their enmity to the Samaritans. “

Notice how blatantly the commentators are using the word “CORRUPTION” to inform the reader that such tampering had taken place This is sufficient evidence to prove that the Torah has been corrupted even if it's one word it's still proof of distortion. This also shows the Torah you have is not “100%” the word of God. And there's many more places we can show you where changes have been made.

So here again Adam Clarke didn’t just accuse the Jews for corrupting the manuscripts due to their hostility with Christians only, but also they did the same with Samaritans, and with Muslims when they changed the name of Abraham's offered son to Isaac (Pbut).

How about this to make matters even worse.

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land and helps you take possession of it, you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal. (Deuteronomy 11:29)

The above verse in the Masoretic text explicitly makes the distinction between the two mountains, “Mount Gerizim and Mount Elba”. Just in case Christians try to say the Samaritan and Masoretic speaks of the same mountain which has two different names. Sorry there’s no way out on this one.

These may be just some examples of what I have seen from Christian writings, and for sure if we dug more through various books, we may find more issues showing other issues. Actually if we went through early and medieval Muslim writings, we may find many quotes from Jewish and Christian writings talking about Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) in a very explicit way which are not present in the Bible. But if the Jews are actually proven to behave  the way described above, then I tend to believe Muslim scholars, especially that this is against both Christian and Jewish beliefs.

Jewish corruption of the Old Testament

This section shall highlight some of the corruptions made by the Jews in the Old Testament and how early Christians accused the Jews of corruption.

Justin Martyr

The first example is Justin Martyr(an early church father who died at about 150 AD) says in his dialogue with Trypho, a Jew:

Chap. LXXII. — Passages Have Been Removed by the Jews from Esdras and Jeremiah.

And I said, “I shall do as you please. From the statements, then, which Esdras made in reference to the law of the passover, they have taken away the following: ‘And Esdras said to the people, This passover is our Saviour and our refuge. And if you have understood, and your heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him on a standard, and….. thereafter hope in Him, then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, says the God of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, and will not listen to His declaration, you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations.’…… And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.lxxii.html

So Justin Martyr here is explicitly accusing the Jews of corrupting the Old Testament by hiding some verses talking about salvation. But is it that easy that verses are removed from the Bible?

John Chrysostom

Let’s see what John Chrysostom (church father who lived in the fourth century) says in his Homilies on Gospel Matthew when he came to the verse quoting the Old Testament” which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”:

And what manner of prophet said this? Be not curious, nor overbusy. For many of the prophetic writings have been lost; and this one may see from the history of the Chronicles. For being negligent, and continually falling into ungodliness, some they suffered to perish, others they themselves burnt up  and cut to pieces. The latter fact Jeremiah relates; the former, he who composed the fourth book of Kings, saying, that after a long time the book of Deuteronomy was hardly found, buried somewhere and lost. But if, when there was no barbarian there, they so betrayed their books, much 56 more when the barbarians had overrun them. For as to the fact, that the prophet had foretold it, the apostles themselves in many places call Him a Nazarene. ”

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.IX.html

So simply John Chrysostom is not just accusing the Jews of being negligent who are not caring for their books, but also of destroying their own books. If these are accusations made by Christians, who are supposed to share the Jews their belief in the Old Testament, how could Muslims trust the Jews and consider that they were really honest and followed God’s commandment to keep Hi s books, not to add or remove or replace?

Adam Clarke

Not only that, we can see another interesting account by Adam Clarke, a Christian commentator where he shows another intentional corruption made by the Jews against the Samaritans. He said in his commentary on Deu 27:4 –

“Set up these stones – in Mount Ebal – So the present Hebrew text , but the  Samaritan has Mount Gerizim. Dr. Kennicott has largely defended the reading of the Samaritan in his second dissertation on the present state of the Hebrew text , and Dr. Parry has defended the Hebrew against the Samaritan. Many still think Dr. Kennicott’s arguments unanswerable, and have no doubt that the Jews have here corrupted the text through their enmity to the Samaritans. “

So here again Adam Clarke didn’t just accuse the Jews for corrupting the manuscripts due to their hostility with Christians only, but also they did the same with Samaritans, and with Muslims when they changed the name ofAbraham’s offered son to Isaac.

These may be just some examples of what I have seen from Christian writings, and for sure if we dug more through various books, we may find more issues showing other issues. Actually if we went through early and medieval Muslim writings, we may find many quotes from Jewish and Christian writings talking about Prophet Muhammad in a very explicit way which are not present in the Bible. But if the Jews are actually proven to behave  the way described above, then I tend to believe Muslim scholars, especially that this is against both Christian and Jewish beliefs

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Justin Martyr affirms the Qur'anic claim that the Bible was corrupted

Much to the consternation of Christians, Muslims insist that the texts of their scripture, the Bible, have undergone changes, alterations, or in other words, corruption. The Muslims' insistence is based on several Qur'anic passages that seem to testify to the fact that they, the Jews (and Christians), have manhandled the scriptures that they were given:

"So woe to those who write the "scripture" with their own hands, then say, "This is from Allah," in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn." [Quran 2:79]

"Of those who are Jews (there are those who) alter words from their places and say: We have heard and we disobey and: Hear, may you not be made to hear! and: Raina, distorting (the word) with their tongues and taunting about religion; and if they had said (instead): We have heard and we obey, and hearken, and unzurna it would have been better for them and more upright; but Allah has cursed them on account of their unbelief, so they do not believe but a little." [4:46]

While the Qur'an's preservation is ensured by Allah, for He says that He Himself would see to its preservation, in 15:9 ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."), the preservation of previous scriptures were entrusted to the people that received them [Qur'an 5:44], but, unfortunately, they failed to live up to their responsibility:

"“But because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them- barring a few – ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them, and overlook (their misdeeds): for Allah loveth those who are kind.” [Qur'an 5, verse 13]

It is rather quite surprising that the Christians would be surprised by the Qur'anic charge since it is by no means a unique accusation. Hundreds of years before the revelation of the Qur'an, major Christian Church Fathers* actually testified to the Jewish corruption of scripture. One such Church Father or patristic personality was Justin Martyr, who, in his dialogue with Trypho, indicts the Jews of corrupting the Old Testament:

"from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: ‘From the wood.’ For when the passage said, ‘Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned from the wood,’ they have left, ‘Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned.'" [1]

In the book, i.e., Justin Martyr's 'The First Apology', the above quotation comes under the chapter "[THE WORDS] "FROM THE WOOD" HAVE BEEN CUT OUT OF PS [PSALM] XCVI." According to Justin Martyr, then, the Jews, driven by theological purposes, had tampered with the text of Psalm 96 and removed words from their original text. Writing on Justin Martyr's testimony concerning the corruption of the Bible at the hands of the Jews, professor emeritus and former chair of the Humanities Department at Wilbur Wright College, Dr. Sheldon W. Liebman writes:

"Justin Martyr went so far as to accuse the Jews of corrupting their Bible (i.e., rewriting it) "so as to obscure the scriptures' plain prophetic testimony to Jesus as the Christ." [2]

Lest we are accused of misreading Justin Martyr, the scholarly appraisal of Sheldon Liebman above reinforces our point.

Christians should not be too surprised by the Qur'an when it disavows their scriptures for having been corrupted, because this allegation is by no means unique to the Qur'an. Around 400 years before the Qur'an even came to the scene, this charge was made by their own "Holy Spirit-inspired" Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr.

Notes:

* According to Catholic.com, Church Fathers are "...so called because of their leadership in the early Church, especially in defending, expounding, and developing Catholic doctrines. For the first two centuries, most of these men were bishops, although in later years certain priests and deacons were also recognized as Fathers."

[1] Justin Martyr (2007). The First Apology. In Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson & Arthur Cleveland Coxe (eds), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. New York: CosmoClassics. p. 235

[2] Liebman, S. W. (2018). The Great Betrayal: Christians and Jews in the First Four Centuries. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock. p. 384

CHIEF PRIESTS LYING?

Christians often tell us that the Jews did not corrupt the Torah, the Torah is pure and has always been preserved by the rabbis?

This is a very bold claim made by Christians. We know from the Quran (Surah 5:44)  and Christian Scripture (Romans 3:2)  that the Torah was entrusted to the Rabbis. But, the question is did they do as they were told, that is to look after the Torah?

If Christians believe that the Rabbis protected the Torah by preserving the book from any alterations or tampering, then one has to challenge how honest were High Priest (chief priest) and rabbis during ancient times? In order to dismantle this absurd claim made by Christians we don't have to go too far, the New Testament gives us the answer.



The story of Jesus found  in the New Testament  tells us how evil and corrupt the Jewish rabbis were They were condemned by Jesus on several occasions, he would often curse them and call them names (Matthew 12:29, Matthew 23:33)

Here's where the real problem starts. We are told in the book of Matthew that the chief priests asked the soldiers to LIE!

¹¹ While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹² When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³ telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day (Matthew 28:11-15)

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An interesting passage that needs serious attention. We read that after the women had seen the alleged resurrection of Jesus the guards found out of the empty tomb, and they went to the chief priests and them of what had happened. "THE CHIEF PRIEST DEVISED A PLAN AND PAID THE SOLDIERS MONEY?  AND HIS WAS WIDELY CIRCULATED AMONGST THE JEWS TOLL THIS DAY"?

Let's analyse this.  Matthew is telling us that the CHIEF PRIEST TURNED TO DECEPTION  by making a plan and resulting to making the soldiers lie by bribing them. This would be highly unlikely when their very Torah says :

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. (Leviticus 19:11)

A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath. (Proverbs 21:14)

The above verses cannot be more emphasised to say that lying, dealing falsely, taking or giving bribe is a great sin, how then could the chief priest commit such and act?

If the chief priests can lie and give a false testimony, how trustful would he or his people be to protect the Torah from alterations? If deceiving people can be done much the chief priests then changing the Torah would be no problem Thanks to Matthew he exposed the Jewish rabbis showing us how dishonest they were ! 

ASK YOURSELF CAN DO YOU STILL BELIEVE  THE JEWISH RABBIS  PRESERVED THE TORAH?

For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall on you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD and arouse his anger by what your hands have made (Deuteronomy 31:27-29)

How can you say we are wise and have the Torah of the Lord with us when it's been corrupted by the scribes (Jeremiah 8:8)